Posted on 02/09/2006 7:22:28 AM PST by RWR8189
US President George W. Bush was to say in a speech that international cooperation helped thwart a terrorist attack on the US west coast, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
McClellan did not provide any details about the plot, or the way it was prevented, but told reporters the purpose of Bush's remarks was to "show the kind of international cooperation that is required" to defeat terrorism.
He also said the goal was not to justify Bush's controversial order, after the September 11, 2001 attacks, to allow spying on Americans without getting a warrant, in a break with past practice.
It rhymes with "Reefer" so it must be about the evil weed.
Im so glad I don't live in a blue state, since that seems to be where terrorists like to attack.
Can't ping you if we ain't here!
:-)
...in April '06.
There's the WOT aspect to this, especially the intel that helped stop the plot and also get that Hambali terrorist into custody, then there's the domestic political angle. Didn't Hillary just say that Bush plays the WOT terror card, to play on people's fears, to rally the country behind him and not really to fight terror? Didn't she just open her stupid big yap to a labor union audience? Then, W makes this speech that highlights what would have happened after 9-ll if we hadn't been able to bring all our tools to bear on it... I LOVE IT.
(Mo1, Khalid Sheik Mohammad hatched a plot shortly after 9-11 to use Southeast Asian terrorists from Jamayl Islamiah to fly planes or a plane into the tallest West Coast building, but through intelligence we thwarted the plot and even captured bigwig terrorists as a result.)
Yeah, the moment I read his post my BS and TROLL meters went off at the same time.
They have been wrong before, but not very often.
:)
Relax and be glad he said "library" and not "lie-berry." That happens a lot when misunderstimated Texans speak. :>)
Thanks. I think it was the Prez who miscommunicated it.
He also was in that conspiracy-theorist's delight "JFK" where he played a shadowy ex-CIA dude that told Costner that it was all a plot by LBJ, who ordered Kennedy shot, along with the usual suspects (Joint Chiefs of Staff, Military Industrial Complex, etc.).
LOL!
:-)
I've been a guest at a function in the "Tower Club" (think thats the name) on the 79th floor of the Columbia Tower. Your probably in more danger from an off-course commercial airliner headed to Sea-Tac than from al-Qaeda, but I understand your concern.
However, the view is spectacular - if you go to the north side of the building, you can see Victoria on Vancouver Island...with a little imagination. I would have given my right arm to have had an office with that kind of view in my corporate days! My boss, out of the 50th floor of San Francisco's B of A Tower, always wanted me to rent space somewhere below the third floor of some cheap building!
It's PETEPARSLEY, and he's still here.
OHHHHHHHHHH So this was from 2002. I thought this was a new threat. WHY are they just now telling us this.
Careful now, my lovely little wife misspeaks at times and says "libary" instead of "library". She's from Memphis and not Memphis, TX either. After all this time I have gotten used to it and sometimes use the term myself. :-)
Yeah, looks like he reverted to "stealth" mode.
IMHO, W is the closest thing we have to a real life
Jack Bauer.
Perhaps our folks unravelled the plot in part by wiretapping Al Qaeda phone calls. (pure speculation on my part)
Warning: PDF file
Library Tower in downtown Los Angeles and the Sears Tower in Chicago were targeted by al-Qaeda for attacks in the days following Sept. 11, 2001, officials confirmed last Tuesday.
The terrorist group's operations chief, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, has told interrogators that al-Qaeda’s follow-up attacks in the Midwest and West Coast were thwarted by the intensity of the U.S. response to the strikes on the Twin Towers in New York and on the Pentagon, according to a report in the Washington Times quoting official transcripts.
Mohammed said he and his nephew, Ramzi Yousuf, who was behind the first World Trade Center bombing a decade ago, had identified the targets through almanacs of American buildings. "We were looking for symbols of economic might,' he told interrogators.
The transcripts contain a warning that Mohammad, who was captured last year in Pakistan, "has been known to withhold information or deliberately mislead.' But Los Angeles officials said the city's tallest building _ the 73-story Library Tower at 633 W. Fifth St., recently renamed the US Bank Tower was evacuated after the 9/11 Coast attacks. "It was evacuated when we heard there might be airliners in the air heading our way,' said Dan Gifford, a senior vice president with Maguire Properties, the owner and landlord of the building, adding that other downtown high-rises took similar precautions.
A company spokesman said that following 9/11, about $6.5 million was invested to improve the building's security, including more digital cameras, tightly controlled access requiring a security-approved card to get through turnstiles, additional security officers and improved communications with government and outside agencies.
Matt McLaughlin, the FBI's spokesman in Los Angeles, said the bureau learned of an "unsubstantiated report' that the tower could be the subject of a terrorist act shortly after 9/11, and immediately responded. "We worked with private interests to take appropriate action to harden the target.'
McLaughlin said the tower - the tallest building west of the Mississippi River has been a "long-standing target of terrorism,' and "is usually the dominant building referenced in threats I'm aware of.'
According to the transcript, Mohammed said Zacarias Moussaoui, the French-Moroccan facing trial in the United States as the "20th hijacker,' had been sent to a flight school in Minnesota to train for a West Coast attack.
Cmdr. Mark Leap, with the LAPD's Critical Incident Management Bureau, said the department learned of the threat described by Mohammed from the FBI, but that the information was classified and the source not disclosed. "We reviewed our response plan to the location and other tall buildings, and the Fire Department conducted some training exercises on evacuation of tall buildings.'
Mohammed described elaborate planning efforts to interrogators. "The original plan was for a two-pronged attack with five targets on the East Coast of America and five on the West Coast,' he said, according to the transcript. "We talked about hitting California as it was America's richest state, and (Usama) bin Laden had talked about economic targets.'
Bin Laden, who like Mohammed had studied engineering, vetoed simultaneous coast-to-coast attacks, arguing that "it would be too difficult to synchronize,' so Mohammed decided to conduct two waves of attacks, hitting the East Coast first and following up with a second series of attacks. "Usama had said the second wave should focus on the West Coast.'
But after 9/11, "we never got time to catch our breath, we were immediately on the run,' Mohammed was quoted as saying. Al-Qaeda’s communications network was severely disrupted. Operatives could no longer use satellite phones and had to rely on couriers, although they continued to use Internet chat rooms. "Before Sept. 11, we could dispatch operatives with the expectation of follow-up contact, but after Oct. 7 (when U.S. bombing started in Afghanistan), that changed 180 degrees. There was no longer a war room ... and operatives had more autonomy.
Mohammed told interrogators that he remained in Pakistan for 10 days after 9/11, then went to Afghanistan to find bin Laden. When he was captured in March last year in the home of a microbiologist in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the 37-year-old was unshaven and wearing a baggy vest.
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