The botched, bungled mis-named "war on terrorism" is
not the strength of the Bush abomination, it is the
SHAME of the Bush abomination...Are you safer today
than you were four years ago? No.
Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times: 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.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-terror11aug11.story
August 11, 2004 E-mail story Print
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
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."
Along with such criticism, the administration faces
questions at home about how it handles terrorism
investigations and alerts. It insists it hasn't used
the alerts to further Bush's political campaign, but
some Democrats disagree.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked the White
House, in a letter to national security advisor
Condoleezza Rice, to explain how Khan's name was made
public and whether the disclosure had jeopardized any
investigations.
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."
Several senior U.S. counterterrorism officials have
expressed concern in the last week about the amount of
information leaking out, saying it has begun to have a
direct and negative effect on efforts to round up
suspects and gain insight into any conspirators.
"It is really hurting our efforts in a very
demonstrable way," said one official, who declined to
elaborate.
Larry Johnson, a former senior counterterrorism
official at the State Department and CIA, said Tuesday
that the leaks were part of a pattern in which the
administration had undercut its own efforts to fight
terrorism by divulging details when doing so was
deemed politically advantageous.
The administration "has a dismal track record in
protecting these secrets," said Johnson, deputy
director of the State Department's Office of
Counterterrorism from 1989 to 1993.
"We have now learned, thanks to White House leaks,
that the Al Qaeda operative was being used to help
authorities around the world locate and apprehend
other Al Qaeda terrorists," Johnson said, citing
reports that the disclosures "enabled other Al Qaeda
operatives to escape."
"Protecting secrets and sources is serious business,"
he added. "Regrettably, the Bush administration
appears to be putting more emphasis on politicizing
intelligence and the war on terror. That approach
threatens our national security, in my judgment."
Officials in Western Europe are reluctant to speak
even off the record on intelligence matters. Most
governments here are more circumspect in announcing
possible terrorist threats and are concerned that
Washington is acting too quickly on intelligence that
has not been thoroughly analyzed. Germany, France and
Britain have not raised their terror alerts during the
August vacation season.
"The Code Orange disaster in the U.S. last week was
quickly followed by raids in Pakistan and arrests in
Britain, which all help the Bush administration show
there is a global terrorist network," said Kai
Hirschmann, deputy director of the Institute for
Terrorism Research in Essen, Germany. "But I think
there's a bit of politics behind it.
"What makes it complex is that we know there are
dangers out there, and that makes it difficult to tell
fact from fiction," he said. "With all this media
attention, one has to wonder what else is at work."
But other countries, such as Italy, one of the closest
U.S. allies on Iraq, have followed Washington's lead.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government has
issued numerous terrorist warnings. Thousands of extra
Italian police have been deployed after threats on an
Islamic website said terrorists would strike if Rome
did not withdraw its troops from Iraq by Aug. 15.
Europeans discovered in March that terrorists like to
attack at symbolic times: The Madrid train bombings
that killed 191 people sent a shudder through the
continent just days before Spanish elections. But
skepticism toward Washington means many in Europe are
wondering if the threats recently reported in the U.S.
are genuine or political spin.
In Britain, the recent raids followed last month's
seizure in Pakistan of computer files belonging to
Khan. The disclosure of his arrest and identity
allowed some Al Qaeda suspects under Pakistani
surveillance to slip away, officials told Associated
Press in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
The files also led to Britain's arrest of Abu Eisa al
Hindi, who U.S. authorities allege was enlisted by
Khan to spy on financial institutions in New York and
Washington. Hindi had been under observation by
British security officials for months. There were
indications that the British government, forced to act
after Washington's disclosures about Khan's files,
felt stung by the exposure of his sudden arrest.
"It looks as though there has been some irritation at
fairly high levels in both Pakistan and Britain" over
U.S. revelations, said Timothy Garden, a security
analyst at the Royal Institute of International
Affairs.
British Home Secretary David Blunkett, echoing
concerns raised by U.S. lawmakers about identifying
suspects, said he would not divulge intelligence to
"feed the news frenzy." The British government, he
added, does not want to "undermine in any way our
sources of information or share information which
could place investigations in jeopardy…. We don't want
to do or say anything that would prejudice any trial."
The U.S. has been less forthcoming with intelligence
when it comes to Germany's attempts to prosecute
suspected terrorists. It is refusing to allow alleged
Al Qaeda operatives in its custody to testify at a
retrial of a suspected extremist that began Tuesday in
Hamburg. Saying it would harm ongoing intelligence
gathering, the U.S. is denying the court access to
Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
In a letter this week to German authorities, the State
Department said it would provide only unclassified
summaries of interrogations with certain suspects. The
decision, German prosecutors say, jeopardizes the case
against Mounir Motassadeq, a Moroccan accused of
having links to the Sept. 11 hijackers. A second
Moroccan in Germany was acquitted this year on similar
charges after a judge found he could not get a fair
trial without access to Binalshibh or his
interrogation transcripts.
The Bush administration is "creating an overall
tension that has both tactics and politics around it,"
Hirschmann said. "When I hear things about concrete
targets such as airports and stock exchanges, I am
less worried something will happen there. You don't
publicize things. You don't communicate what you know
through the media."
In Italy, terrorist alerts have created an atmosphere
similar to that in the U.S. The Berlusconi government
and the Italian media have heavily reported threats
made by militant groups to attack the country unless
Rome withdraws from Iraq.
In a front-page editorial last week, La Repubblica
said Italy was in a "poisoned climate." It said the
threats had "to be weighed carefully. It would be
irresponsible to ignore them, but it would also [be
wrong] to exaggerate them to create panic and … a
psychological war."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writers Janet Stobart in London, Maria De
Cristofaro in Rome and Josh Meyer in Washington
contributed to this report.
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