"Thank you President Bush"
W is live on MSNBC disclosing new information.
Now giving details on thwarted 2002 9/11-like plot on West Coast. US Bank Tower, LA.
Interesting.....there was a report of a "jet narrowly missing a rocket" sometime around November 26 that was departing LAX. But that probably wouldnt qualify.
Bush is speaking now; maybe time for a live thread?
Bush is speaking now; maybe time for a live thread?
Bush is speaking now; maybe time for a live thread?
I think attacks have been thwarted but not mentioned. The cynics would say, no, if they had ever thwarted an attack they would have crowed about it all over the place.
The cynics project their own self-serving nature on the President and the Administration in saying this.
Now the cynic will say either -- see this is the only one averted, or, more likley, this is a ruse in response to the criticism of "warrentless wiretaps".
Yet, the cynics don't matter. Thye are loud, annoying and potentially dangerous in their obstructionism.
Jack Bauer's been a busy boy!!
Go W. Go!
bookmark
Good timing for Bush...this will help them with their wiretapping case.
Bush should have said this in his State of the Union 3 years ago. Now it will look like he is making stuff up. Democrats NEVER pass up an opportunity to claim credit for anything good happening under their watch.
Bush, protecting libs 2001-2006 whether they want it or not!
I can hear Matthews now: "Isn't this all a big attempt to defend domestic spying?"
BBC ...
Bush details al-Qaeda hijack plot
US President George Bush has revealed details of a foiled al-Qaeda plot to use a hijacked airliner to strike the west coast of the US.
Mr Bush said the plotters, thwarted in 2002, planned to use shoe bombs to storm the plane cockpit.
The attackers would have flown the plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles, California.
Mr Bush said al-Qaeda recruited the militant Islamic group Jemaah Islamiyah to carry out the attack.
The president said the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was behind the west coast plot.
Planning began in October 2001, but it was thwarted in early 2002 "when a South East Asian nation arrested a key al-Qaeda operative", Mr Bush said.
Mr Bush said the target was the Liberty Tower building.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4697896.stm
Published: 2006/02/09 15:50:17 GMT
© BBC MMVI
Im so glad I don't live in a blue state, since that seems to be where terrorists like to attack.
OHHHHHHHHHH So this was from 2002. I thought this was a new threat. WHY are they just now telling us this.
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.