Posted on 02/09/2006 7:22:28 AM PST by RWR8189
maybe if they are still investigating that they won't disclose anything??
Thank God for Bush.
As long as we're under his leadership, no terrorist would dare attack us, or they'll find out our president means business when he says you're either with us or against us.
It was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - Water boarding worked wonders on him -
There's some dispute over what waterboarding actually is:
http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/01/what_is_waterbo.html
from 2002:
The FBI on Monday scrambled to put out the warning, saying "recent information indicates a planned attack may occur in the United States or against U.S. interests on or around Feb. 12, 2002. One or more operatives may be involved in the attack."
Copyright 2002 Associated Press
All Rights Reserved
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
February 12, 2002, Tuesday, BC cycle
SECTION: Domestic News; State and Regional
LENGTH: 471 words
Take off shoe, detonate small bomb to force way into cockpit.
Rats, I missed the live thread. Didn't even get on FR until after the speech was over and there wasn't one then....musta been the difference in time zones.
Just read the article. They say the person is strapped to a board then pushed under water until they think they are going to drown. In my book it makes no difference to me which way it is done. The point is they are not going to drown and the technique works to get them to talk.
As some other posts noted, it was named the "Library Tower", and is still called that by most. It got the name by acquiring the air rights over the main LA Public Library building across the street (the LA Public Library sold it's rights to expand upward). Los Angeles allows stacking of air rights that allows a building to built higher than the standard maximum height, which is something like 50 stories. By acquiring the air rights over the approx 6 story LA Public Library, the Library Tower was allowed to go up to 72 stories. The LA Public Library used the proceeds of the sale of its air rights to rehabilitate and expand the LA Public Libary after a devastating fire in the 1980s.
President Bush said Wednesday the U.S.-led global war on terror has "weakened and fractured" al-Qaida, outlining as proof new details about the multinational cooperation that foiled purported terrorist plans to fly a commercial airplane into the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast.
Bush Says Cooperation Thwarted 2002 Attack
DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060209/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_16
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said the U.S.-led global war on terror has "weakened and fractured" al-Qaida and allied groups, outlining as proof new details about the multinational cooperation that foiled purported terrorist plans to fly a commercial airplane into the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast.
"The terrorists are living under constant pressure and this adds to our security," Bush said. "When terrorists spend their days working to avoid death or capture, it's harder for them to plan and execute new attacks on our country. By striking the terrorists where they live, we're protecting the American homeland."
But the president said the anti-terror battle is far from over.
"The terrorists are weakened and fractured, yet they're still lethal," the president said in a speech at the National Guard Memorial Building. "We cannot let the fact that America hasn't been attacked in 41/2 years since September the 11th lull us into the illusion that the threats to our nation have disappeared. They have not."
Bush has referred to the 2002 plot before. In an address last October, he said the United States and its allies had foiled at least 10 serious plots by the al-Qaida terror network in the last four years, including plans for Sept. 11-like attacks on both U.S. coasts. The White House initially would not give details of the plots but later released a fact sheet with a brief, and vague, description of each.
The president filled in details on Thursday.
He said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003, had already begun planning the West Coast operation in October, just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. One of Mohammed's key planners was Hambali, the alleged operations chief of the al-Qaida related terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Instead of recruiting Arab hijackers, Hambali found Southeast Asian men who would be less likely to arouse suspicion and who were sent to meet with Osama bin Laden, Bush said.
Under the plot, the hijackers were to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door of a commercial jetliner, take control of the plane and crash it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, Bush said. In his remarks, Bush inadvertantly referred to the site as "Liberty Tower," and immediately afterward, the White House corrected him.
The president said the plot was derailed when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al-Qaida operative. Bush did not name the country or the operative.
Bush has been on a campaign to defend his controversial domestic monitoring program. But the White House would not say whether the 2002 plot was thwarted as a result of the National Security Agency program to eavesdrop on the international e-mails and phone calls of people inside the United States with suspected ties to terrorists.
Bush said only that "subsequent debriefings and other intelligence operations" after the arrest of the unnamed operative led to information about the plot, and to the capture of other ringleaders and operatives involved in it. Hambali, for instance, was captured in Thailand in 2003 and handed over to the United States.
"It took the combined efforts of several countries to break up this plot," the president said. "By working together, we took dangerous terrorists off the streets. By working together, we stopped a catastrophic attack on our homeland."
Bush's speech in October cited two other attacks inside the United States that were foiled, including one to use hijacked planes to attack the East Coast in mid-2003.
The third was the case of Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who converted to Islam and allegedly plotted with top al-Qaida commanders to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a U.S. city. Padilla, whose plot never materialized, now is being held without bail in civilian custody on charges that he was part of a secret network that supported Muslim terrorists. He was arrested in May 2002 and had been held as an enemy combatant without criminal charge at a Navy brig in South Carolina until last month.
Maybe I'm just missing something, but can anyone explain how shoe bombs would be used to commandeer a plane and fly it into a building? Practically speaking, it doesn't seem like a good weapon to use in a battle for control of the plane. And if it is simply used as a threat, why wouldn't post-9/11 passengers and crew simply say 'fine, blow it up while we beat your ass'?
U.S. President George W. Bush speaks about the importance of the U.S. National Guard at the Walsh-Reckord Hall of States in the National Guard Memorial in Washington, February 9, 2006. REUTERS/Larry Downing
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