Bush tells more about al Qaeda L.A. terror plot
Aides say timing not related to Senate hearing on wiretaps
- Peter Baker, Dan Eggen, Washington Post
Friday, February 10, 2006
Washington -- President Bush, under pressure from Congress, defended his campaign against terrorism Thursday, offering for the first time a vivid account of a foiled al Qaeda plot to strike the United States after Sept. 11, 2001, by crashing a hijacked commercial airliner into a Los Angeles skyscraper.
Bush said four Southeast Asians who met with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in October 2001 were taught how to use shoe bombs to blow open a cockpit door and steer a plane into the Library Tower (now called the U.S. Bank Tower), the tallest building on the West Coast. Asian authorities captured the four before they could execute the plan, he said.
Declaring that "America remains at risk," Bush cited the episode as an example of international cooperation against terrorism and argued against complacency. "We cannot let the fact that America hasn't been attacked in 4 1/2 years since September 11, 2001, lull us into the illusion that the threats to our nation have disappeared. They have not," he said.
The reported West Coast plot has been disclosed before but never in as much detail. The president made his speech on the same day as a Senate hearing into the Bush-ordered warrantless surveillance of telephone calls and e-mail by Americans and their contacts overseas, but aides said his comments were not related to the dispute over the program.
White House officials, who were unwilling to publicly describe details of the alleged plot as recently as last fall, said they decided in the last three weeks to declassify it so Bush could have an example to provide publicly.
But several U.S. intelligence officials downplayed the relative importance of the alleged plot and attributed the timing of Bush's speech to politics. The officials, who declined to be identified because they did not want to criticize the White House publicly, said there is deep disagreement within the intelligence community over the seriousness of the scheme and whether it was ever much more than talk.
One intelligence official said nothing had changed to precipitate the release of more information on the case. The official attributed the move to the administration's desire to justify its efforts in the face of criticism of the surveillance, which had no connection to the incident.
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist who heads the Washington office of Rand Corp., said Bush's account adds some interesting detail to the Library Tower episode. But he said it still leaves key questions unanswered about the case and its significance.
"It doesn't really give us any more indication of whether this was a plot that was derailed or pre-empted, or a plot that was more in the realm of an idle daydream," Hoffman said.
Bush first alluded to the incident in a speech in October when he said the United States and its allies had thwarted 10 serious al Qaeda attacks since Sept. 11. A White House list released at the time referred to a plot to fly a hijacked plane into an unspecified West Coast city in 2002. Citing unnamed sources, news organizations reported that the target was the Library Tower and the plot's author was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003.
Mohammed's original plan for Sept. 11, as presented to bin Laden in 1998 or 1999, called for hijacking 10 jetliners on both coasts, according to interrogations of Mohammed cited by the commission that investigated the attacks. U.S. officials concluded that bin Laden instructed Mohammed to initially focus on the East Coast because it was too difficult to recruit enough operatives to seize 10 planes. After the Twin Towers were knocked down, Mohammed set about putting his West Coast plan in motion.
Speaking Thursday at the National Guard Memorial Building, Bush offered a fuller version of what ensued, and the White House later provided a briefing to elaborate. In this account, Mohammed deputized Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, head of the affiliated Southeast Asian group, Jemaah Islamiya, to set up a West Coast attack, and they put together a four-man cell. Asians were chosen, Bush said, on the theory that they would draw less suspicion.
The four Asians traveled to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden in October 2001 just as U.S. forces were hunting al Qaeda, officials said. After swearing loyalty to the al Qaeda leader, the four returned to Asia to train in using shoe bombs like those later found on Richard Reid, who was convicted of trying to blow up an airliner in December 2001.
But the cell leader was captured in a Southeast Asian country in February 2002, and the three others were later detained as well. Officials said four Asian nations were involved but would not identify them.
In his remarks, Bush referred to the West Coast target as "the Liberty Tower," but White House officials said he had meant to say Library Tower. The building, completed in 1989, is 1,018 feet tall and was destroyed by alien invaders in the 1996 movie "Independence Day."
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday he was blindsided by Bush's announcement of new details about a purported 2002 plot.
"I'm amazed that the president would make this (announcement) on national TV and not inform us of these details through the appropriate channels," he said. "I don't expect a call from the president -- but somebody."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Los Angeles officials were told Wednesday about the president's planned remarks.
"And the word I heard was that there was great appreciation for the notification that we provided," McClellan said.
Workers at the Los Angeles office tower shrugged Thursday at the plot details. Kyle West, a computer technician working for a law firm in the skyscraper, was adamant that the revelations would not alter his activities.
Attorney Mike Romey described the news as a nonevent.
"I'm not uncomfortable and I'm not changing anything," said Romey. "There are too many other things to worry about."
Chronicle staff writer James Sterngold and the New York Times contributed to this report.
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