When I first did an item about the thwarted terrorist hijacking plot six days ago, I received a flurry of emails from regulars encouraging me to be skeptical. Plenty of commenters expressed similar uncertainty, so much so that a far-right blogger compiled a list of your comments, ignored Drum’s law, and did a post about what Carpetbagger commenters had to say.
But I stubbornly believed the reports anyway. Sure, the Bush gang has cried wolf on more than one occasion, but this seemed like an actual wolf. British officials were keeping tight surveillance on actual terrorists. The bad guys were working on an actual plot to use liquid explosives to kill thousands. Never mind those bogus scare tactics; this one was real.
Well, maybe. The story garnered a few question marks over the weekend when Newsweek reported that the suspects didn’t have airline tickets and some didn’t even have passports. British officials wanted to be patient and continue monitoring the suspects to gather more evidence, but the Bush administration insisted that the arrests happen immediately. At an absolute minimum, the Newsweek article suggested that earlier reports about an imminent threat were wrong; there may have been a plot, but an impending crisis this was not.
Fine. But the arrests really did catch a large group of dangerous terrorists, right? Even that’s come under question.
So far, no one has been charged in the alleged terror plot to blow up several airplanes across the Atlantic. No evidence has been produced supporting the contention that such a plot was indeed imminent. Forgive me if my skepticism just ratcheted up a little notch.
Given the circumstances, that seems fair.
How disconcerting is the situation? Andrew Sullivan brings readers’ attention to the conclusions drawn by Craig Murray, Tony Blair’s ambassador to Uzbekistan.
In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.
What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year – like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.
Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes – which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn’t give is the truth …
We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why?
The original story now appears significantly weaker than it did a week ago. Given this, it’s incumbent upon officials to explain whether, and to what extent, this was a serious plot at all. Sullivan asks a) just how many of the suspects had passports; b) how they could perform a dry-run without them; and c) what bomb-making materials these guys actually had.
I wonder if Lieberman’s defeat, the resilience of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the emergence of a Hezbollah-style government in Iraq had any bearing on the decision by Bush and Blair to pre-empt the British police and order this alleged plot disabled.
Just a few years ago, this would have been considered the height of cynicism. Now, given the administration’s stunning record of acting in bad faith, it’s practically irresponsible not to wonder.