Bin Laden's Fatal Mistake: He Didn't Read WikiLeaks

Maybe Osama bin Laden should have had his hideaway hooked up with Internet access: He might have saved his own neck by reading WikiLeaks files. The unusual assertion comes from none other than Donald Rumsfeld, who notes in a Washington Post op-ed that leaked classified files from Gitmo "contain clues about al-Qaeda's courier network and even mention Abbottabad." If bin Laden had "closely followed WikiLeaks’ release of these documents April 25, it is unlikely he would have been there when US Navy SEALs descended into his compound days later."

Rumsfeld's larger points are to excoriate WikiLeaks for its WikiLeaking ways and to assert that the documents provide "compelling evidence of the effectiveness of Bush administration anti-terror policies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." They vindicate the tough decisions made for national security and refute "myths" about torture at Guantanamo Bay, he writes. "Bush administration officials have much to gain from the release of this sort of record, but for our country’s benefit it must come in the proper time and through proper channels." (More Osama bin Laden stories.)