Posted on 05/18/2002 10:31:35 AM PDT by GeneD
WASHINGTON, May 18 — American intelligence agencies have intercepted a vague yet troubling series of communications among Al Qaeda operatives over the last few months indicating that the terrorist organization is trying to carry out an operation as big as or bigger than the Sept. 11 attacks, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.
But just as last summer's threats left counterterrorism analysts guessing about Al Qaeda's intentions, and believing that the attack might be carried out overseas, the new interceptions are so general that they have left President Bush and his counterterrorism team in the dark about the time, place or method of what some officials refer to as a second-wave attack. As a result, the government is essentially limited to taking broad defensive measures.
"It's again not specific — not specific as to time, not specific as to place," one senior administration official said.
The officials compared the intercepted messages, which they described as cryptic and ambiguous, to the pattern of those picked up last spring and early summer, when Qaeda operatives were also overheard talking about a big operation. Those signals were among the evidence that intelligence agencies presented to President Bush in August about the possibility of an imminent attack against the United States.
The senior official said Friday that the amount of intelligence relating to another possible attack, in Europe, the Arabian Peninsula or the United States, had increased in the last month. Some of it comes from interviews with fighters captured in Afghanistan.
But despite the disruption of Al Qaeda's operations around the world since Sept. 11, and despite major spending increases and shifts of resources to counterterrorism operations, American officials say they have not been able to fully piece together the clues about Al Qaeda's plans.
"There's just a lot of chatter in the system again," the official said. "We are actively pursuing it and trying to see what's going on here."
The government's frustration underscores the problem in fighting an unconventional foe like Al Qaeda.
Interviews with law enforcement and intelligence officials suggest that in the eight months since Sept. 11 the government has made only limited progress in its ability to predict Al Qaeda's next move, and that many proposed improvements in counterterrorism operations have yet to be put into effect.
This is despite considerable advantages that the United States lacked a year ago. The war in Afghanistan has provided a wealth of new information about Al Qaeda's structure and organization, for example.
In addition, the United States is also interrogating captured Qaeda fighters about the organization's plans. Officials say that debriefings of detainees have in some instances provided general warnings of another major attack that dovetail with the threats picked up in the intercepted communication traffic.
Facing intense criticism in recent days over disclosures that a series of possible clues about Al Qaeda's plans fell through the cracks in the months leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, officials say that some significant changes have been made in the way threat information is studied and circulated within the upper reaches of the Bush administration.
For the first time, the C.I.A. and F.B.I. now compare notes on all terrorist threat information that comes in each day, filtering the intelligence through what they call an analytical "matrix" to determine which threats are the most credible and deserve the most attention. Their daily threat report is distributed to senior policy makers, including the White House director of homeland security, Tom Ridge. It provides a structure for debates among senior officials about whether to issue public threat warnings.
President Bush also now receives daily briefings from both the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, are frequently present during those White House sessions. That way, each agency is able to hear the other's latest advice to the president. Before Sept. 11, he received a daily briefing only from the C.I.A.
Although officials say some potential attacks have been foiled, that has been largely credited to the arrest of terrorist operatives overseas by foreign governments rather than to intelligence gleaned from intercepted communications.
United States intelligence officials said that they began to intercept communications among Qaeda operatives discussing a second major attack in October, and that they have detected recurring talk among them about another attack ever since. Some of the intercepted communications have included frightening references to attacks that the Qaeda operatives say would cause vast numbers of American casualties.
The intercepted communications don't point to any detailed plans for an attack, and even the messages mentioning mass casualties don't refer specifically to the use of weapons of mass destruction like chemical, biological or nuclear devices.
Still, American officials say they believe the intercepts represent some of the most credible intelligence they have received since Sept. 11 about Al Qaeda's intentions. They have provided a troubling undercurrent for the Bush administration as it tries to sort through the hundreds of other terrorist threat warnings it has received over the past few months.
The pattern of intercepted communications that began last October has helped prompt at least five public threat alerts issued by the F.B.I. since last fall.
By contrast, federal law enforcement and intelligence officials say they have been skeptical of many of the far more specific threats they have received from individual informants over the past few months. One of the problems now facing American counterterrorism experts is that they say communications intercepts, while vaguely worded, are often highly credible threat warnings, while the very detailed and specific threats passed on by individual informants are often far less reliable.
Individual informants who approach American investigators in the United States or overseas often know what kind of story will get the biggest reaction. They also often come forward because of hidden motives, perhaps hoping for money or entrance into the United States. The C.I.A. routinely gives its informants polygraph tests in an effort to validate their stories.
But officials say that in some cases they have been forced to take tales told by informants more seriously than they otherwise might, at least in part because officials suspect from the intercepted communications that Al Qaeda is planning something big.
In recent months, officials have issued threat alerts regarding nuclear plants, financial institutions and even specific structures like the Seattle Space Needle and the Golden Gate Bridge, even as some counterterrorism experts privately regarded those threats as not based on solid intelligence.
Some officials say the government's new color-coded threat alert system is less useful than the system it replaced, because it is subject to political influences from appointees who are fearful of being criticized if they fail to pass on every possible threat, no matter how remote.
Yet even as the less credible threats have been widely publicized, the more worrisome and credible undercurrent of intercepted communications has not been made public.
In hindsight, analysts now view the pattern of intercepted communications they saw last May, June and July as a sign of the impending attacks. Those intercepts, coming after embassy bombings in Africa and the suicidal bombing of a Navy ship in an Arabian port, were sometimes alarming.
Their references to mass attacks against American interests prompted a series of public alerts against possible terrorist attacks last summer, including one concerning a possible strike over the Fourth of July holiday. Officials said that they never had any evidence that an attack would occur inside the United States, and instead focused most of their attention on possible strikes against American facilities in the Middle East, Europe or Asia.
After the summer holiday passed quietly without any attacks, American analysts were relieved, but still believed that an attack might be coming. However, they lacked any further details of where or when the strike might come, and some officials began to think that the immediate danger might have passed. Now that analysts are seeing a similar pattern of communications intercepts, they say they are determined to avoid a repeat of that mistake.
God help us all!
Personally, I am more concerned about the Indy 500, which is only a few miles from my home. Half a millioin pepople, international television coverage, and an American tradition.FYI...
I am quite concerned about this. Our local tv and media sort of ignore the situation, of course.
Myself, I think they are up to no good.
There is a large Islamic group near Indianapolis - a perfect front. This event should be CAREFULLY watched.
Also, this story from last week REALLY makes me wonder what's going on around there (*2nd Story of Interest*)
Here are the articles I linked to in previous message - just in case they "disappear" from the Star website (LOL).
Man killed in crash had 3 ID's
The Associated Press
May 07, 2002
JONESVILLE, Ind. -- The Indiana State Police are investigating why a man killed in a car crash was carrying three identifications and four checkbooks with different names.
Police initially thought there were two occupants in the car that crashed late Sunday, killing Q. Naim Abdullah, 24, of Plainfield.
State police troopers and volunteer firefighters searched the high weeds and mud at the scene of the crash on I-65 in southern Bartholomew County, but no one else was found.
Abdullah was traveling northbound at a high rate of speed, swerved to miss a tractor trailer and lost control, striking the median and rolling the vehicle several times, police said. He was not wearing a seat belt.
The FBI assisted in determining the correct identification of the driver and notifying the family.
'Embarrassed' pilot mistakes racetrack for airport runway
By R. Joseph Gelarden
May 17, 2002
Oops.
A single-engine private plane landed at Indianapolis Raceway Park on Thursday afternoon after the pilot mistook the drag strip for the runway at Eagle Creek Airport.
"The pilot told the tower (at Indianapolis International Airport) he had the runway in sight," said Indiana State Police Sgt. Sam Maldonado.
"He believed he had it in sight, but he was not familiar with the area. He didn't know Eagle Creek Airport was located next to a big lake and a big dam."
The pilot was identified as Dan L. Legrant, 66, Edmond, Okla. He was accompanied by his wife, Patricia.
"He was very embarrassed," said Scott Smith, an IRP spokesman.
From the air, you can see both the airport and the IRP drag strip. They are about five miles apart.
About 50 to 60 dragsters were testing on the track to prepare for races this weekend, Smith said.
But about 3 p.m., safety officials closed the drag strip because of rain. About 15 minutes later, the plane landed.
The four-passenger plane swooped down the drag strip and stopped.
"He made a hell of a landing," Maldonado said.
After the pilot stopped, track safety workers turned the plane around and towed it off the racing surface.
Track officials gave Legrant permission to take off, but Federal Aviation Administration inspectors ordered the plane grounded because some paperwork was not in order.
"It is a technical matter, and he should be able to take off (this) afternoon," said Smith.
After Legrant talked to FAA inspectors, IRP officials gave the couple a ride to their hotel.
Maldonado said the pilot should be more grateful than embarrassed.
"If he landed when the dragsters were running, we could have had a disaster. God must have been looking out for him."
So, we'll just have to agree to disagree about this. I will, however, have to save this thread, hang it on the wall, and use it as a constant reminder not to comment upon the plethoria of one-liners I read here.
That's one of the reasons I have not posted here for over a year, and infrequently before. Even when someone agrees with me, a one-line remark is almost insulting. Why bother putting the time and effort to write something significant, if all it elicits from the readers is a single line. Anticlimatic. Anyhow, that's another subject all together, which is of no interest to anyone but myself (my thinking overruled my typing, again).
So, I suggest we part in peace, understanding that we are two different people, who see things differently.
In closing, I noticed from an earlier post that you mentioned you were going to be out of the country soon. I sincerely wish you a safe trip and a speedy return. I'm sure that if you instruct the members of your family to be careful in their comings and goings, they will be just fine during your absence.
more compassionate calvinism -
This one seems pretty clear-cut, no matter how hard they try to obscure the context.
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.