The last we heard about the UK terrorist plot to hijack 10 U.S.-bound planes, the story was looking a little shaky. The suspects didn’t have the experience needed to carry out a plot, nor did they have materials or training.
The Bush administration pushed the British to move before they wanted to; James Galbraith noted that no bombs, chemicals, equipment, or testing ground have been found; and Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, believes this story is far less than it appears to be. Worse, we learned that many of the alleged terrorists wouldn’t even face serious criminal charges.
The New York Times shed some additional light on the story this week, with plenty of previously undisclosed details. British officials apparently obtained incriminating evidence against some of the suspects — including seven martyrdom videos made by six suspects, a will of a would-be bomber, and receipts of Western Union money transfers — but reports of an imminent attack were wrong.
Despite the charges, officials said they were still unsure of one critical question: whether any of the suspects was technically capable of assembling and detonating liquid explosives while airborne.
A chemist involved in that part of the inquiry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was sworn to confidentiality, said HMTD, which can be prepared by combining hydrogen peroxide with other chemicals, “in theory is dangerous,” but whether the suspects “had the brights to pull it off remains to be seen.”
While officials and experts familiar with the case say the investigation points to a serious and determined group of plotters, they add that questions about the immediacy and difficulty of the suspected bombing plot cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the public statements made at the time.
“In retrospect,” said Michael A. Sheehan, the former deputy commissioner of counterterrorism in the New York Police Department, “there may have been too much hyperventilating going on.”
You don’t say.
Speaking of hyperventilating:
While the arrests were unfolding, the Home Office raised Britain’s terror alert level to “critical,” as the police continued their raids of suspects’ homes and cars. All liquids were banned from carry-on bags, and some public officials in Britain and the United States said an attack appeared to be imminent. In addition to Mr. Stephenson’s remark that the attack would have been “mass murder on an unimaginable scale,” Mr. Reid said that attacks were “highly likely” and predicted that the loss of life would have been on an “unprecedented scale.”
Two weeks later, senior officials here characterized the remarks as unfortunate.
I particularly enjoyed Swopa response: “They certainly were unfortunate, especially for anyone trying to maintain the illusion that our government is sincerely trying to protect us from terrorism — as opposed to running around like a bunch of panicked Chicken Littles who don’t understand the science of what they’re investigating, and trying to hype every implausible threat for political gain.”
Post Script: By the way, wondering why this report from yesterday’s NYT is just now making the rounds today? Apparently there’s some odd quirk in British law that allowed the Times to run the story in their print edition, but not the online version.