Ashcroft: U.S. foiled 'dirty' bomb attack

[Roland]

"All things considered, Id rather it be hyped up then ignored or have it underestimated."

Depends. A timely success after it turns out that most anti-terrorism "intelligence" suffers from serious problems. Overhyped lines will get ignored over time, so it is in no way helpful.

"But in any case you surely do not believe that there will be no more terrorism in the United States do you?"

Of course there will be.

[Lincoln]

Originally posted by paiktis22
i'm sorry but are you prepared to go down while on your TVs eminem is playing?

what are you defending?

Is "eminem" one of those weird rap groups? if they are then they are the enemy!

[Bereta_Eder]

no, really,listen the US is threatened, really it has entered a new century. a new world order if you will.

i have no doubt that there is a real danger.

so far they have done pretty good though.

(considering nothing has happened)

[DanS]

Yes, what we have been tool isn't very specific. Because of this, we should reserve judgment.

I prefer to look at it as a game. Why did we announce it a whole month after the arrest? The timing is interesting. A couple of days after stressing that we had Abu Zabaydah and how helpful he had been. Lots of different scenarios to think about.

Edit: I doubt al Qaeda is as good as the Soviets at these games...

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Roland
"All things considered, Id rather it be hyped up then ignored or have it underestimated."

Depends. A timely success after it turns out that most anti-terrorism "intelligence" suffers from serious problems. Overhyped lines will get ignored over time, so it is in no way helpful.

Which is why someone in goverment needs to be able to explain exactly what the alerts were all about. I agree that issuing these alerts and statements and then just kind of forgetting about them is harmful too. After an alert is issued and a period of time goes by without something happening, then someone needs to say we had such and such information and this is why we issued the alert instead of just going on to the next alert.

The goverment here has never been big on communication. But this is the kind of situations where the government must be open to the people as long as it doesn't jepordize our future ability to predict and stop attacks. It's a fine line during the best of times not to mention times like these.

[chequita guevara]

And this particular administration is real big on keeping information flow to an absolute minimum.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DanS
Why did we announce it a whole month after the arrest? The timing is interesting. A couple of days after stressing that we had Abu Zabaydah and how helpful he had been. Lots of different scenarios to think about.

That's interesting. I wonder if they'd been planning on delaying the anouncment even longer, but said it now to deflect the calls for an independent investigation of the Administration's handling of counter-terrorism.

It looks like Frasca is being set up to be the fall guy for the FBI's 9/11 failure. Rowly as much as identified him as the person who kept the Minnieapolis FBI from getting the search warrent they needed to open Moussaoui's hard drive. The Pheopnix memo was addressed to Frasca as well. So, is this a Frasca problem (Meuller certainly shouldn't be held responsible, we was only in a week prior to 9/11) or was he acting upon orders from higher up?

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by DanS

Edit: I doubt al Qaeda is as good as the Soviets at these games...

Id rather it be the Soviets. At least they had some interest in keeping the games as vague and small scale as possible. People who send other people to die in planes and cars don't have to be as careful as another government does. Terrorists really don't have anything to lose.

[lightblue]

A radiological bomb would be fairly devastating, depending on the isotope used. Whereas it won't kill many (if any) people outright the aftereffects will possibly render whole areas of the city uninhabitable for years to come, and everyone exposed would risk radiation sickness/cancer.

I think one of the Cesium isotopes is the noe they're most worried about.

[chequita guevara]

I disagree. They'd clean it up fairly quickly. Our government has very good experience at cleaning up nuclear waste.

Many types of radioactive materials with military, industrial, or medical applications could be used in a dirty bomb. Weapons-grade plutonium or uranium, as well as freshly spent nuclear fuel, would be the most deadly but are also the hardest to obtain and handle. Medical supplies such as radium or certain cesium isotopes, used in cancer treatments and X-ray machines, could be used, although they generally would be less dangerous. As little as a measuring cup's worth of radioactive material would be needed, but experts say that such small amounts would be unlikely to cause severe harm, especially if scattered over a wide area.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
And this particular administration is real big on keeping information flow to an absolute minimum.

Come on che, every adminstration is like that. And no, it isn't right just because others have done it. But don't make like Bush is the worst offender in history or even in the past 20 years.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sprayber
Come on che, every adminstration is like that. [. . .] But don't make like Bush is the worst offender in history or even in the past 20 years.

This administration has at least twice disobeyed court orders to turn over documents. They canned a scientist who'd been putting maps up on a government website for years right after he put up a map of caribou migration patterns. They've tried to close up FoI releases of documents. Heck, Ari Flescher even tried to tell Bill Mahr what he could and couldn't say. This Administration is a particularly bad one for freedom of information.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I disagree. They'd clean it up fairly quickly. Our government has very good experience at cleaning up nuclear waste.

Many types of radioactive materials with military, industrial, or medical applications could be used in a dirty bomb. Weapons-grade plutonium or uranium, as well as freshly spent nuclear fuel, would be the most deadly but are also the hardest to obtain and handle. Medical supplies such as radium or certain cesium isotopes, used in cancer treatments and X-ray machines, could be used, although they generally would be less dangerous. As little as a measuring cup's worth of radioactive material would be needed, but experts say that such small amounts would be unlikely to cause severe harm, especially if scattered over a wide area.

Not from a city they're not. Could you imagine trying to decontaminate even just a few city blocks in a metropolitan area. How would you decontaminate the outside of a 50 story building? Never mind that dust will be taken in by the air intakes. Look at the costs of a few micrograms of anthrax. Imagine a pound of radioactive material detonated within a truck bomb in any major city.

Would you travel in or work in an area where "experts" told you it was OK if it hadnt been proven to be cleaned up (and I'm not even postulating uranium or plutonium here). I'm not saying that the immediate death count would be high but the terror and financial costs would be.

[DanS]

" That's interesting. I wonder if they'd been planning on delaying the anouncment even longer, but said it now to deflect the calls for an independent investigation of the Administration's handling of counter-terrorism. "

You're a cynical bastard, che.

If true, my guess is that the career folks at FBI and CIA would not like to be the domestic political tools in this manner. The likelihood of this seems quite low.

There's a bigger game going on here, in my opinion. But I guess it could be as simple as the press was on the trail of the story and Ashcroft decided to release on his own terms. Tough to know.

Re the challenges in cleaning up Washington, I'm guessing that you are understating them substantially.

[chequita guevara]

I find it ironic that when I'm actually believing that the government could handle something, the people who tradictionally defend it from me are on the other side.

Well, I don't claim to be an expert here, so maybe I'll just shut up, even if it is drawing out better explanations.