{"id":1839,"date":"2004-05-27T09:49:53","date_gmt":"2004-05-27T14:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1839.html"},"modified":"2004-05-27T09:49:53","modified_gmt":"2004-05-27T14:49:53","slug":"ashcrofts-warning-raises-concern-and-a-few-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/ashcrofts-warning-raises-concern-and-a-few-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashcroft’s warning raises concern — and a few questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

To hear John Ashcroft tell it<\/a>, a new terrorist threat is credible, real, and serious.<\/p>\n

“Credible intelligence from multiple sources indicates that al Qaeda plans to attempt an attack on the United States in the next few months,” Ashcroft said. “This disturbing intelligence indicates al Qaeda’s specific intention to hit the United States hard.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Got it. This isn’t just some rumor; U.S. intelligence knows who’s planning an attack (al Queda), where the terrorists are focusing (domestic U.S.), and a general sense of when (the “next few months”). Moreover, intelligence isn’t just from one informant; it’s from “multiple sources” and has been “corroborated at a variety of levels.”<\/p>\n

What’s worse, Ashcroft and the FBI insisted that preparations for a U.S. attack are 70 percent to 90 percent complete. In other words, the threat is practically imminent<\/i> — the terrorists are almost ready to strike.<\/p>\n

As serious as the danger sounds, there are good reasons for lingering skepticism. In fact, I have a few questions for Mr. Ashcroft, if he happens to be reading.
\n
\n* Why on earth hasn’t the terrorist “threat advisory” been raised from yellow to orange<\/i>? According to the DHS chart<\/a>, orange represents a high risk of terrorist attacks. The attorney general just told us that a dangerous terrorist network is almost done planning an attack on our country, which could come in the next few months. Doesn’t this represent a “high” risk? If not, what would constitute a high risk?<\/p>\n

* What prompted yesterday’s announcement<\/i>? An unnamed administration official told the New York Times<\/a>, “There’s no real new intelligence, and a lot of this has been out there already.” This doesn’t exactly diminish suspicions about Ashcroft’s political motivations.<\/p>\n

* Why isn’t the Department of Homeland Security on the same page<\/i>? Not only was Tom Ridge not at yesterday’s press conference, Ashcroft admitted<\/a> that neither he nor Robert Mueller had met with Ridge to discuss the latest intelligence. Huh? The federal government has “credible” intelligence from “multiple” sources about an imminent al Queda attack plan and the attorney general hasn’t talked about it with the head of homeland security? Why the hell not?<\/p>\n

There’s another reason to believe there’s some disconnect here. Just 48 hours ago, officials at the Department of Homeland Security said they had no new intelligence<\/a> pointing to the threat of an attack. That doesn’t exactly match Ashcroft’s rhetoric from yesterday.<\/p>\n

This doesn’t add up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To hear John Ashcroft tell it, a new terrorist threat is credible, real, and serious. “Credible intelligence from multiple sources indicates that al Qaeda plans to attempt an attack on the United States in the next few months,” Ashcroft said. “This disturbing intelligence indicates al Qaeda’s specific intention to hit the United States hard.” Got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}