Homeland Security Warning

“Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge today raised the terror alert to orange for Hawaii.
Ridge said there have been growing intelligence indications that the Japanese Navy is planning an attack on Pearl Harbor.
Ridge said that there has been increasing "chatter" indicating that the Japanese may plan to bomb the U.S. Pacific fleet at the harbor, thus crippling the United States in the Pacific.
"Make no mistake about it, these are reliable intelligence reports," Ridge said.
Howard Dean, former presidential candidate, said the reports are more than 60 years old.
"The reports may be old, but the threat is real," Ridge said.
President Bush, meanwhile, labeled the Japanese, who have been staunch allies of the United States since the end of World War II, "evildoers."
The president branded the Japanese government as terrorists and threatened to reactivate General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to head up a possible invasion of Japan.
The Pacific Fleet was placed on high alert, and American submarines have begun to hunt and sink Japanese shipping.
Ridge said there was every possibility that the alert level could be raised to red if Japanese warships are detected within striking distance of Pearl Harbor.
In related Homeland Security news, Ridge said the threat level for Charleston, S.C., Harbor has been lowered from red to orange.
"I have been assured by the FBI that there are no Confederate units within striking distance of Fort Sumpter," Ridge said.
It was just last week that the threat level was reduced from orange to yellow for Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts after British Prime Minister Tony Blair assured the White House that the British Army is not marching on those two towns.”

“I saw those damn redcoats downtown last night, they were marching down Independence Ave toward the Capitol. I think the cops with their semi-autos were able to hold off the musket wielding Brits though.”

“"Even though the Pearl Harbor intelligence is 63 years old, there is still justification", said an unnamed administration official!”

“What color was the beacon that Paul Revere saw? Did it blink once red, or twice orange?”

“Treebeard, you have revealed the identity of a CIA agent. You have broken a federal law. Report to Attorney General John A$$wipe.”

“But, but, but, he may make me sings songs in church!”

“Tough luck, Beard Boy!”

“One if by land and two if by water!!

It's a no win. If they raise the elert they are paranoid. If they don't they are neglectful and failures. When we do get hit you guys will be calling for Ridge's head.”

“Homerland Security can do their jobs without fear-mongering.”

“We don't want his head, Nigal. A simple explanation will do...”

“I didn't see any fear-mongering. All I saw was, we have this intelligence be on the lookout. The only people who thought this was fear-mongering are the ones who still check under the bed for monsters before they go to sleep.”

“Oh, Bison. C'mon up here and you may sing a different tune. What time can I expect your train? Just realize that there is a good chance it may be late. And with a little luck, they will cavity search your ass!”

“Uh, those who think its fear-mongering are NOT paranoid.

The fear-mongerers want us to check under the bed.

Ya got it flipped, Bison.

Why didn't Dubya's boys and girls use this three-year-old information THREE FREAKIN' years ago?

I ain't afraid of no ghost!”

“They supposedly only got it recently along with new information last January, so my question is...

"Why didn't Dubya's boys and girls use this three-year-old information EIGHT FREAKING' months ago"?”

“From what I’ve heard the info is years old but new information has shown it to be pertinent again. Maybe they are going back to an old plan or something? I hate to be a link demanding a-hole but…anyone have a link to more info?”

“I wonder if this is a result of the 9/11 report.
Tell of any specific threat to avoid future criticism that "they knew" the building was targeted and never warned the people in the building.

And Geo, yes there were signs before Pearl Harbor, and they were ignored despite the fact that the Japanese had successfully carried out an almost identical attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in 1904. The US Govt put an oil embargo on Japan in June 1941. At that time Japan was almost 100% reliant on the US for oil.
But we had a Democratic President then so it was not his fault.”

“I'd like more info as well...the latest I saw on the boob tube, was the latests info was from January, which begs the question, why now and not then?”

“Reports That Led to Terror Alert Were Years Old, Officials Say


Pre-9/11 Acts Led To Alerts Officials Not Sure Al Qaeda Continued To Spy on Buildings”

“Ridge has made a decision based IN PART on years old intelligence...we know that terrorists planned the World Trade Center YEARS in advance, with updated intel collection just prior to the actual event...

We also knew that terrorists were collecting intel on other targets within the US at the same time without knowing which SPECIFIC facilities these were...UNTIL NOW. With the capture of a lap top computer held by a known Terrorist, we found a list of SPECIFIC targets, each one had been detailed to the extreme indicating that people had been close enough to gain specifics such as constuction specifics, to include types of concrete, reinforcement, security measures in place, and detailed measurements of structural supports....

Now add updated intell that indicated that some of these targets had been reassessed by terrorists as early as this past January, tie it to current intelligence assesments, and make the call...

Any Catholics in here?...ever been smacked by a nun for letting your atttentions wander in class?

The US got smacked because we let our attentions wander... We are not inviting another smack to the head.....

So we inconvienience a few people; if we err, we are erring on the side of caution...I note with interest that the folks doing the whining about the increased security measures are not working or living in the affected target areas....”

“I'm shocked that people can't understand one important point, Yes the information is old, but IT WAS OBTAINED LAST WEEK. Kind of hard to warn people eight months ago when you didn't know at that time that they were still updating their surveillance.

I guess it's just far to easy to concentrate on one part of the picture and ignore the rest when it fits into your agenda to cry foul at every turn.”

“Sorry, but this comes from the Early Bird, so no link is available...

New York Times
August 4, 2004

Signs Of A Threat Were 'Probably As Rich As It's Ever Going To Get'

By David Johnston and Eric Lichtblau

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 - Senior White House officials said Tuesday that the decision to raise the threat level was made at a meeting convened at 4 p.m. on Saturday in the White House Situation Room. Several of the Bush administration's senior counterterrorism officials, who had scattered for the weekend, had to be plugged in by video teleconference monitors.

To two senior White House officials in the meeting, it appeared to be a clear-cut case. It did not occur to these officials as they debated how to go public with the information that had been streaming in about a heightened terrorist threat, they said, that in the coming days the decision would stir confusion and skepticism because much of the intelligence appeared to be three or more years old.

"I've never seen so much pointing in the same direction," one of the senior officials said, referring to the intelligence that prompted the heightened alert. "You think, this is probably as rich as it's ever going to get. I can tell you, if you don't warn now, I don't know when you would."

The intelligence reports received at C.I.A. headquarters and relayed to the White House, the officials said, were increasingly ominous. Much of the information was sent directly to top officials from John McLaughlin, the acting C.I.A. director, who spoke with Frances Fragos Townsend, President Bush's domestic security adviser; via a secure telephone line, he could instantly reach her with the press of a single button.

On Sunday at 2 p.m. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced the decision to raise the threat level. Senior administration officials said the action was not driven by election-year considerations, but by intelligence reports that described an orchestrated surveillance operation at several large financial institutions.

It is now apparent that the information had significant gaps and omissions. It was not clear, for example, who was behind the scouting missions, whether these unidentified suspects were still in the United States or even whether their reconnaissance operations, many of which were conducted three or four years ago, represented an aborted plan or were an early warning sign of an active plot.

The new threat information seemed to come at an awkward time for Mr. Bush, who has anchored his re-election campaign on his handling of terrorism, but is still on the defensive because of criticism by the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. Before the hijackings, the commission concluded, the White House reacted too slowly to the reports of a possible terrorist strike. Since the final report on July 22, commission members had been urging the White House to move more swiftly to implement their recommendations.

Moreover, the color-coded threat level has proven to be a cumbersome tool for alerting the public to threats of terrorist attack. On July 7, for example, when Mr. Ridge announced that Al Qaeda was hoping to "disrupt our democratic process," with an attack this year, some politicians privately complained that he might be only spreading fear because he did not change the threat level.

After Sunday's decision to raise the threat level, a few law enforcement and intelligence officials said the intelligence, at least that had been known at the time the decision was made, seemed to be dated, most of it going back to 2000 and 2001. The information was important and worrisome, they said, but it seemed too out of date, too much like previously known intelligence about Al Qaeda's surveillance methods to be a persuasive indicator of an impending attack.

But in the highest circles of the administration, the new information was frightening.

The Warnings

On Friday morning, the intelligence briefing that awaited Ms. Townsend at her White House office seemed alarming, two senior White House officials said. There were two disturbing developments: information being gleaned from a computer hard drive recently seized in Pakistan suggested that Al Qaeda had studied specific sites in New York and Washington. Another stream of intelligence information pointed to the possibility of a current threat to attack New York.

"We know very early on Friday morning we've got an issue, a very serious, live issue," said one of the officials, who asked to remain unidentified because of the information being discussed.

A senior terrorism official at F.B.I. headquarters telephoned Pasquale J. D'Amuro, the head of the F.B.I. office in New York, on a secure telephone line. Within an hour Mr. D'Amuro was meeting with the New York police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly.

At about the same time, Mr. Bush who was aboard Air Force One, flying from Washington to Missouri for a campaign appearance, was told the same information. He called Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser.

"It was unmistakable that the threat stream seemed very much to zero in on New York," one of the officials said. "If Friday was not a New York day in the counterterrorism world, nothing was going to be."

Domestic security and law-enforcement officials began receiving word about the new information early Friday, and it set off a frantic round of meetings. "Everyone thought from the beginning this was the real deal," said an administration official who was involved in the deliberations.

Going Into High Gear

The focus on New York led the White House to take an unusual step: it invited Mr. Kelly to join the administration's discussions. With Mr. McLaughlin's agreement, Mr. Kelly was given all the C.I.A.'s intelligence and, even more unusually, he was given a voice in the discussions over possible law-enforcement responses and how and when to make public the information about the apparent threat.

Over the next two days, Mr. Bush received periodic updates as he campaigned in the Midwest, either directly from Ms. Rice and Ms. Townsend, or from Robert Blackwill, a national security aide who was traveling with him. He gave no public hint of the urgent discussion under way.

At the White House, Mr. Bush's national security team was going into high gear, the two senior officials said. Top-level officials met twice during the day. And throughout the day, Mr. McLaughlin, the acting C.I.A. director, was calling Ms. Townsend with updates about what was being gleaned from the computer drive.

By Saturday, Mr. McLaughlin was calling Ms. Townsend every 30 or 40 minutes, reading to her from the detailed reports recovered from the computer, the officials said. At one point, an official at the White House asked Mr. McLaughlin if the documents recovered from the computer had dates on them. He replied that many did not, but that some appeared to have been put together before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The dated nature of the reports did not alter the thinking of either the analysts or the counterterrorism officials who read their reports or senior policy makers at the White House, even though by Monday some expressed doubt about the urgency of reports three or four years old.

A senior White House official said the dating of the intelligence did not matter because it seemed to fit in with other information suggesting that Al Qaeda intended to strike inside the United States as a way of disrupting the November election.

"What matters is that they've done the casing reports and they were done by people whose computers are associated with people who you believe are part of plot lines associated with the pre-election threat," the official said. "Then you say to yourself, Well, my goodness, they've already got the work done. These are people who are talking about making attacks in the pre-election threat. It doesn't matter if the casing reports were done five years before."

At the C.I.A., teams of analysts and forensic experts initially estimated that the computer drive might contain as many as 10 complete reports about potential target buildings. By Saturday, it became clear that the number was around 5. Even so, they were stunned at the level of detail and the fact that the reports were written in perfect English, raising the prospect that operatives had been working in the United States.

"Now, they could be gone," one of the senior officials said. "They could still be here."

Decision Time

The analysts findings were considered so serious that officials convened a 7 a.m. meeting of high-level officials on Saturday. Some urged a cautious approach to dealing with the threat information. There was talk of waiting until the markets opened on Monday before taking any action like raising the threat level, said a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security.

But a second stream of intelligence information apparently reviewed late Friday ratcheted up the level of concern. That information referred to threats against financial centers in both New York City and Washington, and it prompted domestic security officials to let city officials in Washington know on Saturday about the new concerns.

"When you saw the level of specificity and detail in the intelligence, there was certainly a sense of urgency," the domestic security official said.

Officials involved in the discussion said there was intense debate on Saturday about how the decision to elevate the threat level would affect the New York and Washington economies and the public psyche in general, as well as whether the intelligence was credible enough to justify such a move.

"All of those things were debated at length," said an administration official involved in the process. "This was not a decision that was made lightly. There was White House involvement and there was involvement among many different federal agencies and in the end it was certainly joint decision."”

“...I'll buy into the concept of the fact that al qaeda does their homework in advance and that the alerts may have some merit. However, I still would like to see homeland security cough up some more dollars, as long as we have (once again) proved that the city of New York is a prime target and should be given a bit more attention monetarily than it has gotten. White House spokesman, Ken Lisaius acknowledges that Bush feels the homeland security funding should not be used as 'revenue sharing' among the 50 states. Evolving the process, you have to look at threat assessments, population concentration and critical infrastructure. Though New York has been targeted six times since the 1993 bombing of the WTC, NY State ranks 49th among the 50 states in per capita HS funding. The Urban Area Security Grants meant to target high risk areas, have dwindled from 150 million to 47 million since more cities were added to the program. New York City spends 200 million dollars in police overtime costs alone in response to terrorism threats...

The quotes came from Michael Clancy, AM New York staff writer..”

“If Tom Ridge hadn't said at the news conference:

"But we must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror..."

before saying:
"We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security"

I'd feel a lot less skeptical about the motivations.

By now I feel like an abused spouse. I just can’t believe a word this administration says. That makes us less safe, don’t you think?”

“The thing that I find funny is how everyone seems to fear that a security alert somehow sucks up all the media attention. So why the political move of raising the alert? To draw attention away from the dnc convention? Has it? No. I’m not sure I’m understanding the reasons why they would raise the alert? What good will it do?”

“The only people who thought this was fear-mongering are the ones who still check under the bed for monsters before they go to sleep."
Bison
09:07:41 AM
08/04/04

You mean republicans.”

“Why raising the alert will boost the economy. Especially in NY & DC. The local police forces wheren't doing much of anything anyway.

Which will end first: Occupation of AmerIraq or the Code Whatever color?”

“Memo to self: neocons have no sense of humor!”

“Oh it was funny geo. I just want to get the information behind the joke. There's a little truth behind every joke. I wasn't offended. Hell I can laugh at conservatives too.”

“"And Geo, yes there were signs before Pearl Harbor, and they were ignored despite the fact that the Japanese had successfully carried out an almost identical attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in 1904. The US Govt put an oil embargo on Japan in June 1941. At that time Japan was almost 100% reliant on the US for oil.
But we had a Democratic President then so it was not his fault."
manuka

Is it just me or does anyone else see the GLARING BULLCRAP here?

Orville and Wilbur first flew in 1903.

Either manuka is yankin' some serious crank, or maybe smokin' some serious crack, or the Japanese developed naval carrier warfare within ONE FREAKIN' YEAR of the first powered flight.”

“In all fairness maybe manuka got his historical event crossed up.

The British Navy destroyed much of the Italian fleet in some port or other in 1940(?).

They used carrier-based torpedo planes in a surprise attack.

manuka, quit pickin' on FDR.
That man at least know how to fight and win a war.

How many Rapublican presidents have actually won a major war?

And please don't count minor pissin' matches.”

“Abraham Lincoln”

“I don't think beeotch slappin a bunch of rebel states constitutes "a major war".



(Bmag ducks under his desk)







I'm keeding! I'm keeding!”

“I was going to add Bill McKinley, but I nearly busted a gut laughing. The Spanish fleet in those days had targets pained on the sides of the ships and signs reading, "Hit it here and win a steak!"”

“pained = painted

Damn t dropped out and went AWOL!”

“Geeez, LOL

You're going to have to change your handle to 'bitchslapmagnet'!”

“1904 - Japanese attacked Russian fleet in port, at anchor without a prior declaration of war.

Catching the fleet by surprise.

The scenario of a Japanese attack on American fleets at either the Phillipines or Pearl harbor was a standard test question for US Naval officers from that date forward.

Perhaps before you yell Bullcrap in caps MarkO you might take 5 or 6 seconds to do a google check on japan naval, or 1904 port arthur, or japan russia navy, or almost anything along those lines to check the facts. It is really not that difficult.

But no! not MarkO, BTW the japanese used torpedos for that attack, just not launched from air.”

“I wonder if I could get a job as US Capitol Policeperson? I noticed they got a lot of attention from the hotties at the bars downtown.”

“Ya got me, Geo.

I was aware of the 1904 Japanese defeat of the Russians.

But you did make it sound like they nailed the Russians with naval aviation.
I believe you said, "....almost identical...".
The only similarity is that it was a surprise attack.


Enough already, bearmagnet!
Go and get some!”

“Don't eat the fish from your lakes! They are contaminated with mercury!”

“Fish is good for you. Eat fish.”

“What about Fish from bays?”

“I thought Pearl Harbor was all Clinton's fault.”

“Actually, that all depends if ya got a coal mine smack dab on the edge of a bay, or some big company who packed up and left for China that left a mess. And, it also depends on if the commercial fisherman haven't already fished the bay out (kinda like Chesapeake Bay).”

“I read somewhere that the japanese learned to use wooden fins on thier torpedoes from the Russian attack due to the shallow depth of water, allowing more torpedo damage at Pearl.”

“You may have seen that in the blockbuster smash hit, Pearl Harbor starring Ben Afflick.

In a scene, the Japanesse are seen planning the attack. They reference that by placing wooden fins on their torpedos, they can use them in the shallow waters.”

“How about fish from the Po-Toe-Mack?”

“Hey, if you want to take the change of turning yourself into a human thermometer, go right ahead!”

“Don't know about that but the Japanese torpedos certainly had a much greater range than US early in the war.

US cruisers at Guadalcanal ignored fired torpedos thinking they were out of range.

US MK15 6,000 yds at 45knots
15,000 yds at 26kts

Jap 93 20,000 yds at 48kts
40,000 yds at 36 knots

Ouch”

“ouch is right! Did you happen to catch the finding and raising of the sub that was sunk at Pearl, the first shot of the war by the US? A distant cousin of mine was on that boat (USS Ward).”

“I saw that on Deep Sea Detectives.....very cool!”