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| | | | Bush's Four Anti-Terror Successes All Fictional
Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2007-01-27 04:06.
By David Swanson
President Bush claimed in his State of the Union speech to have prevented four terrorist plots. Phew! It's a good thing to know that we tossed out our Bill of Rights for some actual REASON – I mean other than turning Iraq into a training ground for terrorism.
Except that we didn't.
1.-"We stopped an al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast."
An October 8, 2005, LA Times story, headlined "Scope of Plots Bush Says Were Foiled Is Questioned," cited "several counter-terrorism officials" as saying that "the plot never progressed past the planning stages.... 'To take that and make it into a disrupted plot is just ludicrous,' said one senior FBI official….At most it was a plan that was stopped in its initial stages and was not an operational plot that had been disrupted by authorities."
On Feb. 10, 2006, the LA Times quoted a "US official familiar with the operational aspects of the war on terrorism," who said that "the Library Tower plot was one of many Al Qaeda operations that had not gone much past the conceptual stage….The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying that those familiar with the plot feared political retaliation for providing a different characterization of the plan that that of the president."
Michael Scheuer, an al Qaeda expert in the CIA's counter-terrorism center, told the Voice of America: "This doesn't sound like anything that I would recall as a major threat, or as a major success in stopping it….My impression [was that the National Security Council] culled through information to look for something that resembled a serious threat in 2002. It doesn't strike me, either as someone who was there or as someone who has followed al Qaeda pretty closely, that this was really a serious sort of effort."
A February 10, 2006 Washington Post story cited "several U.S. intelligence officials" who "said there is deep disagreement within the intelligence community over the seriousness of the Library Tower scheme and whether it was ever much more than talk."
A February 10, 2006, New York Daily News story cited one senior counterterrorism official who said: "There was no definitive plot. It never materialized or got past the thought stage."
Back on June 17, 2004, the New York Daily News quoted John Pistole, the FBI's counterterrorism director. Asked to comment on a CIA agent's statement that "I think we've probably prevented a few aviation attacks against both the East and West coasts," Pistole at first said he was "not sure what [the CIA] was referring to." The Daily News reported that "Even after consulting CIA officials, Pistole still would not call the alleged threat uncovered in the summer of 2003 an advanced plot."
2.-"We uncovered an al Qaeda cell developing anthrax to be used in attacks against America."
An October 31, 2006, Washington Post article describes al Qaeda's efforts as well short of "developing" and the case to tie them to the anthrax attacks in the United States as leading nowhere. A September 25, 2006, Washington Post article describes the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks in the United States as still open, but just barely active. If that investigation has reached any conclusion, or if Bush has discovered a plot of some other attacks that were prevented, he should produce evidence of such.
3.-"Just last August, British authorities uncovered a plot to blow up passenger planes bound for America over the Atlantic Ocean."
Well, the British "authorities" did arrest two dozen people at the insistence of the Bush Administration, but numerous reports found consensus among experts that those arrested could not have possibly mixed together on an airplane the liquid explosives they allegedly planned to use. And common sense suggested that if they had managed such a sophisticated plot, it was unlikely anyone else was working on the same thing (the assumption that prevents us all from traveling with toothpaste and deodorant unless sealed in a proper protective plastic bag, and leads to government employees carelessly tossing deadly dangerous toothpaste tubes into trashcans in the middle of unsuspecting crowds).
Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, summed this case up well:
"None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time. In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.
"What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests. Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth."
4.-"We broke up a Southeast Asian terror cell grooming operatives for attacks inside the United States."
Was this the one broken up in 1995, before Bush, when we still had much of our Bill of Rights intact? Is this the "tallest building on the West Coast" story by another name in order to expand the list? I've seen a lot of reports on Bush's speech, but no explanation of what he's talking about here.
5.-Of course, such claims are not new: They follow the pattern of the Padilla radiation bomb claim. The announcement of that supposed success was made at a time when Bush needed a boost in the media, even though the man had been locked up for a month already; and then the charges were later dropped. Keith Olbermann once ran a segment highlighting the suspicious timing of ten such announcements, each one of which ended up amounting to nothing at all. Olbermann's story left out plenty of more recent examples, but then, so did Bush's speech. Have we forgotten the heroic way in which he saved the Sears Tower already? |
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| | | | Keith Olbermann takes a look at Bush's claims about thwarted terrorists plots and fact checks them. Pray tell, what shall he ever find?
Olbermann: Upon his appointment, Sir Norman Bettison made one of the strangest comments of the year: "The threat of terrorism," he says, "is lurking out there like Jaws 2." Sir Norman did not exactly mine the richest ore for his analogy of warning. A critic once said of the flopping sequel to the classic film: "You're gonna need a better screenplay."
Transcripts below the fold
And finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment, on presidents and terrorism…
And on the seemingly trivial fact that West Yorkshire in England, has a new Chief Police Constable.
Upon his appointment, Sir Norman Bettison made one of the strangest comments of the year: "The threat of terrorism," he says, "is lurking out there like Jaws 2."
Sir Norman did not exactly mine the richest ore for his analogy of warning. A critic once said of the flopping sequel to the classic film: "You're gonna need a better screenplay."
But this obscure British police official has reminded us, that terrorism is still being sold to the public in that country — and in this — as if it were a thrilling horror movie, and we were the naughty teenagers about to be its victims.
And it underscores the fact that President Bush took this tack, exactly a week ago tonight, in his terror-related passage in the State of the Union…
A passage that was almost lost amid all the talk about Iraq and health care and bi-partisanship and the fellow who saved the stranger from an oncoming subway train in New York City.
But a passage — ludicrous and deceitful…
Frightening in its hollow conviction…
Frightening, in that the President who spoke it tried for "Jaws" but got "Jaws 2."
I am indebted to David Swanson, press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 Presidential campaign, who has blogged about the dubious 96 words in Mr. Bush's address this year and who has concluded that of the four counter-terror claims the President made, he went 0 for 4.
"We cannot know the full extent of the attacks that we and our allies have prevented," Mr. Bush noted, "but here is some of what we do know: we stopped an Al-Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast."
This would, of course, sir, be the purported plot to knock down the 73-story building in Los Angeles, the one once known as the Library Tower — the one you personally revealed so breathlessly, a year ago next month.
It was embarrassing enough that you mistakenly referred to the structure as the Liberty Tower. But within hours, it was also revealed, that authorities in Los Angeles had had no idea you were going to make any of the details — whether serious or fanciful — public.
Who terrorized Southern California that day, Mr. Bush?
A year ago next month, the Los Angeles Times quoted a source — identified only by the labyrinthine description "a U-S official familiar with the operational aspects of the war on terrorism" — who insisted that the purported "Library Tower plot" was one of many Al-Qaeda operations that had not gotten very far past the conceptual stage.
The former staff director of counter-terrorism for the National Security Council — now NBC and MSNBC News Analyst Roger Cressey — puts it a little more bluntly.
In our conversation, he classified the "Library Tower story" into a category he called the "What-Ifs" — as in the old Saturday Night Live sketches that tested the range of comic absurdity:
– What If… Superman Had Worked For The Nazis?
– What if… Spartacus Had A Piper Cub, during the battle against the Romans in 70 B-C?
More ominously, the L.A. Times source who debunked the Library Tower story said that those who could correctly measure the flimsiness of the scheme, quote, "feared political retaliation for providing a different characterization of the plan than that of the President."
But Mr. Bush, you're the decider.
And you decided that the Library Story should be scored as one for you.
And you continued with a second dubious claim of counter-terror success. "We broke up a Southeast Asian terror cell grooming operatives for attacks inside the United States," you said.
Well, sir, you've apparently stumped the intelligence community completely with this one.
In his article, Mr. Swanson suggests that in the last week there has been no reporting — even hinting — at what exactly you were talking about.
He hypothesizes that either you were claiming credit for a ring broken up in 1995, or that this was just the Library Tower story, quote, "by another name."
Another CIA source suggests to NBC News that since the Southeast Asian cell dreamed of a series of attacks on the same day, you declared the Library Tower one threat thwarted, and all their other ideas, a second threat thwarted.
Our colleague Mr. Cressey sums it up: this "Southeast Asian cell" was indeed the tale of the Library Tower, simply repeated.
Repeated, Mr. Bush, in consecutive sentences in the State of the Union, in your constitutionally mandated status report on the condition and safety of the nation.
You showed us the same baby twice, and claimed it was twins.
And then you said, that was two for you.
Your third claim, sir, read thusly: "We uncovered an al-Qaeda cell developing anthrax to be used in attacks against America." Again, the professionals in counter-intelligence were startled to hear about this.
Last fall, two Washington Post articles cited sources in the FBI and other governmental agencies who said that hopes by foreign terrorists to use anthrax in this country were fanciful at best, farcical at worst.
And every effort to link the 2001 anthrax mailings in this country to foreign sources has also struck out. The entire investigation is barely still active.
Mr. Cressey goes a little further. Anything that might even resemble an Al-Qaeda cell "developing Anthrax," he says, was in the "dreaming" stages. He used as a parallel those pathetic arrests outside Miami last year, in which a few men wound up getting charged as terrorists, because they couldn't tell the difference between an Al-Qaeda operative and an FBI informant.
Their "ring-leader" seemed to be much more interested in getting his 'terrorist masters' to buy him a new car than in actually terrorizing anybody.
That's three for you, Mr. Bush.
"And just last August," you concluded, "British authorities uncovered a plot to blow up passenger planes bound for America over the Atlantic Ocean."
In a series of dramatic raids, 24 men were arrested.
Turned out, sir, a few of them actually had gone on the internets to check out some flight schedules.
Turned out, sir, only a few of them actually had the passports needed to even get on the planes.
The plot to which President Bush referred, was a plot without bombs.
It was a plot, without any indication that the essence of the operation — the in-flight mixing of volatile chemicals carried on board in sports drink bottles — was even doable by amateurs or professional chemists.
It was a plot even without sufficient probable cause.
A third of the 24 arrested that day — exactly 90 days before the American mid-term elections — have since been released.
The British had been watching those men for a year.
Before the week was out, their first statement, that the plot was "ready to go, in days," had been rendered inoperative.
British officials told NBC News of the lack of passports and plans; told us that they had wanted to keep the suspects under surveillance for at least another week.
Even an American official confirmed to NBC's investigative unit that there was "disagreement over the timing."
The British then went further. Sources inside their government told the English newspaper the Guardian, that the raids had occurred only because the Pakistanis had arrested a man named Rasheed Raouf. That Raouf had only been arrested by Pakistan because we had threatened to do it for them.
That the British had acted only because our government was willing — to quote that newspaper "The Guardian" — to "ride roughshod" over the plans of British Intelligence.
Oh by the way, Mr. Bush, an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan reduced the charges against Mr. Raouf, to possession of bomb-making materials, and being there without proper documents.
Still, sir, evidently that's close enough.
Score four for you!
Your totally black-and-white conclusions in the State of the Union were based on one gray area, and on three pallets on which the experts can't even see smudge let alone gray.
It would all be laughable, Mr. Bush, were you not the President of the United States.
It would all be political hyperbole, Mr. Bush, if you had not, on this kind of "intelligence," taken us to war, now sought to escalate that war, and are threatening new war in Iran and maybe even elsewhere.
What you gave us a week ago tonight, sir, was not intelligence, but rather a walk-through, of how speculation and innuendo, guess-work and paranoia, day-dreaming and fear-mongering, combine in your mind and the minds of your government, into proof of your derring-do and your success against the terrorists.
The ones who didn't have anthrax.
The ones who didn't have plane tickets or passports.
The ones who didn't have any clue, let alone any plots.
But they go now into our history books as the four terror schemes you've interrupted since 9/11.
They go into the collective consciousness as firm evidence of your diligence, of the necessity of your ham-handed treatment of our liberties, of the unavoidability of the 3,075 Americans dead in Iraq.
Congratulations, sir.
You are the hero of "Jaws 2." You have kept the Piper Cub out of the hands of Spartacus. |
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