"Terror warnings keep coming But officials cite no dramatic new findings, and the nation's threat advisory is unchanged."
Day 7 of the "Bush Knew" controversy
sacbee.com
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's warnings about a new and potentially deadlier terror threat grew into a virtual chorus of doom Tuesday, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials said the United States can diminish but not eliminate attacks of the worst kind against the nation.
Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that nuclear, chemical and biological weapons "inevitably" will fall into the hands of terrorists.
"They would not hesitate one minute in using them," he said. "It is physically impossible to defend at every time, in every place, against every conceivable technique."
Secretary of State Colin Powell said a new survey of terrorist activity suggests that some nations -- Libya and Sudan in particular -- have reduced support for militant groups. But he said the annual report also demonstrates the "very clear and present danger that terrorism poses to the world."
"Terrorists are trying every way they can to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, whether radiological, chemical, biological or nuclear," he said.
The statements marked the third consecutive day that Bush administration officials have offered a remarkably gloomy analysis of the United States' ability to stop future attacks. Earlier this week, Vice President Dick Cheney and FBI Director Robert Mueller described as all but inevitable the likelihood of additional assaults.
President Bush added his own warning in an interview with Italian television, saying that the al-Qaida group "still exists, they still hate America and any other country which loves freedom and they want to hurt us. They're nothing but a bunch of coldblooded killers."
Yet the Office of Homeland Security said it was not raising its national threat advisory, and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer seemed to suggest that the spate of dire appraisals did not signal any dramatic intelligence information.
Rather, he said, they were a natural outgrowth of an uptick in intelligence "chatter" and of last week's news that Bush knew about the possibility of hijacking attempts by Osama bin Laden's network.
Fleischer denied a suggestion that the repeated dire warnings were an orchestrated effort to counter criticism over that revelation. Administration officials, he said, were merely speaking frankly in response to a spate of questions about the likelihood of further attacks.
"What you have is a consistent approach," he said.
Even so, the succession of statements suggested that the White House is newly determined to tell Americans more of what it hears about terror threats.
At midafternoon, the FBI alerted authorities in New York City that landmarks in the area could be targets of attacks. The caution, based on interviews with detainees, had no immediate corroboration, the FBI said. Officials said security was increased around the Statue of Liberty and other monuments.
Despite the spate of ominous warnings, the new State Department report points to a reduction in terror attacks worldwide. The number declined last year to 346, down almost 20 percent from the previous year.
The survey says that both Libya and Sudan have taken significant steps to renounce terrorism, while Iran, North Korea and Syria have taken small steps to join the anti-terror effort. Yet all five of those countries, along with Cuba and Iraq, remained on the State Department's list of terror-sponsoring states.
Iran was identified as the most active proponent of terror. Even so, the report said the country appears to be reducing its terror involvement and declared that "there is no evidence of Iranian sponsorship or foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks."
Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans continued to argue about the extent to which Congress should intensify a review of what went wrong before Sept. 11.
House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt repeated his call for the creation of an independent commission to study the government's failure to anticipate the attack. "We cannot be afraid to put the facts out for fear that someone is going to be blamed because of what they did or didn't do before 9/11," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., joined the call for an independent probe.
Republicans accused the Democrats of playing politics with national security and said an investigation by members of a House-Senate Intelligence task force should continue.
Leaders of that task force met for an hour Tuesday with Attorney General John Ashcroft and apparently resolved a long-running dispute over documents and witnesses sought by congressional investigators.
"I believe coming out of the meeting, you're going to see more cooperation," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. But he warned the White House that the probe would be aggressive. "We're going to dig under every rock ... And the administration I believe now knows that."
Rumsfeld's comments capped a week of renewed focus on the terrorist threat spawned by news that the CIA had warned Bush last August that terrorists might try to hijack American commercial airlines. White House officials said nothing in the CIA report gave a hint of what was to come a month later.
But the administration's decision not to mention the CIA memo, along with revelations of pre-Sept. 11 concerns about flight-school training raised by FBI agents in Phoenix and Minneapolis, has heightened attention on the government's ability to counter terrorist threats.
The administration's pessimistic assessments Tuesday were mixed with signs of progress against terror networks.
The State Department report, for example, states that international law enforcement efforts have resulted in the arrest of 1,600 al-Qaida operatives in 95 countries. More than $100 million that had been intended to support various terrorist organizations has been intercepted, the report says.
"We are putting pressure on them all across the globe," said Rumsfeld, "trying to shut down their bank accounts, trying to make it more difficult to travel, more difficult to ... raise money, trying to make it more difficult for them to recruit and retain their people.
"But it is a difficult task. It is taking all elements of national power."
In the end, he said, Americans will have to learn to live with the new world of terror.
"Can we do that?" he said. "Yes, we can. We can live in that world." |
