To the Bush administration

For — whoops! — losing a senior al-Qaida operative, who apparently broke out of Bagram prison in Afghanistan this summer. The escape of Omar al-Farouq, one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants and the point man for al-Qaida in Southeast Asia, raises additional questions about the Bush Administration’s handling of detainees in the war on terrorism. The White House’s just-trust-us approach to the matter would have greater credibility if its moral obtuseness weren’t compounded by incompetence.