CHB: Current and former intel officers say LA terror plot is sham

I debated adding this to the existing thread on the 10 averted terror attacks but felt it should be in its own.

Capitol Hill Blue is reporting that 23 anonymous US intelligence officers have contacted them saying the Los Angeles terror plot of 2002 is a sham. Article link

Outraged intelligence professionals say President George W. Bush is "cheapening" and "politicizing" their work with claims the United States foiled a planned terrorist attack against Los Angeles in 2002.

"The President has cheapened the entire intelligence community by dragging us into his fantasy world," says a longtime field operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. "He is basing this absurd claim on the same discredited informant who told us Al Qaeda would attack selected financial institutions in New York and Washington."

www.capitolhillblue.com...

Perhaps anonymous sources can't be trusted, but I also wouldn't expect real intelligence officers to use their name if they were to contact a news organization with information like this. This also adds to the statement by L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that he was amazed the federal government never contacted him to tell about the plot. However, one thing I haven't seen brought up is that he has only been the mayor since May 2005. James Hahn was the mayor during the time of the alleged plot and it would be good to know if he was informed.

Food for thought, even though we can't really judge the legitimacy of the anonymous sources.

My thinking since this whole situation was made public has been... something doesnt seem right.

Did they give a reason why they were releasing the information regarding the thwarted terrorist attempts? (I skimmed thru the other threads to no avail).

Is there a posing threat waiting in the wings that may be justified based on there past record of preventing any attacks.

"well we can't stop all of them, this ONE must of gotten by us somehow, but look at our past record.... not bad on a percentage scale"

Whether the plots were real or not, I think it's clear why they're releasing the information now. They're getting more resistance to the warrantless wiretaps than they expected and they need to show evidence that they're working. Whether the warrantless wiretaps actually helped stop these attacks in any way or if they're even real attack plots is still up for debate, of course, but that is undoubtedly the reason why they're releasing the information now.

Most of the time, information about intelligence operations isn't released for decades. They're using the information for political means.

Originally posted by LoganCale
Capitol Hill Blue is reporting ....

You could have stopped right there. Capital Hill Blue is notorious
for quoting 'unnamed sources' (i.e. .. making things up and not having
to back them up with facts) and making outlandish and outragious
anti-republican claims such as George Bush saying that the
US Constitution was just a G**D*** piece of paper, etc. etc.
(which was debated and debunked here on PTS I believe)

Capital Hill Blue is to the radical left what
World Nut Daily is to the radical right.

Find a source other than CHB, WND, and NYT ...
something with some validity and something that
isn't madeup supermarket tabloid trash - which CHB is.

Originally posted by LoganCale
This also adds to the statement by L.A. mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa that he was amazed the federal government
never contacted him to tell about the plot.

That's not what he said on TV today.

On TV this morning the LA Mayor said he was amazed
that DC didn't tell him that they were releasing the
information about the plot. He didn't say that he
wasn't aware of the plot. He said that he wasn't
aware that they were going to tell everyone about it.
THAT is what he was bewildered about. That he,
a democratic California mayor, wasn't told by the
Republican administration that they were releasing
terror plot information.

Not being aware of information is different than not
being aware that information was being released.
Those are two totally different things.

[edit on 2/10/2006 by FlyersFan]

I recently asked the board's opinon of Capitol Hill Blue and got a positive response. Granted, only one person responded.

I don't like places that use unnamed sources constantly either, and it makes me instinctively mistrust Capitol Hill Blue and Wayne Madson Report, however if this were reported by a mainstream publication, their sources would be anonymous as well.

And could you please link me to the debunking of Bush's Constitution rampage? I'd like to see that.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
On TV this morning the LA Mayor said he was amazed that DC didn't tell him that they were releasing the
information about the plot. He didn't say that he wasn't aware of the plot. He said that he wasn't aware that they were going to tell everyone about it.

I'd like a source on that as well.

[edit on 10-2-2006 by LoganCale]

link

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A Malaysian recruited by al-Qaida to pilot a plane in a second wave of Sept. 11-style attacks on the United States pulled out after observing the carnage of the 2001 assaults, Southeast Asian officials said Friday.

President Bush on Thursday outlined details of an alleged plot to hijack an airliner and fly it into a skyscraper in Los Angeles. He said cooperation between Washington and several Asian countries helped expose it.

The plan never appeared close to the stage where it could be put into execution. Scores of arrests in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks severely curtailed al-Qaida and its Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah.

Security officials and terrorism experts in Southeast Asia on Friday said Malaysian engineer Zaini Zakaria was among three men al-Qaida was preparing to take part in an attack on the U.S. West Coast

Thats why it never happened. Because the terrorist himself chose to not martyr himself. Good for him. The plot was not ready yet.

Originally posted by LoganCale
debunking of Bush's Constitution rampage.

The discussion was on PTS - politics.abovetopsecret.com...
Which thread and which forum? Oh gawd ... I can't remember.
Sorry, but you'll have to look around the forum. What I remember
of the conversations taking place - after you remove the typical
emotional responses - was that it couldn't be proven that he
said it and that it was not keeping with his track record (out of
character for him to say that when he was trying to get an
amendment to the Constitution - why amend something that
you don't believe in??) .

But you'll have to look around PTS forum for it to see for yourself.



[edit on 2/10/2006 by FlyersFan]

Originally posted by LoganCale
He didn't say that he wasn't aware of the plot. He said
that he wasn't aware that they were going to tell
everyone about it.

I'd like a source on that as well.

Like I said .. TV News. MSNBC probably.
I don't have a link. I'll look around and see
if I can find a link. Otherwise .. ya' just gotta'
watch the news.

www.mtv.com...

I found a link to MTV which quotes AP -

excert from MTV newslink - the Mayor of LA said -

"I'm amazed that the president would make this on
national TV and not inform us of these details through the
appropriate channels," the mayor said, according to
The Associated Press.

The TV news is saying that the Mayor knew of terrorist plots
but didn't know exact details and that he's upset that he
wasn't told of the details first before they were made public.

So at this point it looks like you could say it either way ...
that he didn't know of the plots and wasn't informed or
that he knew of terrorist plots but didn't know details.

It looks foggy.

MTV leans to the left. I'll see if I can find something more
'just the news' and not 'agendaized' (yeah, I wonder if
there is anything like that anymore. )

[edit on 2/10/2006 by FlyersFan]

Okay, I'll search on PTS for that. Unfortunately, I don't have a television and get absolutely no reception where I live, so I won't be able to watch for that. I'll have to look for it online.

Anyway, thanks for the information. I'll try to find out what I can on that statement from the mayor, because that needs to be properly clarified to whatever is factual as it's being reported the other way in many places.

Update after above post edited:
Yeah, I'd like to see the actual speech from the mayor and preferrably talk directly to him before I judge what exactly they mean. The article does say the following:

It also provoked an angry response from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who said he first learned of the plot from Bush's televised comments Thursday.

But that's their summary of it.

[edit on 10-2-2006 by LoganCale]

Crooks And Liars has a video clip from MSNBC relating to this topic here (QuickTime) that contains portions of the Mayor's speech. The investigative journalist on there makes some great points (in my opinion) as well related the the war on terror in general.

The mayor's office was forewarned that the info would be made public. It was the Dept. of Homeland Security that made the call, according to the news I heard and saw.

As to "why reveal it now?", well I did read something that I linked to into another thread. It stated that the info had been recently de-classified, which would account for the why now.

Of course, we can't disregard the political advantage gained by releasing it, esp. these days.

Edit: Here's a link regarding whether the mayor had been notified. Apparently he was.
www.guardian.co.uk...

[edit on 12-2-2006 by jsobecky]

Originally posted by jsobecky
The mayor's office was forewarned that the info would be made public. It was the Dept. of Homeland Security that made the call, according to the news I heard and saw.

Why then did the mayor say he was not forewarned? Do you have a source saying he was warned in advance?

As to "why reveal it now?", well I did read something that I linked to into another thread. It stated that the info had been recently de-classified, which would account for the why now.

Did they release it because it was declassified or did they declassify it to release it? That's the question.

Here's the link to where it mentions the info being "newly de-classified".

news.bbc.co.uk...

De-classification can occur for various reasons, including some time limit expiring. I have heard that this info was declassified because they had "milked it" for everything they could. All related investigations had been completed, in other words.

While I'll accept the possibility that they really did declassify the information about these plots for no reason more than the simple fact that they didn't need them to be classified, I find it far more likely that they were declassified so that they could be publicly mentioned for political gain. This is what politicians do. Everything they say is for political gain.

Should information about foiled attacks be made public? Yes, eventually. But not right now, when it's obviously to boost approval of his citizen surveillance program.

This doesn't surprise me one iota...G. Bush is a pathological liar always out to make himself and what he does more important and larger than life. We all know this type, I have either been in school or worked with dozens of them. This really first came to my notice right after his secret flight to Iraq over thanksgiving. He was trying to stress how secretive and dangerous this flight was (still think he used a body double) so he told the story about how they had to almost scrub the mission when a when a British Airways flight radioed and asked if they were Air Force One. Sounds heroic doesn't it until it came out that (1) That there was no Birtish Airways flight within the area (2) Air Force One doesn't wear any designations marking it as such and (3) It was night and the other plane, assuming that there had been one in the first place, wouldn't have been able to see the markings regardless and especially since they were flying dark. I remember watching with great amusement as Ari the weasel (and that is not to say anything bad about weasels :lol did his best to spin his way out of that little bundle of lies. Pathological liars are a nusience in the workplace and often a bore, but harmless...however there is no place for the type near or in the presidency.

Originally posted by grover
Sounds heroic doesn't it until it came out that (1) That there was no Birtish Airways flight within the area (2) Air Force One doesn't wear any designations marking it as such and (3) It was night and the other plane, assuming that there had been one in the first place, wouldn't have been able to see the markings regardless and especially since they were flying dark.

Actually, the two 747s the President flies in are the only two 747s, as far as I know, that are marked with the giant "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA". I think other diplomatic aircraft may be as well, but, as far as I know they aren't 747s. I may be wrong about that. Additionally, his two aircraft are marked with the Presidential Seal. Click here for a photo of one of them.

The point that they were flying dark at night makes that moot, I just wanted to correct that.