Ridge to raise Terror Alert, news conf. 1:30 pm Eastern

Fox News-TV

[putupon]

announcement, nothing furthur

[JustPiper]

Dog link to the tape? please? ;)

[Cindy]

re post no. 1214...

During my cyber travels, the two dates I noticed most last week which were highlighted on the calendars were:

February 2, 2004
February 4, 2004

FYI.

[sakic]

Howard Dean, is that you?

Yes. I'm Howard Dean.

Are you Porky Pig?

[sakic]

all scheduled plane trips were cancelled? for god's sake, Barbara Olson was killed on one of the 9/11 planes, don't you think her husband would have told her about it?

Certainly if he knew he would have told her.

[Miss Marple]

Ha! Nice try.

[sakic]

I have never seen enough proof about the rumor about Senators cancelling flights but there were warnings about flying issued before 9/11 that did never reach the public.

The one story that bothers me most about post 9/11 is the one that tells of all flights in America being grounded while Bin Laden's relatives and other Saudis were allowed to be flown out of the country without interrogation by our government.

That I 100% believe true and to me I've always found it curious why it has not been a bigger story.

[sakic]

Elmer Fudd?

[risk]

Tom Ridge is a class act. President Bush has asked Americans to reach higher, and he's recruited some amazing individuals to help his cabinet lead the way. I listened to part of this speech and I knew we were getting the very best in security (given our current budget constraints and political realities) from Tom's staff.

[johnb838]

I can tell you that I remember on the news that a plane was going around the country collecting the Bin Ladins to take them out of the country. It said that they were respectable people with no connection and were being allowed to leave for their own safety. So it's not just an urban legend.

[OldFriend]

I have nothing but respect for Ridge. The ridicule he has received from our enemies and some of our so called friends is rather chilling in that it undermines the seriousness of our security situation.

I was particularly amazed at the laughter surrounding the duct tape and plastic sheeting suggestions.

Fact is, those two products alone can save lives, protect from shattered windows, keep the poisoned air out until the chemical/bio material dissipates, etc.

No responsible homeowner should be without these two items even in the best of times.

Rant over......FRegards

[Coop]

The tapes probably did play a factor, Dog, but they wouldn't raise (and previously haven't raised) the threat level based only on AQ tape releases.

[tray-sea]

libya - wmd, bringing us in to work with them. I didn't think there was a connection when I first heard about it. However, several freepers pointed out a scenerio where maybe libya tells us some credible information about an plan of attack, maybe using weapons he sold AQ so that his fate isn't that of Saddam's.
I dunno, but when I originally read the thread it sent chills down my back. I hope that it's not a real connection and only tin foil..

[putupon]

Tom Ridge is a class act.

Bizarro GOP, Ridge Offer Pass to Illegal Aliens

[bvw]

See a Vanity Fair article "Saving the Saudis*" by Craig Unger. Here:
http://www.wesjones.com/saudi1.htm#Author

Some excerpts:

Just days after 9/11, wealthy Saudi Arabians, including members of the bin Laden family, were whisked out of the U.S. on private jets. No one will admit to clearing the flights, and the passengers weren't questioned.

* * *

On the morning of September 13, 2001, a 49-year-old private eye named Dan Grossi got an unexpected call from the Tampa Police Department. Grossi had worked with the Tampa force for 20 years before retiring, and it was not particularly unusual for the police to recommend former officers for special security jobs. But Grossi's new assignment was very much out of the ordinary.

Two days earlier, terrorists had hijacked four airliners and carried out the worst atrocity in American history. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers had been from Saudi Arabia. "The police had been giving Saudi students protection since September 11." Grossi recalls. "They asked if I was interested in escorting these students from Tampa to Lexington, Kentucky."

Grossi was told to go to the airport, where a small charter jet would be available to take him and the Saudis on their flight.

[] at 1:30 or 2 P.M. on the 13th, Dan Grossi received his phone call. He was told the Saudis would be delivered to Raytheon Airport Services, a private hangar at Tampa International Airport.

* * *

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the 52-year-old Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, had been in Washington orchestrating the exodus of about 140 Saudis scattered throughout the country who were members of, or close to, two enormous families. One was the House of Saud, the family that rules the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and that, owing to its vast oil reserves, is the richest family in the world. The other was the ruling family's friends and allies the bin Ladens, who, in addition to owning a multi-billion-dollar construction conglomerate, had spawned the notorious terrorist Osama bin Laden. Thanks to the bin Ladens' extremely close relationship with the House of Saud, the family's huge construction company, the Saudi Binladin Group, had won contracts to restore the holy mosques in Mecca and Medina, two of the greatest icons in all of Islam.

* * *

In Tampa, on the same day that Bandar and Bush were meeting in the White House, private investigator Dan Grossi says, he and Manuel Perez waited until three Saudi men, all apparently in their early 20s, arrived. Then the pilot took Grossi, Perez, and the Saudis to a well-appointed eight-passenger Learjet. They departed for Lexington, Kentucky, at about 4:30 P.M.

Both the Tampa Tribune and sources familiar with the flight say that one of the young men was either the son or nephew of Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi minister of defense and Prince Bandar's father. Another passenger was said to have been the son of a Saudi army commander. []

According to Grossi, about an hour and 45 minutes after takeoff they landed at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington. There the Saudis were greeted by an American who took custody of them and helped them with their baggage. On the tarmac was a Boeing 747 with Arabic writing on it, apparently waiting to take them back to Saudi Arabia. "My understanding is that there were other Saudis in Kentucky buying racehorses at that time, and they were going to fly back together," Grossi says.

[risk]

I'm just as unhappy about that as you, so no arguments here. President Bush seems to be on the opposite side of this issue from me, and Tom is probably just following his lead.

[P.O.E.]

Saudis are famous (infamous?) for betting on both sides of the coin.

Not only do they flood both aisles of Congress with cash, there are plenty of stories of them funneling cash to terrorists and their ilk.

[sakic]

So it's not just an urban legend.

Why has this never become an enormously important story. It certainly should be.

[sakic]

With a terrorist-friendly mayor like Vera Katz in charge

That's a pretty serious charge. What makes her terrorist-friendly?

[putupon]

and Tom is probably just following his lead.

Agreed, I'm sure this came from The Top.

I do hope Bush sees that all this goodwill, political capital, whatever he has now will evaporate as soon as one terrorist who entered illegally w/ the Mexicans pulls off an incident.

[risk]

As far as I'm concerned, MEChA is a terror-inciting organization, and the whole Aztlan movement has every bit as much potential for encouraging violence against Americans -- starting with our INS and border patrol officials -- as Hamas does. We have border patrol agents who suffer violence on a regular basis, do we not? The reconquista is real. But I respect the President's convictions that Latinos make excellent Americans. I just want them to come legally and stay legally. Who knows, it could be the rampant illegal status that has encouraged the lawless, anarchistic bent of MEChA and its gangster-culture Aztlan ilk.