Why al-Qaeda is to blame for WikiLeaks' biggest leak

Had dinner last night with a senior academic from Harvard. She has been researching European, Israeli and US intelligence services in the aftermath of 9/11.

Some of what she has discovered goes some way at least to explaining how the US managed to maintain such woefully lax security on its diplomatic traffic.

One of the key findings of the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry was that whilst US intelligence agencies retrieved huge quantities of information, very little was ever shared between them. So that although some individuals amongst the hijackers were know to the FBI or to the CIA almost none of that information was passed on either to each other or to law enforcement people.

Indeed my friend’s research reveals that as far back as the Second World War much of the best intelligence interpretation was carried out not by the US, but by intelligence agencies in other countries which had more freedom and capacity to share material. Our own GCHQ, remains a good case in point.

So the decision was taken in Washington to relax the systems between agencies. Vast amounts of material now became available to as many as three million people from the armed services and intelligence agencies to the foreign service. Hence 22-year-old Corporal Bradley Manning became one who had at least secondary access and was able to download it all onto his memory stick to on pass to WikiLeaks.

In short, blame Osama Bin Laden for the WikiLeaks scoop. In the meantime US agencies are today wrestling to get the genie of secrecy back in the bottle.