- Outraged intelligence professionals say
President George W. Bush is "cheapening" and "politicizing"
their work with claims the United States foiled a planned terrorist attack
against Los Angeles in 2002.
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- "The President has cheapened the
entire intelligence community by dragging us into his fantasy world,"
says a longtime field operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. "He
is basing this absurd claim on the same discredited informant who told
us Al Qaeda would attack selected financial institutions in New York and
Washington."
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- Within hours of the President's speech
Thursday claiming his administration had prevented a major attack, sources
who said they were current and retired intelligence pros from the CIA,
NSA, FBI and military contacted Capitol Hill Blue with angry comments disputing
the President's remarks.
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- "He's full of shit," said one
sharply-worded email.
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- Although none were willing to allow use
of their names, saying doing so would place them in legal jeopardy, we
were able to confirm that at least four of the 23 who contacted us currently
work, or had worked, within the U.S. intelligence community.
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- But Los Angeles Mayor Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
is willing to go on the record, claiming Bush blind-sided his city with
the claims.
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- "I'm amazed that the president would
make this (announcement) on national TV and not inform us of these details
through the appropriate channels," the mayor says. "I don't expect
a call from the president " but somebody." Villaraigosa also
said he has twice requested meetings with Bush to discuss security issues
for Los Angeles and was turned down both times.
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- Intelligence pros say much of the information
used by Bush in an attempt to justify his increased spying on Americans
by the National Security Agency, trampling of civil rights under the USA
Patriot Act, and massive buildup of the Department of Homeland Security,
now the nation's largest federal bureaucracy, was "worthless intel
that was discarded long ago."
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- "A lot of buzz circulated in the
months following the September 11, 2001, attacks," says an NSA operative.
"Snippets here and there were true but most were just random information
that could never be confirmed. One thing we do know about al Qaeda is that
they seldom use the same technique twice. They tried a car bomb to bring
down the World Trade Center and it failed. Then they went to planes. The
next time will be something different because we,ve geared up to prevent
hijacking planes and using them as flying bombs."
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- In August 2004, just as the Presidential
campaign was about to heat up, the Bush White House raised the terror alert,
claiming attacks were imminent on major financial institutions. The alert,
apparently timed to steal thunder from Democrat John Kerry's nomination
for President, was withdrawn after administration officials admitted it
was based on old information from a discredited informant.
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- The discredited information dated back
to the same period when intelligence agencies began receiving reports of
a planned attack against Los Angeles.
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- Counterterrorism officials say they are
surprised that Bush claimed the plot was "set in motion."
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- "There was no definitive plot. It
never materialized or got past the thought stage," says a senior counterterrorism
official, who has worked at the CIA and the FBI, who talked to Capitol
Hill Blue and the New York Daily News.
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- FBI Deputy Director John Pistole refused
to characterize it as an advanced plot when discussing it in June 2004.
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- Former DHS secretary Tom Ridge admits
the U.S. raised terror alerts for the wrong reasons and now says he often
disagreed with the timing of such alerts but was overruled by the White
House.
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- "More often than not we were the
least inclined to raise it," Ridge says. "Sometimes we disagreed
with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence
was good, you don't necessarily put the country on alert, There were times
when the White House was really aggressive about raising it, and we said,
'For that?' We often lost the argument."
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- Ridge left DHS in February 2005 and Bush
replaced him with Michael Chertoff who agrees with the "cry wolf"
strategy of the White House.
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- "Chertoff is a lackey," says
Kevin Riley, a retired New York City Detective who knew Chertoff during
his days as a U.S. Attorney in New York. "He'll do whatever Bush tells
him to do."
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- Intelligence pros at established Washington
agencies laugh at DHS operatives, calling them "Keystone Kops"
and "overpaid rent-a-cops," saying they lack any real expertise
in dealing with terrorism.
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- "DHS is a political police force,"
says a retired CIA agent. "They exist to enforce the political propaganda
program of George W. Bush. That's all they're good for and they're not
very good at that."
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- © Copyright 2006 by Capitol Hill
Blue
- http://www.capitolhillblue.com/blog/2006/02/intel_
pros_say_bush_is_lying_a.html
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