- GARRISON, NY - The 9/11 commission
report, which was released on July 22, 2004, suggests that the plot's ringleader
had considered crashing a commercial airliner into a nuclear power plant
in the New York area. The report explains that Mohamed Atta, who piloted
one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center, "considered targeting
a nuclear facility he had seen during familiarization flights near New
York." The nuclear plant was not identified, but the report says
the plotters already had agreed to target the World Trade Center. The Journal
News broke the story over the weekend.
-
- Several strong pieces of evidence point to Indian Point.
First, the terrorists had rented planes from Teterboro Airport - in northern
New Jersey about 30 miles from Indian Point - for their reconnaissance
flights. Second, a June 16th 9/11 panel statement noted that the terrorists'
test flights included trips along the Hudson River corridor. Third, the
Indian Point nuclear power plants in northwestern Westchester County are
about 35 miles from midtown Manhattan. Other area nuclear power plants
are more than 100 miles from New York City.
-
- "Located just 35 miles from the world's financial
and media center, with 20 million people living around it, Indian Point
presents an obvious target for future terrorist attacks," said Alex
Matthiessen, executive director of Riverkeeper. "According to the
9/11 Commission's recently released report, Indian Point may already have
been in Al Qaeda's crosshairs. With the Republican convention coming to
New York, this is of particular concern."
-
- According to President Bush and other top security officials,
nuclear plants remain high on the list of possible future terrorist targets.
Compounding concerns about the threat to Indian Point is the fact that
the plant is only a few minutes flying time from several airports that
have been plagued by notoriously checkered security records. Furthermore,
as the 9/11 investigation has revealed, we have a long way to go to improve
our intelligence and military capability to stop future attacks.
-
- When pieced together, various intelligence and media
reports suggest that Indian Point was contemplated as a possible target
for the 9/11 attacks and remains an attractive target today. The following
is a brief list of developments over the past 2 and half years:
-
- · A 9/11 commission panel transcript released
in mid-June revealed that the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed, originally proposed using hijacked planes to strike 10 targets,
including "unidentified nuclear power plants." That same transcript
noted that the terrorists had trained in the Hudson Corridor in preparation
for the 9/11 attacks.
-
- · A reporter for Al-Jazeera, the Arab
news network, said on a "60 Minutes II" broadcast in April 2003
that Mohammed told him in an interview that al-Qaeda's first choice of
a target was nuclear facilities. They were removed from the list for fear
"it might get out of hand," but future attacks were not ruled
out.
-
- · In November 2003, the Department of
Homeland Security advised law enforcement officials that al-Qaeda may be
planning to fly cargo planes from another country into vital U.S. targets,
including nuclear power plants.
-
- · In President Bush's 2002 State of the
Union address, he told the nation that diagrams of American nuclear plants
had been found in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.
-
- EXCERPT FROM FINAL 9/11 REPORT: "Atta also mentioned
that he had considered targeting a nuclear facility he had seen during
familiarization flights near New York - a target the referred to as 'electrical
engineering.'" (P. 245 of 9/11 Commission report) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/911report/documents/911Report_Ch7.pdf
-
- The following excerpt from Staff Statement No. 16 prepared
for the Commission on Terrorist Attacks sheds more light on which plant
Atta may have been referring to:
-
- EXCERPT FROM STAFF STATEMENT NO. 16: "In addition
to the test flights, some of the operatives obtained additional training.
In early June, Jarrah sought to fly the 'Hudson Corridor,' a low altitude
'hallway' along the Hudson River that passed several New York landmarks,
including the World Trade Center." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/17/politics/17ptext.html
|