http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/bushs_weapon_of.html#more
Thursday, 17 August 2006
Bush's Weapon of Mass Deception
by Larry C Johnson
It is a week since news broke in London about an alleged plot to blow
up nine commercial jetliners and there are emerging indicators that
Bush and Blair exaggerated the truth about the actual readiness of the
so-called plot. And yes, I mean so-called plot. Why would Bush and
Blair hype a terrorist threat? A very simple answer. The White House
was on notice that Seymour Hersh's story that the Bush Administration
encouraged Israel to invade Lebanon as part of a broader scheme to set
the stage for war with Iran. Tony Blair, Bush's enabler, went along
with the ruse.
The initial story out of London gave the average traveler the clear
impression that Muslim terrorists were thwarted at the last minute from
planting bombs made of liquid explosives on board aircraft. Since
then, the facts about the story shifted significantly. It is true that
some of the people in the custody of British and Pakistani security
forces had thought about bombing airplanes. But there is substantial
evidence that the plot was far from implementation.
First, no evidence has emerged that the plotters had in hand a
functioning prototype of the device they wanted to take on board a
plane. That's an important point. The Bojinka plot of 1994--when
Ramsi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohamad, Walid Khan, and Hakim Murad
planned to blow up 12 jumbo jets in the Pacific--was preceded by Ramsi
Yousef's December 1994 success in testing a bomb that exploded on a
Philippine Air flight and killed a Japanese man. Yousef, Mohamad, and
Murad are in jail. Walid Khan is dead. No one from that group is
around to provide technical advice on the amount of explosive required
to down a plane.
There is a press report from Pakistan that monitoring of one of the
plotters, a fellow named Rauf, revealed that:
the plotters had tested the explosive liquid mixture they planned to
use at a location outside Britain. NBC News has previously reported
that the explosive mixture was tested in Pakistan. The source said the
suspects in Britain had obtained at least some of the materials for the
explosive but had not yet actually prepared or mixed it.
We'll say it again--the plotters had not yet actually prepared or mixed
a potential explosive. More importantly, they did not have a working
prototype of a viable explosive charge that would pass muster at a
screening checkpoint. The British plotters reportedly did have
hydrogen peroxide. Big deal. Go to your local drug store and you too
can buy some. Hydrogen peroxide is not an explosive and there is no
easy, safe way to make an explosive with it. The plotters in Britain
still had alot of work to do in order to carry out their plot.
I'm also struck by the fact that more then twenty people were allegedly
involved in this plot. The Al Qaeda of Ramsi Yousef's day had a viable
plan for blowing up 12 planes using only 5 people. Now we learn that
the radical Islamic copycats need 20 folks for at least 6 planes. Is
this evidence of Al Qaeda's degraded capability?
Second, no evidence has emerged that the group had purchased tickets or
even had passports that would allow them to board a plane to the United
States. How exactly were they supposed to bomb planes that they could
not even board.
Third, British police are still scrambling to come up with evidence to
keep these guys in jail. If the plot was well advanced that would not
be a problem. If they had tickets, passports, and explosives in hand
that would be, shall we say it. . . A SLAM DUNK!
Fourth, there is the curious response of the Bush Administration to
this news. Instead of coming to the White House Briefing Room to
announce new initiatives to develop technology to detect liquid
explosives at passenger screening checkpoints or to close loopholes
posed by unscreened cargo, the Bush White House attacked Democrats for
making America vulnerable to terrorists. Last I checked, Howard Dean
was not in London trying to put a bomb on an airplane. And ***** Cheney
is still on the campaign trail playing the fear card.
I have no doubt that British intelligence had succeeded in penetrating
a group of Muslim extremists who had big dreams about hurting the
United States but they lacked a viable terrorist plan ready for
execution. We also know that the Bush Administration, who was being
regularly briefed by the Brits about the plot, pushed London to act
prematurely. What is particularly galling is that no one at the Bush
White House apparently felt compelled to look for ways to boost
aviation security in the United States. Instead, they sought to create
a firestorm of fear in order to distract public attention from the
devastating article written by Sy Hersh. One of Sy's key points:
The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning
of Israel's retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President
***** Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and
diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force
bombing campaign against Hezbollah's heavily fortified
underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could
ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a
potential American pre=EBmptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear
installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.
That is the kind of news the White House would like to bury,
particularly as a ceasefire took hold in Lebanon that left Hizbullah
standing ten feet tall. As Keith Olberman showed the other night, the
Bush Administration has been zealous about trotting out bogus threats
when there is political bad news afoot. If I'm right about this latest
incident, Keith Olberman has a new item to add to his list of ten.
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