France warning tipped off terrorists, say U.S. officials

Washington Times ^ | 12/17/03 | From combined dispatches

[kattracks]

One or more terror suspects may have escaped due to a premature disclosure in France of the security concerns behind the cancellation of Christmas flights to Los Angeles, U.S. officials said yesterday.

One official said "a chorus of groans" from the Department of Homeland Security to the White House went out when the French made clear at the time the cancellations had been ordered for security reasons.

[goldstategop]

The French are as f*ked up as Jean F. Cheri.

[oceanperch]

So it is good that nothing happened, but not good because the suspect did not show which means a possible future plan.

France sucks.

[endthematrix]

They may run but surely can not hide.

[Prime Choice]

Why is there any surprise at this? France has made it abundantly clear since late last year that they are not our ally any longer.

[endthematrix]

"Another senior U.S. official said it was too early to say whether a terror plot had been thwarted."

So they were going to do what? What's the point here?

[exnavy]

What a bunch of maroons.

[milemark]

Naive U.S. authorities, for some reason still under the bizarre impression that France is our ally, were surprised that the Islamic Republic of France warned their true allies, Al Qeada that their mutual enemy, the United States of America, was onto the joint FR/AQ terrorist plot.

[LibWhacker]

. . . terror suspects may have escaped due to a premature disclosure in France . . .

Break relations with those effete worms! Or at the very least you'd think we could routinely refuse flights from France -- whether or not we suspect there are terrorists onboard. Perhaps we could begin by forcing France to cancel at least half their flights to the US at random by telling them they wouldn't be allowed to land.

Al Qaeda may lose interest in using Air France if they know half their hijackers are unlikely to get through during any given "operation." Of course, two-thirds would be better than half, and 100% would be sure to work. But then, I don't know if we're prepared to go that far . . . In any event, the point is we don't need French cooperation at all to make al Qaeda give up on this plan of leveraging French perfidy against us.

[cajungirl]

I am curious about the nationalities of the people they mentioned,,four americans, germans, belgians? what is that about?

[Viking2002]

Nuke France.

[Lancey Howard]

This makes me wonder if the whole thing was a setup by Homeland to smoke out French collaborators. I could have saved them time: FRANCE is a collaborator.

[Imal]

There is a lot more to this story than is being reported.

I'm hopeful we'll get a more complete picture of what is going on with this within the next few weeks, but I won't hold my breath.

[papertyger]

time to start emailing the french embassy again...

[LibWhacker]

Good question. I mean, all the reports I've read so far said the people we really wanted to talk to didn't show up. Maybe these folks had some kind of contact with the terrorists, however incidental, or they were muslims themselves . . . I don't know. I'm just guessing. I'm stumped, lol!

[Stultis]

Or at the very least you'd think we could routinely refuse flights from France

Doesn't seem necessary. We should have the technology to install a stinky cheese detector next to the metal detector. Just bump anyone who sets that off.

[SeeRushToldU_So]

[CaptSkip]

A half-dozen or so names on the US Terrorist Watch list show up on the SAME Air France flight?

This is a no-brainer!! That's a hijack TEAM!

Me thinks we should retarget some of our ICBM's to France. I don't know how many they've got, but I'll bet they're all aimed West. F*** the French.

[skyhntr]

I have to wonder if infact our own press corp isn't made up of the French..
I mean look at all the rediculous ummm errr I mean Incredibly assignine questions and deaf ears they appear to continually demostrate during press confrences and the percission that they use when reporting of secret maneuvers of any of our military actions.
Or while disclosing new levels of stupidity with each report of a top secret military base making sure that "Top Secret" is highlighted and italicized in each article.
with a press corp like ours there are no need for other countries to infiltrate the US with spies when they get all the information they need from our own press.

IMHO

[marty60]

Everything everyone is saying about France is true. My thoughts were with Bush, HE would have to give the order to shoot down a passenger plane/ God be with him.