Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas Sunday was three or four years old, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.
One piece of information on one building, which intelligence officials would not name, appears to have been updated in a computer file as late as January 2004, according to a senior intelligence official. But officials could not say yesterday whether that piece of data was the result of active surveillance by al Qaeda or came instead from information about the buildings that is publicly available.
"There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new," said one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert. "Why did we go to this level? ... I still don't know that."
It seems highly suspicious that years-old intelligence, with little to no indication of being relevant now, would be cause for the terror alerts we saw - unless, of course, the motivation wasn't public safety but rather political. I mean, it's not like it is the first time dated intelligence has been used for political gain...
UPDATE: The same terror alert was reported on over two years ago.
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
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6 comments:
Reacting to what? That's the point. Was there a reason for a terror threat given the information was so old? No, because it isn't relevant today (unless, of course, we find information saying otherwise). It should be investigated for sure, but there was no caused for a terror threat. The skeptical person might contend this was a ploy to take away from the Democratic convention and make Bush look like a great defender from terrorism.
I can understand the difficult position that this puts the administration in though. If they don't issue warnings, they'll be accused of being asleep on the watch again if something does happen. And if they do and aren't specific enough, they'll be accused of hyping the terror threat for political gain. Unfortunately they've squandered whatever goodwill and trust they had from Americans like me, by showing they're willingness to put politics ahead of all matters...even matters of national security. It's impossible to trust them.
Well, I agree, but again, was there any cause for a terrorist alert here? If there was, then they were justified, but my point was there wasn't.
Do you think it irks Ridge to issue a warning one day, only to have it shot down in the press the next by "senior administration" sources?
I know. How stupid can they be? Of course, it would out there the next day. One who is truly skeptical would say they did it simply to skew post-convention polling. "The Daily Show" mentioned this last night. Jon is talking about how the spotlight is on the Democrats now, and then he suddenly gets a news alert about terrorism.
Also, I updated with an CNN article from over two years ago talking about the same plot.
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