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Some of you may have heard that the Bush administration recently made the claim that they learned of details of a plan Al Qaeda was considering attempting to fly a plane into the 89 story "Library building" in LA way back in 2002. While this is an interesting story I think we should take a closer look at the details and understand why the administration is coming out with this now.
Currently the Bush administration is getting hammered by Congress and the Press (even Republican Congressmen and right wing papers) for it's on going illegal wire taps and just about every legal scholar has agreed that the administration's claims that it is just exercising natural Presidential powers (or that the illegal wire taps were some how authorized in the legislation allowing for Iraq to be invaded) just don't hold water. It seems only a matter of time before even our right wing courts will strike it down as illegal so the Bush administration has released this information from 4 years ago in order to remind people about the war on terror and to attempt to get the wire tap story off of the front page. But did Al Qaeda really have this plan, when did the administration learn about it, and did the illegal wire taps actually help in any way?
The administration did not learn about this plan Al Qaeda was milling over in 2002 until 2004 which was years after Al Qaeda rejected the plan as unfeasible. The administration learned about it from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed the "mastermind of 9/11" who was captured by Pakistani security forces in 2004. Khalid has revealed details of it during interrogations so the illegal wire taps had nothing to do with this case. Further more the white house has claimed this was a "foiled terrorist attack" attempting to claim that they some how stopped it from happening. Again the white house's claims don't add up because it was Al Qaeda itself which decided not to go ahead with the plan because they lacked trained pilots. In fact we know of one other Al Qaeda plot which was cancelled due to them not being able to find pilots to fly a plane into a building. Also in 2002 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed proposed hijacking a plan in Bangkok and flying it into a tower in Singapore but this plane was rejected by the Al Qaeda leadership as unfeasible.
NPR has a great article on this case if anyone is interested.
Currently the Bush administration is getting hammered by Congress and the Press (even Republican Congressmen and right wing papers) for it's on going illegal wire taps and just about every legal scholar has agreed that the administration's claims that it is just exercising natural Presidential powers (or that the illegal wire taps were some how authorized in the legislation allowing for Iraq to be invaded) just don't hold water. It seems only a matter of time before even our right wing courts will strike it down as illegal so the Bush administration has released this information from 4 years ago in order to remind people about the war on terror and to attempt to get the wire tap story off of the front page. But did Al Qaeda really have this plan, when did the administration learn about it, and did the illegal wire taps actually help in any way?
The administration did not learn about this plan Al Qaeda was milling over in 2002 until 2004 which was years after Al Qaeda rejected the plan as unfeasible. The administration learned about it from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed the "mastermind of 9/11" who was captured by Pakistani security forces in 2004. Khalid has revealed details of it during interrogations so the illegal wire taps had nothing to do with this case. Further more the white house has claimed this was a "foiled terrorist attack" attempting to claim that they some how stopped it from happening. Again the white house's claims don't add up because it was Al Qaeda itself which decided not to go ahead with the plan because they lacked trained pilots. In fact we know of one other Al Qaeda plot which was cancelled due to them not being able to find pilots to fly a plane into a building. Also in 2002 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed proposed hijacking a plan in Bangkok and flying it into a tower in Singapore but this plane was rejected by the Al Qaeda leadership as unfeasible.
NPR has a great article on this case if anyone is interested.
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