WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - President Bush on Thursday tried to
refocus American attention on terrorism, declaring in a speech
that the United States and its partners had disrupted 10
serious plots since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Really? It seems to me that any such a plot disruption would
have provided wonderful, much needed publicity for Bush and
for the War on Terrorism. Such news would go a long way toward
disarming critics. The news would not need to include any
sensitive security information. Are we to believe Bush passed
up such an opportunity, ten times no less, while he's been
suffering in the polls? I don't buy it.
A listing, produced hastily several hours after Mr. Bush's
speech, also included some previously known cases, including
the one that led to the arrest in May 2002 of Jose Padilla,
who intelligence officials say was exploring the possibility
of setting off a dirty bomb in an American city. It was not
immediately clear whether other items on the list represented
significant threats.
If they have evidence, why don't they charge him? Why not have
a televised trial - again good publicity for the War on
Terrorism. How was he supposed to be able to make a dirty
bomb? Where was he looking for one? Why no follow up on his
contacts? If he had no contacts, how was he a threat?
None of it makes any sense.
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/07/politics/07prexy.html
October 7, 2005
10 Plots Foiled Since Sept. 11, Bush Declares
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - President Bush on Thursday tried to
refocus American attention on terrorism, declaring in a speech
that the United States and its partners had disrupted 10
serious plots since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The White House said they included a failed effort in 2002 to
use hijacked airplanes to attack "targets on the West Coast,"
and a similar plot on the East Coast in 2003.
The 2002 plot appeared to be the most significant disclosure,
and counterterrorism officials said Thursday evening that it
had been led by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is said to have
been the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. He was captured
in Pakistan in 2003.
A listing, produced hastily several hours after Mr. Bush's
speech, also included some previously known cases, including
the one that led to the arrest in May 2002 of Jose Padilla,
who intelligence officials say was exploring the possibility
of setting off a dirty bomb in an American city. It was not
immediately clear whether other items on the list represented
significant threats.
The president's speech came on a day of a major terror alert
involving a possible bombing threat in the New York subways.
The speech also came as senior government officials described
a warning from one senior leader of Al Qaeda to another that
attacks on civilians and videotaped executions committed by
his followers could jeopardize their broader cause.
Mr. Bush used his speech, before the National Endowment for
Democracy in Washington, to warn that Syria and Iran had
become "allies of convenience" for Islamic terror groups,
appearing to step up political pressure on both countries. He
said, "The United States makes no distinction between those
who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor
them," and he warned that the "the civilized world must hold
those regimes to account."
A senior White House official said Thursday evening that the
president's 40-minute speech arose from Mr. Bush's desire to
remind Americans, after "a lot of distractions" in recent
months, that the country was still under threat, and had no
choice but to remain in Iraq so Al Qaeda did not use it as a
base to train for attacks on the United States and its allies.
The warning from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
the top militant leader in Iraq, was spelled out in a
6,000-word letter, dated early in July, that was obtained by
American forces conducting counterterrorism operations in
Iraq, the official said.
Mr. Bush's warnings about the need for renewed American
attention to "this global struggle," and the release of
information on past plots that the White House had previously
been reluctant to discuss on security grounds, comes at a
moment of heightened criticism of the president's handling of
the Iraq war and the broader effort against terrorism. It
also comes as he is trying to heal fractures in his own party
about his selection of a nominee for the Supreme Court, and as
he has faced complaints about the government's response to
Hurricane Katrina.
A poll released by CBS News on Thursday evening indicated that
Mr. Bush's approval rating had dropped to 37 percent, and that
disapproval of his handling of terrorism was at an all-time
high.
Democrats were quick to answer Mr. Bush, saying that he was
gliding past major errors of tactics and strategy in Iraq, and
that Al Qaeda began operating there only after the American
invasion.
Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, said: "The truth
is, the administration's mishandling of the war in Iraq has
made us less safe, and Iraq risks becoming what it was not
before the war: a training ground for terrorists." Mr. Reid,
of Nevada , said it was vital that the administration change
course in Iraq.
In an unusual move, Mr. Bush named Osama bin Laden, the Qaeda
leader, five times in his speech, and quoted Mr. bin Laden's
own statements to support the president's argument that terror
groups inspired by Al Qaeda were trying to "enslave whole
nations and intimidate the world," starting in Iraq.
"They achieved their goal, for a time, in Afghanistan ," Mr.
Bush said of the country that was Mr. bin Laden's sanctuary
until the American-led invasion in the fall of 2001.
"Now they've set their sights on Iraq," he continued. "Bin
Laden has stated: 'The whole world is watching this war and
the two adversaries. It's either victory and glory, or misery
and humiliation.' "
Mr. Bush compared Islamic militant leaders - at one point he
used the phrase "Islamo-fascism" - to Hitler, Stalin and Pol
Pot, and said their ideology, "like the ideology of communism,
contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure."
He addressed criticism that he has deliberately conflated the
battle on terrorism with the question of whether to remain in
Iraq, an issue on which members of his own party are
increasingly divided. He said those calling for an American
withdrawal to avoid inciting militancy were engaging in "a
dangerous illusion."
"Would the United States and other free nations be more safe,
or less safe, with Zarqawi and bin Laden in control of Iraq,
its people and its resources?" he asked. "Having removed a
dictator who hated free peoples, we will not stand by as a new
set of killers, dedicated to the destruction of our own
country, seizes control of Iraq by violence."
Mr. Bush used particularly harsh language in referring to
Syria and Iran. While the administration has steadily been
increasing pressure on Syria for the last few months, it had
held back, until just two weeks ago, from direct criticism of
the new Iranian government, which has declared it will never
give up its ability to produce nuclear fuel. The United States
has contended that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program,
which it denies.
But on Thursday, Mr. Bush took up what he and Britain have
charged is Iran's continuing, covert support for insurgents in
Iraq.
He said militants "have been sheltered by authoritarian
regimes, allies of convenience, like Syria and Iran, that
share the goal of hurting America and moderate Muslim
governments and use terrorist propaganda to blame their own
failures on the West and America and on the Jews."
As he has before, the president compared Islamic militants'
ideology to the Communist expansionism of the last century.
The militants were being aided, he said, "by elements of the
Arab news media that incite hatred and anti-Semitism."
"Against such an enemy, there's only one effective response:
We never back down, never give in and never accept anything
less than complete victory," he said.
The White House released no details of the two hijacking plots
that it said were disrupted.
The Sept. 11 commission had said in its report last year that
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had originally envisioned a broader
operation in which as many as 10 aircraft would be hijacked
and crashed into targets on both coasts. That report said Mr.
Mohammed had described such a plot to his American
interrogators.
But it had not previously been disclosed publicly that Mr.
Mohammed envisioned carrying out a new plot on targets in the
West Coast in 2002, after the Sept. 11 attacks. Some other
plots listed by the White House have been known, including a
thwarted attack in Britain in 2004.
The list also included other plots to bomb several sites in
Britain in 2004; to attack Heathrow Airport in London using
hijacked commercial airliners in 2003; to attack Westerners at
several places in Karachi, Pakistan, in spring 2003; to attack
ships in the Persian Gulf in late 2002 and 2003; to attack
ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow part of the gulf where
it opens into the Arabian Sea, in 2002; and to attack a
tourist site outside the United States in 2003.
Douglas Jehl contributed reporting from Washington for this
article, and Marjorie Connelly from New York.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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