Posted on 03/09/2005 5:41:54 PM PST by wagglebee
Mar. 9, 2005 - A secret FBI report obtained by ABC News concludes that while there is no doubt al Qaeda wants to hit the United States, its capability to do so is unclear.
"Al-Qa'ida leadership's intention to attack the United States is not in question," the report reads. (All spellings are as rendered in the original report.) "However, their capability to do so is unclear, particularly in regard to 'spectacular' operations. We believe al-Qa'ida's capability to launch attacks within the United States is dependent on its ability to infiltrate and maintain operatives in the United States."
And for all the worry about Osama bin Laden's sleeper cells or agents in the United States, a secret FBI assessment concludes it knows of none.
The 32-page assessment says flatly, "To date, we have not identified any true 'sleeper' agents in the US," seemingly contradicting the "sleeper cell" description prosecutors assigned to seven men in Lackawanna, N.Y., in 2002.
Overblown Sleeper Cell Threat?
"Limited reporting since March indicates al-Qa'ida has sought to recruit and train individuals to conduct attacks in the United States, but is inconclusive as to whether they have succeeded in placing operatives in this country," the report reads. "US Government efforts to date also have not revealed evidence of concealed cells or networks acting in the homeland as sleepers."
It also differs from testimony given by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who warned in the past that several sleeper cells were probably in place.
"Our greatest threat is from al Qaeda cells in the United States that we have not yet been able to identify," Mueller said at a Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing in February 2003. "Finding and rooting out al Qaeda members once they have entered the United States and have had time to establish themselves is our most serious intelligence and law enforcement challenge."
When the secret report was issued last month, on Feb. 16, Mueller testified at a hearing before the same committee that the lack of evidence concerned him. "I am concerned about what we are not seeing," he said.
The report does cite several cases in which individuals have been seen as potential sleeper agents, including a member of the Saudi Arabian Air Force training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.
The Saudi was sent home after it was discovered he provided information to al Qaeda figures in Saudi Arabia, including "coordinates on landmarks in the US," the report says.
"It's not surprising because we believe the Saudi military is infiltrated at the junior officer level in Saudi Arabia," said Dick Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism czar and now an ABC News Consultant. "And there are so many of them who come here for training."
ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the NYT and all of the others should have been locked up years ago.
A public hanging would be more appropriate.
---"And for all the worry about Osama bin Laden's sleeper cells or agents in the United States, a secret FBI assessment concludes it knows of none."---
Great presumption. 'There aren't any Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the U.S. because we haven't found any.'
It would be nice to see the actual sentence in context without ABC's editorializing; but quoting things in context is beyond the reading comprehension skills and journalistic integrity of today's MSM. Nice of them to bury the parts of the report that contradict their spin, too:
The report does cite several cases in which individuals have been seen as potential sleeper agents, including a member of the Saudi Arabian Air Force training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.
""Sleepers" blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, you idiots!"
Awww c'mon, we all know this terrorist thing is overblown sensationalism. There's no threat! /s
We all know we can't put it mass the gov't to smoke some guys out. We know the FBI came out and said we are worried about what we don't know.
Could it be at all possible we are trying to get the sleepers to relax just a bit?
Otherwise let's forget about the secret report.. this is great news!
bump
Didn't the FBI blow it big time in detecting events that led to 9/11 happening in the first place?
Here's a clue for ABC. No, two clues:
1: Much like the stockpiles of WMD Iraq had, the American government's inability to locate them is not proof they do not (or did not) exist.
2: The memo is secret for a reason (national security).
Somehow that doesn't make me feel any safer.
I will say that we have certainly degraded al Qeade's abilities far more than we are leading on - And certainly far more than many who seem to insist al Qeade is still very strong.
These scum bags are 100% on the run and more concerned with staying alive than any of the smoke they blow via audio tapes about "striking America bigger than ever before" IF we don't do this or that -
al Qeade's abilities to strike America have been incredibly reduced thanks to our U.S. Military.
Wow, them guys shure must be purdy smart to figger that out!
This has to be one of the more idiotic rantings I've read lately (from the "respected" media). It is self-contradictory and desperately tries to make Mueller look like a liar.
Mueller said that "greatest threat is from al Qaeda cells in the United States that we have not yet been able to identify". That is an absolute fact and is not contradicted by this super-secret FBI memo saying that we haven't found any sleeper cells. At the beginning, this article even admits that "Al-Qa'ida leadership's intention to attack the United States is not in question". What does Brian Ross think AQ is going to do, sail an AQ battleship up to NYC and start lobbing shells inland??? No, they're going to use sleeper cells.
Good grief. What a waste of electrons.
I wonder why this report which such bland conclusions is super secret?
There is also much more in the report and the article -- I think we are dealing with another misleading headline.
Here is the print version, which includes all three pages:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=566425
"Al-Qa'ida operatives have also married US women to obtain US visas and foreign documentation from other countries, according to sensitive reporting."
"And the report suggests that instead of actual sleeper agents, lying in wait, al Qaeda may rely on disaffected Americans or other sympathizers, who might pick easier, softer targets such as shopping malls."
Sounds like something written around Sept 10, 2001, or before.
"Al Qaeda" isn't what they were for a very simple reason: we've taken down a couple of their biggest government sponsors, and the rest of the governments now know that we mean business and they're starting to change their attitude.
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