Posted on 01/26/2010 5:52:01 AM PST by marshmallow
Huge attack is top strategic goal, not ‘empty rhetoric,’ ex-CIA official says
When al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called off a planned chemical attack on New York's subway system in 2003, he offered a chilling explanation: The plot to unleash poison gas on New Yorkers was being dropped for "something better," Zawahiri said in a message intercepted by U.S. eavesdroppers.
The meaning of Zawahiri's cryptic threat remains unclear more than six years later, but a new report warns that al-Qaeda has not abandoned its goal of attacking the United States with a chemical, biological or even nuclear weapon.
The report, by a former senior CIA official who led the agency's hunt for weapons of mass destruction, portrays al-Qaeda's leaders as determined and patient, willing to wait for years to acquire the kind of weapons that could inflict widespread casualties.
The former official, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, draws on his knowledge of classified case files to argue that al-Qaeda has been far more sophisticated in its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction than is commonly believed, pursuing parallel paths to acquiring weapons and forging alliances with groups that can offer resources and expertise.
"If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in . . . small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so now," Mowatt-Larssen writes in a report released Monday by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Deadly strains of anthrax
The report comes as a panel on weapons of mass destruction appointed by Congress prepares to release a new assessment of the federal government's preparedness for such an attack. The review by the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism is particularly critical of the Obama administration's actions so far in hardening the..................
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Well the hills, from the ocean, they do want high valued targets
MSNBC is just now figuring this out? Wow, they’re good.(/sarc)
If we did have an attack (WMD) would they be the first ones to say it wasn’t an act of terrorism?
I thought I pinged you to this - ;p
I vote for your policies.
Why wouldn’t the muzzie terrorists attempt to use WMDs on us.
While our illustrious leader is busy bedazzling 6th graders with his Mr TelePrompTer oratory skills...
God save us!
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