Frank Rich: Experts Warn Al Qaeda "To Detonate Nuclear Device" In US, But Bush Punts on Threat

[Quixote1818]

New York Times | Posted February 25, 2007 05:12 PM
READ MORE: Frank Rich, United States, Hollywood, White House

In an op-ed in the New York Times, columnist Frank Rich argues that
over five years after the events of September 11, 2001, President George
W. Bush is still ignoring serious terrorist threats to the United
States. Faced with warnings from terrorism experts and a White House
seemingly more focused on Iraq, Rich begs readers to ask, "Haven't we
been here before?"

Highlights of the Rich column include:

"This is why the entire debate about the Iraq 'surge' is as much a sideshow as Britney's scalp. More troops in Baghdad are irrelevant to what's going down in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ... Who lost Iraq? is but a distraction from the more damning question, Who is losing the war on terrorism?

The record so far suggests that this White House has done so twice."

"The White House doesn't want to hear it now, either. That's why terrorism experts are trying to get its attention by going public, and not just through The Times."

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/02/25/frank-rich-experts-warn-_n_42066.html

[Name removed]

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[ellenfl]

2. is this like 'bin laden determined to strike within the u.s.'?

having another attack on american soil is a double edged sword for them . . . if we are attacked, then dubya has not protected us but, if we are attacked, we will need him to take away our civil liberties even more than he has already . . . by his reckoning, of course.

ellen fl

[Quixote1818]

3. Bush is looking for an excuse to use nuclear weapons on other countries

He is hoping we get hit so he can just wipe Iran off the face of the earth.

[SpiralHawk]

4. "Watch me do my usual 'hero' thing." - Commander AWOL

"Smirk, smirk, smirk. I'm AWOL again when America needs a real leader
As usual. Smirk, smirk, smirk. At least I'm consistent." - Commander AWOL

[Leopolds Ghost]

5. 2000, US News & World Report. Headline: "Garrison Kiellor's new book, and other news in brief"

Bin Laden threatened to detonate a nuke on US soil, presumably using stolen nuke material from Central Asia (this is what Valerie Plame was researching.)

The placement in the article (beneath Garrison Kiellor) and stringent
CIA denials prompted me to fire off a letter asking why they weren't
taking Al Qaeda seriously in light of the very ominous, very real and
very public threat issued by Al Qaeda suspects in the Fitzgerald trial,

calling to "use the enemy's jet planes as weapons" against a variety of targets,
including the George Washington Bridge, the US Capitol, and "Lower Manhattan".

Unfortunately, I never sent the letter.

References to this testimony during the WTC Bombing trial, which was
published in the MSM, and which was the basis for the stated concern
in my subsequent letter, seems to have been scrubbed from the net.

Does anyone else besides me remember the WTC Bombing threats?

("We will use the enemy's jetplanes against... the GW Bridge, etc.")

This was in 1999/2000, during the Fitzgerald trial.