Posted on 11/06/2001 5:59:22 AM PST by Missy35
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=226665&thesection=news&thesubsection=world Intercepts revealed plan for great devastation
05.11.2001 By DAVID USBORNE
A series of intercepted telephone conversations between suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network prompted President George W. Bush's decision to order a general terror alert for the United States last week.
The calls indicated an attack against America that would be more devastating than the September 11 atrocities.
While the intelligence from the telephone calls was chilling, officials wrangled for hours over whether the public should hear about it.
A general warning issued by Attorney-General John Ashcroft on October 11 drew sharp criticism from some Congressmen who complained that the warning then was too vague to be of much use to the authorities but sufficiently ominous to unsettle already nervous Americans.
But Mr Bush decided the latest alert had to be put out.
Transcripts of the intercepts have not been made available but officials said they were especially frightening.
The FBI was opposed to issuing a country-wide alert while nothing more specific could be made available.
The agency feared that law enforcement authorities around the country would be irritated by a warning that had no substance.
Last week, the Governor of California, Gray Davis, made public a confidential warning that had been conveyed to him and to seven other western states by the FBI.
The warning said terrorists might be planning attacks on suspension bridges on the west coast.
The governor's announcement triggered charges that he was overreacting and sowing panic unnecessarily among Californians.
But there is speculation that nothing happened after the alert on October 11 because whatever had been allegedly planned by al Qaeda was either postponed or cancelled after some of its operatives were caught in the international anti-terror operation and arrested.
While most cities across America were already on very high alert, the alert last week may have galvanised officials once more to be on their toes.
No-flight zones were established around all of America's nuclear power plants and the Sears Tower in Chicago, now the country's tallest skyscraper.
Now, I know that there will be the usual suspects doing the poo-poo number because of this or that, but, you would do well to remember that a LARGE number of contaminations are being attributed to the Daschle letter and it didn't have more than a "teaspoon" of the contaminate in it.
It is one of those things that makes you go Hmmmm....
Semper Fi
If something happened, these same democrats would have asked, "How could you not put out a warning if you knew something might happen? The American people had a right to know."
Democrats will make something political out of everything. The only thing they know is attack, attack, and attack. It's not about this nation to them. It's about their own political agenda.
Just shows how much more pathetic the left has become since 9/11
T/D, since you know things military, were there hot air balloons used in the six-day war? If so, then the reporter is probably right, and I'll relax about this one being a prediction of their plans like the September picture clearly is. Thanks.
My question is how we can bring pressure on the administration to begin innoculations immediately. With dilution, we have enough innoculant at least for those born after 1970, if not for the entire nation. However, this administration is slower than a turtle when it comes to homeland defense. Absolutely nothing has been done to make air travel safer. In fact, the Republican controlled House has delayed the Senate bill by almost four weeks already, and 49 Republicans voted for that bill. They should have just passed the bill as it was just to get things moving. Fix it later, you a**holes. We are at war! Meanwhile, let's get the smallpox vaccine out, dilute it enough to protect our kids, and get them vaccinated.
I know this much, if the people I am paying 50% of my income to do not protect my children, and they die of smallpox, the first place I am going to fight terrorism is Washington.
I visited the villages in Wales where my pre-1863 ancestors lived. Whole villages were wiped out in days by various illnesses. The cemeteries bear witness to the cause and devastation. My great great grandparents both died from TB. That orphaned by great grandfather and his sisters. The poor economic situations under the English landowners drove my great grandfather to Liverpool until he was old enough to hire on as ship's crew to get passage to the USA. He served in the Union army from 1863 until 1865. Only 15 of his 19 children survived to adulthood. I wonder if the practice of having large families will return in the face of the return of devastating diseases?
If someone were to try using balloons, the attack would be from the west, since the prevailing winds over the US are from west to east.
Although I doubt the OBL gang would try some type of weapon delivery with hot air balloons, it is still an intriguing idea and the calendar picture is strange.
I know. If I thought you were going nutso on me, then I would start to worry. :-)
Forgive me for "using" you to speak to anyone who will take the time to listen.
They seemed to have other agents for those jobs than the agents now associated with the biochem attacks. These may be some other terrorist groups not neccesarily from Afghanistan. These terrorists saw the US as weak and took advantage of it.
Owen, I know the balloon attacks you refer to from WWII, and I think the worst damage they did was killing a minister and one (I think it was only one) of the kids from his congregation. He had taken several kids from his congregation on a picnic (in Grant's Pass, Oregon I think). Great care was taken that nothing got in the papers because nobody wanted the Japanese to know that the currents actually did what the Japanese had expected they would.
However, that's not what I'm worried about. I agree that such an attack, however tragic it might be for one or a few isolated victims, would have no real impact on the American population--except maybe to rally us even further.
What I'm worried about is a more local launch, maybe from a rural area near a city or a critical chemical or energy plant by suicidal pilots with hellatious payloads maneuvering silently into or onto sensitive targets that they would be unable to muscle or con their way into otherwise. (I don't think we have to worry about a bio threat delivered in this manner at all.)
OTOH if the reporter is right and this is just a depiction of the Six-Day War, then this would all mean nothing. It's quite possible that the Arabs used balloons for recon in that war (but why would they be memorializing such a humiliating defeat???). I have a tendency to hook into tangential issues, maybe because the more direct ones are at least under consideration. Small pox is probably the more dangerous threat, but, thank God, a lot of American minds are trained on solving or preventing that problem.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.