>According to the president and then a proxy briefer, al-Qaida
recruited a handful of handful of Southeast Asian jihadi-types who
trained to use a "shoe bomb" to get into a plane's cockpit. "As the
West Coast plot shows, in the war on terror, we face a relentless and
determined enemy," said Bush.
>The NY [Times] doesn't give the impression that the claims are
questionable. But the [Washington POST] says there's "deep
disagreement within the intelligence community" over whether the plot
was "ever much more than talk." The LAT takes an even dimmer view of
the picture the president drew. Speaking about the purported plot, a
U.S. counterterrorism "official" told the paper, "It didn't go. It
didn't happen."
>That would jibe with what some insiders said after Bush alluded last
fall to the plot. A counterterrorism official told the Post back then,
"It's safe to say that most of the [intel] community doesn't think
it's worth very much." And the LAT cited "senior law enforcement
officials" who "said authorities have not disrupted any operational
terrorist plot within the United States" since 9/11." <
methinks that Bush deliberately "erred" to call the LA library tower (US Bank building) the "Liberty Tower," because of the propaganda value. It was an attack on liberty! Also, even if this plot actually occurred, it was foiled by the Indonesians, not by Bush's illegal wire-taps. But the point was to make the latter look permissable. -- Jim Devine
Bust Big Brother Bush!