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Bush describes foiled LA terror plot
President Bush today, in a speech to shore up public support for the war on terrorism, provided fresh details of a foiled plot in 2002 by Al Qaeda to hijack an airplane and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, using Asian recruits armed with shoe bombs.In remarks to the National Guard Assn. here, Bush cited that effort as just one of many manifestations of Al Qaeda's determination to attack the United States again, as he urged Americans to remain vigilant and back the war effort. Later in the day, National Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend provided a few additional details on the so-called "West Coast plot." The plot's existence has long been known, although details surrounding it have remained murky. Bush, who is under fire for ordering a domestic surveillance program as a part of the war on terrorism, was not highlighting the 2002 incident as a way to bolster support for the eavesdropping, Townsend said. Rather, the president's remarks were "intended to stress the point that terrorism is a global problem requiring a global response that uses all the tools of national and international power," she said. The chief White House counterterrorism official refused to say whether the National Security Agency spying program had helped disrupt that plot against Los Angeles. In a speech in October, Bush said the U.S. and its allies had disrupted at least 10 Al Qaeda plots against the West, including three planned attacks on American soil, and stopped at least five additional attempts to scout out targets in this country. The White House then issued a list of such foiled plots, citing potential 9/11-style airliner attacks, a plan to blow up an apartment building, and surveillance of gas stations, bridges and tourist sites nationwide. Some law enforcement officials questioned whether some of those incidents constituted a true, imminent threat. Others said the plot against the Library Tower, which was renamed the US Bank Tower in 2003, never progressed beyond the planning stages. In his speech this morning, Bush said that only a month after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, top Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheik Mohammad, the 9/11 mastermind, had "set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door and fly the plane into the tallest building on the West Coast." Mohammad assigned the job of planning the attack on Los Angeles to a terrorist named Hambali, also known as Riduan Isamuddin, a leader of an Al Qaeda affiliate in Southeast Asia called Jemaah Islamiyah. J.I. already had carried out a series of deadly attacks in that region, Bush said. The plan called for Hambali to recruit Asians for the attack because they would be less likely to arouse suspicion than people of Middle Eastern descent, he said. "Hambali recruited several key operatives who had been training in Afghanistan. Once the operatives were recruited, they met with Osama bin Laden, and then began preparations for the West Coast attack," the president added. In her briefing, Townsend said four U.S. allies from South and Southeast Asia played a role in disrupting the plot, but she would not name those countries, citing ongoing counterterrorism operations. She also said she could not discuss how the suspects were captured, their names or the current status of the alleged plotters, except to say that they were in custody. "Once the plot leader was captured [in February 2002], at that point other members of the cell believed the plot was canceled and was not going forward," she said. Townsend said Mohammad had personally trained the plot leader in how to make and use "shoe bomb" explosives like those used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, and that he conspired with Isamuddin in recruiting the plotters. She would not say whether Reid's plot and the alleged operation to fly a hijacked plane into the West Coast's tallest building were connected. Reid unsuccessfully tried to detonate an explosives-filled sneaker while on a commercial flight from Paris to Miami on Christmas Eve in 2001, and was convicted of terrorism charges in Boston. Townsend said it was the "analytic judgment" of the U.S. intelligence community that the Library Tower was the target because the alleged plotters only mentioned the tallest building on the West Coast. In response to questions, Townsend defended Bush's characterization of the alleged plot as a successful example of a "disrupted" terrorist plot. She said the plot was thwarted before it could get underway, and that U.S. intelligence officials never knew when the hijacking was scheduled to take place. "We didn't know what plane or what flight. We knew that they were going to fly a plane into the tallest building on the West Coast," Townsend said. "We didn't have a day or week." Bush noted earlier that "by working together, we stopped a catastrophic attack on our homeland." The foiled West Coast plot, he added, stands as a reminder of a "relentless and determined enemy" with global reach and serves as a cautionary episode. "We cannot let the fact that America hadn't been attacked in four and a half years, since September the 11th, lull us into an illusion that the threats to our nation have disappeared," he said. "The terrorists are weakened and fractured. Yet they're still lethal," the president said. Bush spoke after unveiling a bust of himself at the National Guard headquarters. He had served in the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War era. To date, more than 360 National Guard members have died in the war on terrorism. "We hold their loved ones in our hearts, and we lift them up in our prayers," the president said. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-02-10 |
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