Kingpinheads

How goes the war on terror? Just peachy, if you're not too detail oriented.

THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as "a critical victory in the war on terror". According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists' third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as "among the flotsam and jetsam" of the organisation.

The suggestion is that the Administration confused al-Libbi with Anas al-Liby.

If Scooter Libby and Liddy Dole turn up missing, check Guantanamo Bay.

On second thought, don't.

A former close associate of Bin Laden now living in London laughed: "What I remember of him is he used to make the coffee and do the photocopying."

Yeah, but so did Colin Powell, and they called him third in command too.

One American official tried to explain the absence of al-Libbi's name on the wanted list by saying: "We did not want him to know he was wanted."

"Otherwise, he'd just take us for granted."