White House Has Some Terror Experts Worried

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-terror11aug11.story
White House Has Some Terror Experts Worried
Officials here and overseas say U.S. alerts and release of information could hinder broader investigations.
By Jeffrey Fleishman Times Staff Writer August 11, 2004

BERLIN — Heightened terror alerts and high-profile arrests of suspected Islamic extremists have international security experts and officials concerned that the Bush administration's actions could jeopardize investigations into the Al Qaeda network.

European terrorism analysts acknowledge that the U.S. and its allies are under threat by Al Qaeda, but some suggest that the White House is unnecessarily adding to public anxiety with vague and dated intelligence about possible attacks. Some in Western Europe suspect the administration is using fear to improve its chances in the November election.

Terrorism experts say too much publicity about possible plots and raids of Islamic extremist networks, including the arrest of 13 suspects in Britain last week, could hurt wider investigations. American politicians have called for an examination of that contention. Officials in Pakistan reportedly said Tuesday that Washington's recent disclosure of the arrest of a suspected Al Qaeda operative, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, allowed other extremists under surveillance to disappear.

"It causes a problem. There's no doubt about that," said Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies. "The moment you make any announcement, you tell the other side what you know. As a rule of thumb, you should keep quiet about what you know."

British security officials are angry over recent U.S. revelations of terrorist threats and arrests, said Paul Beaver, an international defense analyst based in London. He said the attitude among some British intelligence officials was that the "Americans have a very strange way of thanking their friends, by revealing names of agents, details of plots and operations."<snip>

We never knew about the Millenium Plot until, what, two years later?

his job, NOT a political tool and weapon. The Clinton team stopped a good number of bona fide "Plots" without once thumping their chests and freaking out the populace afterwards.

from the link:

"Rice said over the weekend that she did not know whether Khan was cooperating with Pakistani authorities, and she said his name had not been disclosed publicly by the administration. The administration has tried to find a middle ground between informing the public and keeping investigations secret, she said."

"We've tried to strike a balance," Rice said. "We think for the most part we've struck a balance, but it's indeed a very difficult balance to strike."

What kind of doublespeak is this?

Is Condi selling used cars on weekends somewhere?

Where is the balance in sequestering ALL Presidential records?

:+

All I see are pretzels.

But how are you going to keep the populace scared and unthinking? People get too comfortable, and they start looking around and asking questions like "Is this really the way we should conduct ourselves? Shouldn't we work with other countries rather than alienating them?"

Once those sorts of things start happening, there's no telling where it might end, and the corrupt Bush administration can't take that chance.

It causes a problem. There's no doubt about that," said Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies. "The moment you make any announcement, you tell the other side what you know. As a rule of thumb, you should keep quiet about what you know."

This is why I'm always suspicious when the Bush administration comes out with these warnings. Whatever happened to not disclosing sources and methods?

These "alerts" are mere political exercises in panic-mongering, and attempts to suck up the oxygen in various news cycles, to the hoped-for advantage of the criminals of the '00 Coup. That is true regardless of whether there is real intelligence serving as the pretext for them or no. It does seem, however, that the people are seeing through the game; the timings are far too clumsy and obvious not to be transparent....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

i agree: this is the most important election in our lifetime


act locally
get out the vote for all open seats

of what has always struck me as weird about these terror warnings: there is never any useful information in them.

They yell "Terror alert! Terror alert! Code Orange! Something might happen somewhere!" and you say "Fine. When? Where? What should we do?" And they say "We don't know. But be alert!"

So our terror alert system is useless for protecting the citizenry, but the terrorists find it useful.

As do certain politicians...

Who will tell our agencies anything if it could end up damaging their own operations? The damage is done.

When will they take responsibility for exposing these incompetent, irresponsible, power-maddened Bushie fools for what they are? There is NO excuse for them to be covering a campaign centered on trivia. The current administration in Washington is a clear and present danger, in any number of ways, to our safety and our system. Constitutionally-protected, free press, do your duty!

terror!!! And: Who benefits??? Look to Halliburton & Carlyle corp. as to WHY bush wants to destroy all clandestine operations who are trying to STOP terrorists from getting WMD's.

:kick::kick::kick:

that Shrubbie McFucknuts is diligently and intentionally doing everything in his power to fuck up all intelligence and the "war on terror".

Count this is as yet one more instance of high treason perpetrated by this miserable three-year-old mentality cockknocking piece of treasonous filth. He should be tried and executed as a traitor to this country for a good five counts of treason, if not more, and incessant and unforgivable violations of his vows as president.

This is not just incompetence - though that plays a large part in many things that this UberFool does - this is deliberate sabotage of America.

likely will stop sharing much information with us. Clearly, they can see what happens. Agents are outed and operations blown for political gain.

Bush and his crowd are now squandering the last barrel of the millions of barrels of good will and cooperation in intelligence that the U.S. was offered after 9/11. First it was Iraq, and now this.

It wouldn't surprise me that if *Bush is re-selected, our intelligence services will on their own in a dangerous world with the keystone cop-like bureaucratic infighters calling the shots.

On edit: prematurely hit the "post" button.

They need each other. Therefore, the "war on terror" cannot be effective. If it was, they'd be out of national security talking points. They'd have nothing but the fraud, lies and failure of the Iraq conquest.

He wants to win the election sooooooooo bad.

He can't kick a duck in the ass unless he stands on a brick, and even then, odds are better than 50/50 he'll miss.

And people say he's effective ?!?!?! WTF ?!?!?


:argh: