Exposed mole and London bombs

This one may rumble on for a while yet. Robin at perfect.co.uk is very angry, because:

Purely for political advantage during the US election, the Bush administration needlessly blew the cover of an al-Qaeda mole who was leading intelligence services to a terrorist network in the UK. As a result, they then had to make rushed arrests before they were ready. Some got away. At least one of those was one of the suicide bombers last Thursday.

Americablog picked up on the story originally, followed up by Juan Cole. Now, Robin may be overstating the case when he says "at least one" of the suspected al-Qaida escapees was one of the bombers last Thursday, since it's not quite clear how Mohammed Siddique Khan was involved with the alleged mole, Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan; but, in any case, it seems Blair's favourite tabloid was "cherry-picking" this story around the time it first emerged. Twisting a significant intelligence failure into a political triumph (of sorts) shows New Labour's real dedication to the noble art of spin.