Mayor Blindsided by Terrorism Plot Details

[ghhhhhost]

hmmm...the US owes a trillion more dollars to the world...there's a domestic row forming over phone-tapping citizens...soldiers are dying every day in a war no one wants to fight....well hell..lets just make up some plot that terrorists wanted to bomb a building in LA..itll take some of the heat off Dub

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060209150209990006&ncid=NWS00010000000001

[Felix_Leiter]

yea its all part of a giant conspiracy

[ghhhhhost]

call it what u want..clinton bombed countries when his government got into trouble...bush makes up terrorist plots...ur feeding into peoples fears

[ou812]

There was a good reason why the Mayor was not contacted about this. It was an important political speech for Bush, to shore up the perception of his security efforts, to show that this administration is really on top of things, and to show that huge security threats still exist. He certainly did not want the effects of this speech watered down through an earlier communication of its jist, or any implications from local city officials that Los Angeles was not facing an imminent threat, as the article describes.

[barraquilla]

yea its all part of a giant conspiracy

not a conspiracy, however, homeland security is supposed to involve and inform, state, local, and federal governments. just giving villaraigosa a general notification is not adequate and does not promote security. in a national or terrorist emergency, the major is the first to act, on the local level, and he deserves to be an informed leader.

[vicman]

yup. and then people wonder why local, state, and federal official find it so difficult to work together - ala katrina.

[Felix_Leiter]

not a conspiracy, however, homeland security is supposed to involve and inform, state, local, and federal governments. just giving villaraigosa a general notification is not adequate and does not promote security. in a national or terrorist emergency, the major is the first to act, on the local level, and he deserves to be an informed leader.

now you're comparing this to Katrina.. seriously.. just be happy the terror plot was thwarted.. must you always find an angle where you can get a jab at the administration.. there hasnt been an attack on Us soil since 9/11.. doesnt that say enough?

im sure the administation did the best thing possible..

when there was a supposed plot to blow up nyc subway, how come Bloomberg was all over it?

[barraquilla]

now you're comparing this to Katrina.. seriously.. just be happy the terror plot was thwarted.. must you always find an angle where you can get a jab at the administration.. there hasnt been an attack on Us soil since 9/11.. doesnt that say enough?

um, i did not compare anything to katrina and certainly do not "always" take jabs at "the administration", because i do not see "the administration" as separate from myself... parts of a whole, ya know?

but i do wonder, is it best to "be happy the terror plot was thwarted", at the expense of any local governments knowledge?

to my mind, the administration does not govern for and by itself. failing to keep villaraigosa informed and up to date, on all information, is not acceptable, regardless of the final outcome. villaraigosa is mayor of one of the largest cities in the u.s., and in a emergency, millions of people will look to him for protection and guidance. he can't provide that service, one of the many he was elected to perform, without sufficient information. further, governments in the u.s., whether local, state, or federal are supposed to work together cooperatively with the benefit of the people in mind. imo, there should be no information withholding *ever* between our governments, turning your citizenry into enemies is never wise.

im sure the administation did the best thing possible..

when there was a supposed plot to blow up nyc subway, how come Bloomberg was all over it?

idk, because he was informed?

[ou812]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush10feb10,0,5959471.story?coll=la-home-headlines

“The details did little to counter skepticism from some (officials) who questioned whether the reported scheme had ever been put into operation before it was “thwarted”.

“It didn’t go,” said one U.S. official familiar with the operational aspects of the war on terrorism. “It didn’t happen.”

The official said he believed the Library Tower plot was one of many Al Qaeda operations that had not gone much past the conceptual stage. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying that those familiar with the plot feared political retaliation for providing a different characterization of the plan than that of the president.

When news of the reported plot surfaced two years ago, some counter-terrorism officials treated it with skepticism. By contrast, Bush cast the foiling of the plot as a significant development that underscored the danger and persistence of Al Qaeda.

I'm leaning more towards fear-mongering on this one.

[Felix_Leiter]

while i think you bush haters are pretty ridiculous sometimes.. id rather you are around asking these questions than not..

[ou812]

while i think you bush haters are pretty ridiculous sometimes.. id rather you are around asking these questions than not..

Someone should don't you think? Otherwise everyone would all be suffering of what I like to call Britney Spears Syndrome (B.S.S.)........seems to afflict about 75% of Republicans.

Spears: "I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that."

[igloo]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush10feb10,0,5959471.story?coll=la-home-headlines

“The details did little to counter skepticism from some (officials) who questioned whether the reported scheme had ever been put into operation before it was “thwartedâ€.

“It didn’t go,†said one U.S. official familiar with the operational aspects of the war on terrorism. “It didn’t happen.â€

The official said he believed the Library Tower plot was one of many Al Qaeda operations that had not gone much past the conceptual stage. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying that those familiar with the plot feared political retaliation for providing a different characterization of the plan than that of the president.

When news of the reported plot surfaced two years ago, some counter-terrorism officials treated it with skepticism. By contrast, Bush cast the foiling of the plot as a significant development that underscored the danger and persistence of Al Qaeda.

I'm leaning more towards fear-mongering on this one.

Hey well, if the "objective" LA Times prints an article with quotes from Democrats and "unnamed" officials indicating it is fear mongering--then we must all be confident it is indeed fear mongering!!!

Thanks for posting this Mr Moderate Objective...this was a big help ..

[igloo]

Someone should don't you think? Otherwise everyone would all be suffering of what I like to call Britney Spears Syndrome (B.S.S.)........seems to afflict about 75% of Republicans.

Spears: "I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that."

Of course, this just inflicts Republicans when their guy is in office, not Democrats.....nah, you are just an objective moderate:laugh:

Actually, I did hear a very interesting story.....it turns out that Bush may not be the dunce you Bush haters think he is......apparently, while in college, Bush developed a magic potion that he spread throughout college campuses, that has an incubation period that lasts until activated by a special prounication of the word "nuclear".....so that when he became President, this blind following took place......he was also smart enough to recognize that Britany Spears would be a star, because of course, Mr Bush, being the imbecile you think he is, used to like watching the Mickey Mouse club in his spare time....he thought she would be the ideal carrier of support for his policies...so he made sure he injected this magic potion in her mouse ears....

Check it out ou812...being that you are into conspiracy theories, I figured you may be interested to hear this one.......

And thank God Democrats and "moderate, objective thinkers" like you were not harmed by this dreadful plot....I mean after all, can you imagine if someone like you actually took the word of someone like Michael Moore as fact....or were influenced by the deep, informed, intellect of Cameron Diaz and the Dixie Chicks.....or worse yet, Al Gore ........

[igloo]

February 16, 2006, 8:33 a.m.

Target: Los Angeles

The mayor is miffed at being stiffed.

Jack Dunphy

Los Angeles has been much in the news lately, and not for reasons likely to make the city fathers proud.

First, President Bush gave a speech in which he referred to 2002 al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airliner into a downtown L.A. office building. This was news, apparently, to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who used the occasion to have a very public snit. Perhaps emboldened by the low-rent treatment shown the president during the Coretta Scott King funeral, Villaraigosa held a press conference and lectured the president and his staff for their egregious breach of protocol.

“I would have expected a direct call from the White House,” Villaraigosa told reporters. In an interview with the Associated Press, Villaraigosa went even further in displaying his pique. “I’m amazed that the president would make this [announcement] on national TV,” he said, “and not inform us of these details through the appropriate channels. I don’t expect a call from the president — but somebody.”

Here’s how the mayor’s knickers came to be in such a bunch: On February 9, President Bush gave a speech that detailed an aborted al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked jetliner into the west coast’s tallest building, a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles known at the time as the Library Tower. (The president misspoke when he referred to the 73-story building as the “Liberty Tower.” It has since been renamed as the U.S. Bank Tower.) The alleged plot involved southeast Asian men who were to crash into the building after using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door. The plot was foiled, President Bush said, through the use of electronic intercepts and the aid of an unnamed Southeast Asian government.

Villaraigosa’s feathers hadn’t been smoothed by the following day, either. “We did not get a direct call from the White House or the Department of Homeland Security in the way I was accustomed,” the mayor said at a joint appearance with Matt Bettenhausen, California’s top homeland-security official.

Unfortunately for the mayor, Bettenhausen contradicted his assertions, saying the information was indeed provided to officials at City Hall and the Los Angeles Police Department before the president’s speech. “ I think the terrorist information was handled appropriately,” Bettenhausen said.

Though the president did provide some previously undisclosed details about the aborted attack in his speech, the existence of such a plot should hardly have come as a shock to Mayor Villaraigosa. Shortly after taking office last year, he was personally briefed on the matter by John Miller, who at the time was head of the LAPD’s counterterrorism division. And the 9/11 Commission report went into some detail about the interrogation of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, among whose disclosures was a plan to attack Los Angeles. On page 154 of the report there appears the following passage:

[Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] has insisted to his interrogators that he always contemplated hijacking and crashing large commercial aircraft. Indeed KSM describes a grandiose original plan: a total of ten aircraft to be hijacked, nine of which would crash into targets on both coasts — they included those eventually hit on September 11 plus CIA and FBI headquarters, nuclear power plants, and the tallest buildings in California and the state of Washington.

I don’t expect Antonio Villaraigosa to have read the whole report — but somebody.