After the administration released details of the July mission to rescue journalist James Foley and others in Syria, intelligence suggests ISIS dispersed the remaining hostages to multiple locations, making them harder to locate, a military source told Fox News.

In addition, the source added guard forces around the hostages doubled while widely publicized reporting about the scope of new aerial surveillance in the region caused ISIS to change its pattern of behavior on the ground.

[Emphasis above added] Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Media Operations Captain John Kirby had this on those leaks:

We regret it at the time we had to talk about this. There was absolutely no intention of ever having to talk about that rescue attempt but because of leaks to certain reporters, it forced our hand to try and provide some context to that.

Rather circular. It was members of President Barack Obama’s administration who decided to “leak” the news of that prior rescue attempt “to certain reporters;” then Obama used those “leaks” as an excuse to talk more fully about that failed attempt, to support a claim that he’d been trying all along.

This also comes against the backdrop of Obama’s State Department actively interfering with the efforts of Foley’s family to get him back.

This cynical play for sympathy—”I tried my best”—has made it all the harder to rescue any other ISIS hostages.

In the end, too, Obama’s administration didn’t even have the courtesy, much less the morality, to tell Foley’s family directly that he’d been lost. They had to hear the news from a journalist in a phone call.

All for one man’s petty ego.