What's the government's role in preventing terror attacks?

As commander of the military's Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, [Army Col. Bruce] Vargo is responsible for the camps holding 260 detainees.... For his part, Vargo said he is preoccupied by the possibility of an al-Qaida attack on Guantanamo.... Vargo declined to discuss whether the U.S. has received information that al-Qaida may be planning such an attack. "We have intelligence reports, but I don't want to release what we know for obvious reasons," he said.

Do you ever wonder what those obvious reasons are? If I come out and say, "Al Qaeda is planning to spread e. coli on spinach originating in China," what might happen? Might people be a little wary of Chinese spinach? Might we be able to get better intelligence on the plot? Maybe, just maybe, if they thought we expected it, we wouldn't do it?

I think that's really the answer. I think that Colonel Vargo is worried that if he spills the beans about a plot somebody made up under torture, the plot wouldn't come to pass and he wouldn't be able to say , "I told you so."

Seriously. Usually, we say we have to keep information secret because the way we got it would be endangered. But, we got this information by electrocuting some guy's testicles in Cuba! I really don't see the obvious reasons.