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Politics : Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rock_nj who wrote (7619)	8/3/2004 1:35:00 PM
From: LPS5	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20039

If anything, they should be looking at how they could streamline their operations, to make them work more efficiently and communicate better, not add another layer of bureaucracy. Certainly. Better yet, how about a solution that carries the promise of costing nothing or - horrendous though it might seem - actually saving/returning taxpayer money? Not to mention protecting lives, property, and freedom at the same time. And that simple solution would be...drum roll...reviewing our foreign policy decisions and adapting a less interventionist stance - by Constitutional amendment, if necessary. I'm all for it. LPS5

To: Rock_nj who wrote (7619)	8/3/2004 10:08:03 PM
From: BubbaFred	Respond to of 20039

Reports That Led to Terror Alert Were Years Old, Officials Say By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID JOHNSTON Published: August 3, 2004 Carol T. Powers for The New York Times A special transit police unit rode trains on Monday as part of its security sweep of the Washington Metro. Librado Romero/The New York Times Police officers conducted extra security checks on Monday morning outside the New York Stock Exchange. WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 -Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way. But the officials continued to regard the information as significant and troubling because the reconnaissance already conducted has provided Al Qaeda with the knowledge necessary to carry out attacks against the sites in Manhattan, Washington and Newark. They said Al Qaeda had often struck years after its operatives began surveillance of an intended target. Taken together with a separate, more general stream of intelligence, which indicates that Al Qaeda intends to strike in the United States this year, possibly in New York or Washington, the officials said even the dated but highly detailed evidence of surveillance was sufficient to prompt the authorities to undertake a global effort to track down the unidentified suspects involved in the surveillance operations. "You could say that the bulk of this information is old, but we know that Al Qaeda collects, collects, collects until they're comfortable,'' said one senior government official. "Only then do they carry out an operation. And there are signs that some of this may have been updated or may be more recent.'' Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said on Monday in an interview on PBS that surveillance reports, apparently collected by Qaeda operatives had been "gathered in 2000 and 2001.'' But she added that information may have been updated as recently as January. The comments of government officials on Monday seemed softer in tone than the warning issued the day before. On Sunday, officials were circumspect in discussing when the surveillance of the financial institutions had occurred, and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge cited the quantity of intelligence from "multiple reporting streams'' that he said was "alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information.'' The officials said on Monday that they were still analyzing computer records, photos, drawings and other documents, seized last month in Pakistan, which showed that Qaeda operatives had conducted extensive reconnaissance. "What we've uncovered is a collection operation as opposed to the launching of an attack," a senior American official said. Still, the official said the new trove of material, which was being sifted for fresh clues, combined with more recent flows of intelligence, had demonstrated that Al Qaeda remains active and intent on attacking the United States. The concern about the possibility of an attack was apparent on Monday. Armed guards were positioned at the five targets listed by Mr. Ridge: the New York Stock Exchange and the Citigroup buildings in Manhattan, the headquarters of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington and Prudential Financial in Newark. The buildings were subjected to their highest level of security since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, with barricades, rapid-response teams and bomb-sniffing dogs providing rings of protection. With intelligence reports specifying a possible truck bombing, police stopped and searched vehicles in the Wall Street area, while vans and trucks were banned from bridges and tunnels entering lower Manhattan. In Washington, President Bush said the alert issued on Sunday reflected "a serious business.'' He said at a White House news conference, "We wouldn't be contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real.'' Despite the new terror warnings, the stock market gained ground, denting expectations that it would drop with the heightened security alert. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 39 points. A sizable part of the information seized in Pakistan described reconnaissance carried out before the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said. The documents do not indicate who wrote the detailed descriptions of security arrangements at the financial buildings or whether the surveillance was conducted for a current operation or was part of preparations for a plan that was later set aside. In a briefing on Sunday, a senior intelligence official said that the threat to the financial institutions "probably continues even today." nytimes.com