WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2001 — Today, the Washington Times is reporting some of the most frightening news of the war on terrorism to date. Marin County native turned Taliban-fighter, John Walker, has told his American handlers that Al Qaeda is planning an imminent attack on the US using biological weapons. Walker " told U.S. intelligence officials that the Ramadan attack will involve the use of biological weapons " and that a " third phase ... will result in the destruction of the entire country, " writes the Times’ resident scoopmeister Bill Gertz.

Is Walker, whose father says it was merely a " youthful indiscretion " when his son immersed himself in Islamic fundamentalism, just saying anything to avoid being prosecuted for treason? Article III, section 3 of the US Constitution on treason says: " Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. "

Certainly the case for treason is helped by video footage of CIA operative Johnny " Mike " Spann questioning Walker just before the prison revolt in Mazar-e-Sharif. But is any of this mitigated by what he’s telling the military about Al Qaeda? The chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, General Richard Myers, told Fox News " He’s been pretty close to the action, and he has provided from the Afghan perspective some useful information. " Other anonymous officials downplayed the credibility of Walker’s information " because of his relatively low-level position, " according to Gertz.

Downplaying Walker’s information seems extremely foolhardy. It also sounds like sour grapes from the intelligence community — which claimed it couldn’t get information from anybody close to Osama bin Laden or his Al Qaeda network. If September 11 demonstrated anything, it was that the CIA's failings and its bias against ground-level information are very serious. Here the best source of intelligence on bin Laden has fallen into their lap, and they don’t want to pay attention to it. Remember those stories that circulated — many of them credible — in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, that some people had knowledge of them? Let us not forget that the support structure for a massive attack is large and still in place.

It’s true that Walker was low on the Al Qaeda totem pole. But how would he not have had at least some inkling of what his superiors were up to? As a naive and somewhat impressionable young man, Walker most likely idealized his Taliban and Al Qaeda colleagues and believed even their most outlandish boasting. But even that ought to be taken at face value and investigated. Certainly taking Walker's claims seriously would be better than relying on the remote assertions of CIA bureaucrats in Langley, Virginia.