Well, chalk up another success for the Bush administration in the war against terror... well, maybe not.

It turns out that a top al-Qaeda operative escaped from a 'secure facility' in Afghanistan.

FORT BLISS, Texas - A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison abuse case said Tuesday.

Omar al-Farouq was one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants in Southeast Asia until Indonesian authorities captured him in the summer of 2002 and turned him over to the United States.

A Pentagon official in Washington confirmed Tuesday evening that al-Farouq escaped from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, on July 10.

Now that says a lot right there. For starters, he wasn't captured in Afghanistan. So why was he sent there, to a place where all he HAD to do was escape, and then he could walk right into a land where he could certainly find friends? The answer is clear-- the Gonzalez doctrine. He was sent there, as the trial lawyer's argument suggests, so we could torture him. Send him to the United States, or for that matter, even to Gitmo, and it would be harder to carry out the Gonzalez doctrine (although the soldier on trial apparently went too far even for that).

Now stop and think about this. Indonesia captures a top al-Qaeda lieutenant. If there is no Gonzalez doctrine, we send him to a location where the biggest concern is security. Someplace where even if he escaped from the facility, he would have trouble making his way from there. But BECAUSE of the Gonzalez doctrine, he is not only escaped, but just one more on our list of al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives who 'may or may not' still be in Afghanistan.