The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
 

Vol: 32 Issue: 27 - Thursday, May 27, 2004

Terror, Tricks and Apoplectic Fits
by Jack Kinsella

The U.S. Justice Department released a list of seven people wanted for
questioning Wednesday after authorities received a stream of credible
intelligence reports pointing to a terror attack of Sept. 11 proportions
in the United States this summer.

CNN managed to squeeze in a story about Ashcroft's warning in between a
piece about how we are losing Iraq and another story about abu Ghraib
prison.

It is almost as if it didn't register the first time around, so let me say
it again. The US Attorney General announced he had credible intelligence
that suggests al-Qaeda plans an attack -- on the scale of September
11 --somewhere in the United States this summer.

Among the seven named by General Ashcroft was Abderraouf Jdey, a Tunisian
who obtained Canadian citizenship in 1995.  After a US airstrike killed
bin-Laden's military chief, Mohammed Atef in 2001, the US found five
videotape suicide messages among the rubble of Atef's home.

Jdey's 'martyrdom message' was one of the five, suggesting whatever
al-Qaeda has planned has been on the drawing board for a long time.

According to Ashcroft, "Al Qaeda's own public statements suggest that it's
almost ready to attack the United States." He noted al-Qaeda had announced
it was 70 per cent ready to strike a U.S. target in January, then raised
that to 90 per cent after railway bombings in Spain on the eve of
elections in March.  And he said that al-Qaeda's preparedness
self-assessment is "corroborated on a variety of levels."

Asked whether intelligence suggests the seven individuals named might be
involved in pending attacks, Ashcroft replied, "We know some of them to be
very adept at the variety of things that are necessary for the achievement
of an attack in the United States. Some of them are very familiar with the
United States."

"Obviously, several of them, by having lived here, been educated here,
speak English well, understand the country well. Those are very important
things."  Indeed.

Ashcroft made his announcement on the heels of the release of a new FBI
bulletin issued to the nation's law enforcement agencies.

According to the FBI bulletin, public statements by al Qaeda leaders
suggest that plans for a U.S. attack were nearly complete, and that any of
several upcoming high-profile events -- such as the G-8 Summit in Sea
Island, Georgia, the national political conventions this summer in Boston
and New York, and the November presidential election -- were possible
targets.

The FBI also says al-Qaeda is changing its tactics and its method of
operation.  The ideal al Qaeda operative, the FBI says, is probably in his
late 20s or early 30s and may travel with a family to lower his profile.

Ashcroft took great pains at the conference to underscore the fact that
intelligence says that a major terror attack is 'imminent' -- not
'possible' or even 'probable', saying "This disturbing intelligence
indicates al Qaeda's SPECIFIC INTENTION to hit the United States HARD."

Assessment:

The September 11 Commission raked the administration over the coals over
its preparedness in the days leading up to the September 11 attacks, with
the media attaching more blame to the eight months of the Bush
administration than it did to the eight years under Clinton.

As noted earlier, CNN found time to squeeze in a few words about al-Qaeda
in between stories about the 'quagmire' in Iraq and the 'atrocities' at
abu Ghraib prison.

The New York Times questioned the 'timing' of the announcement, saying,
"some opponents of President Bush, including police and firefighter union
leaders aligned with Senator John Kerry, the expected Democratic
presidential candidate, said the timing of the announcement appeared
intended in part to distract attention from Mr. Bush's sagging poll
numbers and problems in Iraq."

Kerry issued a statement in which he said he knew Americans had been
"struck by the seriousness and concern coming from this administration,"
but went on to attack the administration for not doing more to bolster
domestic security.

It would make one laugh, if the stakes weren't so high. Instead, it's just
sad.

The police and firefighters are 'questioning' being PREPARED for a
terrorist strike?  Why? Because they back John Kerry.  John Kerry suggests
warning of an imminent attack is a political 'trick' to draw attention
away from Bush's sagging numbers.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who is a member of the
intelligence committee, suggested the same thing.  Durbin said in an
interview that the committee had received no word of any new information
of the type Mr. Ashcroft described.

Durbin went on to say that if there were credible new information about a
possible strike, he believed the intelligence committee should have been
told about it.  In other words, it's just a political trick. Don't worry
about it. Go back to sleep.

Bush's numbers are sagging because of Kerry's continually drawing
attention to the fact the administration WASN'T prepared for the last one.
At the same time, administration efforts to prepare for the next attack is
being characterized as a 'political trick' -- until AFTER it succeeds.

In that case, Kerry, and 'other opponents of the Bush administration'
(like the New York Times)  can slam Bush for not being prepared enough,
again.

Al Gore again proved himself Useful Idiot-in-Chief in a raving,
spittle-spewing rant sponsored by al-Qaeda's sister organization,
Moveon.org.

In his remarks, Gore blasted the American treatment of "helpless, naked
Iraqi prisoners" at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The abuse scandal, Gore
said, was not just the fault of the low-ranking soldiers who committed the
acts, but of the highest levels of the Bush administration, "who approved
a policy of establishing an American Gulag."

"How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney
administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the
world and in the conscience of our own people," Gore said, his voice
rising to a shout and his face taking on a strained, angry expression.

(Actually, a better description would be somewhere between 'apoplectic'
and 'insane'. Drudge has a GREAT picture of the ex VP during his speech
posted on his website this morning)

"How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace," Gore thundered.
"How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through
the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison."

Gore was talking about the handful of National Guard MP's, not the Iraqi
and al-Qaeda terrorists housed there.  Of them, Gore demands the Bush
administration extend them their rights under the Geneva Conventions.

(The Geneva Conventions ONLY apply to prisoners of war taken IN UNIFORM on
the battlefield -- combatants out of uniform can be shot out of hand as
spies. Both sides did it all the time during World War Two.)

I was talking all this over with my wife this morning.  Speaking of Gore,
Kerry, and Company, she looked at me and asked, "Are they nuts?"

I thought about it a minute, and considered the stakes involved, not in
terms of politics, but in terms of US national survival.

"Yes, they are." I replied.

Like I said, it would be funny, if it weren't so deadly serious.