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Locked on 05/30/2004 12:58:53 AM PDT by Jim Robinson, reason:
Thread Nine: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1144669/posts? |
Posted on 05/17/2004 12:36:39 AM PDT by JustPiper
Picture Credit:Calpernia
I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat"
BREAKING NEWS
Iraqi governing council leader among those killed by Baghdad car bomb, Iraqi officials say. Details soon.
Breaking News Alert BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) U.S. military colonel says four Iraqis killed, two U.S. soldiers injured, in car bomb at entrance to coalition headquarters in Baghdad.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
The usual. It's in operable, it can be purchased at any gun show, etc......
All the articles I read about it said it HAD been used? One says this "Transit employees discovered the weapon near a station just outside Atlanta, on an embankment next to the tracks, said Gene Wilson, MARTA police chief. He said the launcher had been used.
Pinging you to the rocket launcher in Atlanta posts beginning with # 492
The theft of the Cisco IOS source code has been known for a few weeks, if I remember correctly.
Is this anywhere near where the G-8 will be?
Regardless, it certainly makes a statement!
Another terrorist probe? Lined up with MARTA station in it's sites? 'nuther big hummmmmmmmmm.
dunno? that's at Sea Island but where is that?
No, the rocket launcher is in Atlanta. Summit will be offshore Savannah, on one of the Islands. Forget which one.
I agree - this is big. I was just pointing out the way the article is written - like it's no big deal. Kind of like the spin on the Sarin. "Official says launcher inoperable". We all know, of course, that's not the point.
St. Simons Island?
Sorry. I meant to say I was on thread five, but could not find that particular post...
It would be highly symbolic to hit New York.
Somebody upstream said Sea Island? I dunno but there's a small band of them just offshore Ga. St. Simons is probably the most famous or infamous, depending on which version of history you get. LOL.
>> Official says launcher inoperable <<
Looks like another probe / test. Wonder how long it'd been there before being discovered?
That story is so sad. The couple moves from New York after 9/11 to be closer to family after the WTC attack.
Then the 4 ton girder which was placed by the contractors on 5/11 kills the family. Could have possibly been avoided if the 911 operator had not misunderstood.
No doubt it was last seen heading south...
My bad. Sea Island does sound more like it. (I spent too much time in the sun on St. Catherines Island as a kid, one island looks just like the next to me)
AP Interview: Al-Qaida Wants to Strike U.S. With Chemical, Biological Weapon
Tampa Bay on line (AP) ^ | May 18, 2004 | KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted on 05/18/2004 5:04:23 PM EDT by aculeus
WASHINGTON (AP) - The top intelligence official at the Homeland Security Department, worried about an increased risk of attack in coming months, says al-Qaida wants to strike on U.S. soil with something other than a conventional explosive - perhaps with a chemical or biological weapon.
Retired Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes said in an Associated Press interview that America has gotten better at predicting and safeguarding itself against attacks since Sept. 11, 2001. But Hughes said he fears that new terrorists "are being made every single day on the streets of the Middle East."
As Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge prepares to testify Wednesday before the Sept. 11 commission in New York, Hughes and his deputies at the agency's information analysis division say the nation's security has improved since the terrorist attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives.
"We had a dark age on 9/11," Hughes said in the interview Monday evening. "Now, we are trying to make ourselves more secure in a way that is palatable and constitutionally right."
Still, significant threats remain, especially now, as high "background noise" from terrorists and heightened sensitivity during the election year has officials on guard for a possible attack whose nature they can't quite pin down.
Hughes marks the orange alert at the holidays as the start of a new era of threats.
"We have a new norm," said Hughes, who believes terrorists learned about security checks and changes implemented during that alert and have adapted.
Now - based on captured material, interviews and other sources of information - Hughes said he believes al-Qaida wants to strike with something other than a conventional explosive device.
He worries about chemical and biological attacks, including a dirty bomb. And, in particular, he points to the possibility of another anthrax biological attack, following the one that wreaked havoc on the postal system, closed a Senate building for three months and killed five in 2001.
"It's not the only one," Hughes said of that possibility, but anthrax is easy to produce and disperse, he said, noting that the recipes for it and the deadly poison, ricin, are on the Internet. "It's not hard to do."
U.S. officials are adapting, too. Unlike before the attacks, encrypted networks now link hundreds of law enforcement and security officials across the country to an operations center at the department's campus, about six miles from the White House. When threat information indicates a heightened risk, a 24-hour operations center opens there, run out of a windowless conference room. And, bulletins to state and local officials routinely go out to inform about threats.
In late April, in one example, Homeland officials and the FBI put out a lengthy warning advising local law enforcement authorities to be on guard for possible truck bombs, or vehicle-borne explosive devices, according to a copy of the four-page document obtained by The Associated Press.
Hughes ticks off a list of terrorist attacks that began in the 1990s - Khobar Towers, the African embassy bombings, the USS Cole, bombings in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East and 9/11 - and worries that terrorists are able to show much patience.
"If the past is indeed prologue, then we are going to screw up, or they are going to get lucky," Hughes said. "I can't sleep."
Aides note it is his job to worry.
Still, for reasons Hughes can't explain, there was no attack at the holidays. Ridge, too, has said he believes an attack was averted.
Perhaps, Hughes said, it comes down to the work of the government, here and overseas: Passengers and flights, most originating out of Europe, were searched in extraordinary ways. Some were canceled.
"It is an axiom of terrorism that you don't conduct terrorist attacks without absolute secrecy," he said.
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