Go to war

An article in the Washington post indicates:

The Pentagon's closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials. ...Insiders have dubbed the options "Go Big," "Go Long" and "Go Home.

How about "Go to War"? Isn't it significant that the Pentagon, the agency of government charged with planning wars, is completely incapable of considering the most logical thing of all -- attack the sources of the insurgency in Iraq -- Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia.

I mean, bad enough that the woosy weasels in the State Department consider it unthinkable, but we're talking a so-called warriors undertaking a simple consideration of *alternatives*, and they left out the most important, most obvious alternative of all: wage war against the enemy. I mean, not even a real attack, just item 4 in a list.

And even more pathetic -- their idea of "go 'big'" (quotes mine) is to do more of the same that's obviously working so well so far. (I call this the "Jump the Snake River Canyon on a Moped" option.)

This is what happens when you have generals and admirals who get advanced degrees in international relations. They don't even want to put war on the table cause some damn fool might actually consider it viable. No surprise that's the perspective they bring to battle planning.

We used to have a Department of War in the last war we won -- WWII. (Does anybody really consider Grenada or Panama "wars"?) Then it was renamed the Department of Defense and we had Korea, Vietnam, etc. But what we now have is a defacto Department of Peace, filled with Ivy league educated war-wooses (how do you spell that? let's be descriptive -- sissies) who jet around the globe, like statesmen, meeting world leaders (seriously), and then sit around, hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" before planning how to "win the peace" (authentic DOD term) with humanitarian missions, food drops for starving enemies, psychological counseling for enemy civilians exposed to our barbarity, and all manner of other idiot activities our military now engages in.

Ever see the satire "Demolition Man" about a future world filled with a risk-averse, pacified, namby-pamby population of pacifist pusillanimous puerile pissant people who get killed en masse when a single ruthless bad guy from the previous century is let loose? We're living it. Be well. (That's the universal greeting of these pussycats.)

Ahmadnutjob and Iranian objectives

I ran across a little background on the leader of Iran:

"The Iranian leadership, particularly Ahmadinejad, welcome the apocalyptic vision of the return of the hidden Imam. And all the strains of Islam believe in the eventual return of the Mahdi, also known as the twelfth Imam, or the Shiite messiah. After a period of great destruction, once the forces of evil are defeated, the so-called twelfth Imam is supposed to reign over a period of great prosperity."

"When Ahmadinejad was mayor of Tehran, he set up an urban renewal program that would make it easier to facilitate the Mahdi's return. He created passageways and roadways that would allow the Mahdi to return triumphantly." ...

Which places him squarely in the "certifiable" category, if you didn't already know it.

"Ahmadinejad was called the man of a thousand bullets. Because he would give the last bullet for someone who has been tortured, and primarily executed by firing squad. Ahmadinejad's role was to put the last bullet in, in case the person was still squirming. After a thousand people had been killed, supposedly he said, he had it with that particular job," Tanter said.

I knew he was brutal (one of those who took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and beat / interrogated prisoners), but this is considerably worse than I suspected, if true.

"There is a link between Iran's nuclear weapons program on one hand, and its ideology of trying to facilitate a cataclysmic event to hasten the return of the Mahdi. As a result, no conceivable positive or negative incentives will influence the leadership of the clerics and the revolutionary guards from acquiring nuclear weapons. They need nuclear weapons in order to facilitate the ideological precepts of the return of the Mahdi," said Tanter.

That they want nukes to simply project power is bad enough, but if this is true (there's probably much more than a grain of it here) is so much worse -- it would clearly signal the intent to initiate a nuclear war, starting with Israel. And a little logic will show that with they likely would try to ignite a worldwide armageddon at the same time, or that Mahdi feller might not show up.

The question our intel services should be asking is, "how?" I would guess a nutjob like Ahmadinejad would, at the least, want at least three to five nukes to do this. At least 2 for Israel, and two for the U.S., maybe plant one in Europe for good measure, and would be encouraging allies of his to be prepared to initiate a multi-front war. North Korea, of course -- they're just as nutty.

Would China go for Taiwan? I kind of doubt it, but I don't understand their leadership well enough. (You of course have read about the Chinese sub that got in attack range of a carrier battle group this week? Or might not have read about the substantial increases in Chinese missiles and other forces built up on the coast facing Taiwan the last few years? Etc.)

There's all sorts of ways it can be played, and, they play it well. (It's a dead certainty that they have many agents in the U.S. ready to act if war breaks out. In that event I'll hold off on flying for a little while.)

Slaveryin Colorado

Followup on a story I've kept you all apprised on:

"A [Saudi] man convicted of sexually assaulting an Indonesian housekeeper and keeping her virtually as a slave was sentenced Thursday to 27 years to life in prison."

Well, I'm surprised. That the State Department didn't step in to get him released before sentencing. But wait. I bet they will make a request. GUARANTEED. (Remember, you heard it here, first.)

"Al-Turki said he treated the woman the same way any observant Muslim family
would treat a daughter. ''Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I
cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit,'' he
told the judge. ''The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors.
Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the
prosecution.''"

You got that? He's not apologizing for keeping her as a slave and sexually abusing her... Cause it is "traditional Muslim behavior". Well, on that I can agree. Let's give him a traditional Muslim punishment to compensate. BTW, note that his wife wants to return to Saudi Arabia.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Slavery-Charges.html
Man Gets 27 Years in Colo. Slavery Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 31, 2006
Filed at 3:50 p.m. ET

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) -- A man convicted of sexually assaulting an Indonesian housekeeper and keeping her virtually as a slave was sentenced Thursday to 27 years to life in prison.

Homaidan Al-Turki, 37, denied the charges and blamed anti-Muslim prejudice for the case against him. He said prosecutors persuaded the housekeeper to accuse him after they failed to build a case that he was a terrorist.

Al-Turki, a citizen of Saudi Arabia who lived in the Denver suburb of Aurora, was convicted June 30 of unlawful sexual contact by use of force, theft and extortion, all felonies, and misdemeanor counts of false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.

Defense attorney John Richilano said he would appeal the convictions.
Prosecutors and FBI agents said Al-Turki and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, brought the now 24-year-old woman to Colorado to care for their five children and to cook and clean for the family. An affidavit said she spent four years with the family, sleeping on a mattress on the basement floor and getting paid less than $2 a day.

Al-Turki said he treated the woman the same way any observant Muslim family would treat a daughter.

''Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit,'' he told the judge. ''The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution.''

Al-Turki said he has been under investigation as a suspected terrorist since 1995 but has never been charged with the crime.

''I am not a terrorist and I don't advocate terrorism,'' he said.

Prosecutors denied Al-Turki was targeted because he was Muslim or that the woman's allegations were trumped up. Prosecutor Natalie Decker said the evidence was overwhelming.

The Associated Press is not identifying the woman because of the sexual nature of the charges.

Al-Turki, a linguist who worked at a Denver publishing and translating company, also faces trial in federal court in October on charges of forced labor, document servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant.

In April, he and Khonaizan agreed to pay the nanny about $64,000 in wages to settle a Labor Department lawsuit. He could also face restitution payments in the state case. The judge said he would rule on that later.

Khonaizan pleaded guilty to a federal immigration charge and a state theft charge. She was sentenced to home detention and probation in the federal case and two months in jail in the state case. Her attorney, Forrest Lewis, has said she wants to return to Saudi Arabia and will not fight deportation.

Springtime in Saudiland

"He said they were released after investigations showed they were not involved
in any criminal acts based on Saudi laws."

Well, I mean, yeah. But then, Saudi law permits (more or less), wife beatings, beatings for religious violations, locking up school girls to be burned to death if they don't wear their headscarves when escaping a fire, public mutilation for minor crimes (what's a hand or two?), beheadings for somewhat more brazen crimes, 'honor' killings if a Saudi dad perceives his daughter does something wrong (just drag her out in the desert -- no need to bother the neighbors), slavery, pedophilia, castration of slaves, killing of infidels, miscellaneous acts of terrorism, up to and including hijacking airliners and ramming them into buildings. And genocide, if you're Israeli.

But who's bothered by all that? It's just their culture after all. We should respect that.
Robb

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Saudi-Guantanamo-Detainees.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Saudi Arabia Releases 9 Gitmo Detainees
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 29, 2006
Filed at 5:13 p.m. ET

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Saudi Arabian authorities have released nine men who were previously held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as terror suspects, a Saudi security official said Tuesday.

The nine were part of a group of 37 Saudis held in Guantanamo and handed over by the United States to the Saudi government, Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said.

He said they were released after investigations showed they were not involved in any criminal acts based on Saudi laws.

In May, the Saudis released three of the returned prisoners after clearing them of any wrongdoing.

Of the 450 men suspected of terror links still being held at Guantanamo, about 83 are Saudis. The Saudi government has previously said it hopes Washington hands them over.

The majority of those being held in the Cuba-based prison were captured in Afghanistan during the U.S.-led war on terror.

Lie Detectors come to airport security screening

Below is another story about new fortifications for the Virtual Maginot Line of Victory... Lie detectors at airports, among others. This will spice up your next vacation:

"The people-based program -- called Screening Passengers by Observation
Technique, or SPOT -- began undergoing tests at Boston's Logan Airport after
9/11 and has expanded to about a dozen airports. Trained teams watch travelers
in security lines and elsewhere. They look for obvious things like someone
wearing a heavy coat on a hot day, but also for subtle signs like vocal timbre,
gestures and tiny facial movements that indicate someone is trying to disguise
an emotion."

Yes, that's what I want. To let some lowly paid government functionary decide whether or not to detain me based on his subjective wishes, hopes and fears.

"TSA officers observe passengers while consulting a list of more than 30
questionable behaviors, each of which has a numerical score. If someone scores
high enough, an officer approaches the person and asks a few questions.
"All
you know is there's an emotion being concealed. You have to find out why the
emotion is occurring," says Paul Ekman, a San Francisco psychologist who
pioneered work on facial expressions and is informally advising the TSA. "

Words defy me, this is so Orwellian. I mean... during a time of war they could just select people from enemy countries for special screening, or people who display obvious sympathy for the agendas of enemy countries, or... you get the idea. In a time of war. There won't be many 80-year-old white grandmothers or 2 year old babies getting special screening.

"The TSA says that, because the program is based on human behavior, not
attributes, it isn't vulnerable to racial profiling. Critics worry it still
could run afoul of civil rights. "Our concern is that giving TSA screeners this
kind of responsibility and discretion can result in their making decisions not
based on solid criteria but on impermissible characteristics such as race," says
Gregory T. Nojeim, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union's
Washington legislative office."

I guess not. Here's my solution: Blast any country that wants to promote a seventh century lifestyle into radioactive dust. Problem solved. I guarantee, there won't be many surviving sympathizers willing to cause trouble. Now let me on the plane, and remove that rectal probe looking for concealed weapons.
Robb

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115551793796934752-2hgveyRtDDtssKozVPmg6RAAa_w_20070813.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Which Travelers Have 'Hostile Intent'? Biometric Device May Have the Answer
By JONATHAN KARP and LAURA MECKLERAugust 14, 2006; Page B1
At airport security checkpoints in Knoxville, Tenn. this summer, scores of departing passengers were chosen to step behind a curtain, sit in a metallic oval booth and don headphones.

With one hand inserted into a sensor that monitors physical responses, the travelers used the other hand to answer questions on a touch screen about their plans. A machine measured biometric responses -- blood pressure, pulse and sweat levels -- that then were analyzed by software. The idea was to ferret out U.S. officials who were carrying out carefully constructed but make-believe terrorist missions.

The trial of the Israeli-developed system represents an effort by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to determine whether technology can spot passengers who have "hostile intent." In effect, the screening system attempts to mechanize Israel's vaunted airport-security process by using algorithms, artificial-intelligence software and polygraph principles.

Neither the TSA nor Suspect Detection Systems Ltd., the Israeli company, will discuss the Knoxville trial, whose primary goal was to uncover the designated bad guys, not to identify threats among real travelers. They won't even say what questions were asked of travelers, though the system is generally designed to measure physical responses to hot-button questions like "Are you planning to immigrate illegally?" or "Are you smuggling drugs."

The test alone signals a push for new ways to combat terrorists using technology. Authorities are convinced that beyond hunting for weapons and dangerous liquids brought on board airliners, the battle for security lies in identifying dangerous passengers.

The method isn't intended to catch specific lies, says Shabtai Shoval, chief executive of Suspect Detection Systems, the start-up business behind the technology dubbed Cogito. "What we are looking for are patterns of behavior that indicate something all terrorists have: the fear of being caught," he says.

The Israeli-developed system combines questions and biometric measurements to determine if a passenger should undergo screening by security officials.

Security specialists say such technology can enhance, but not replace, existing detection machines and procedures. Some independent experts who are familiar with Mr. Shoval's product say that while his technology isn't yet mature, it has potential. "You can't replicate the Israeli system exactly, but if you can incorporate its philosophy, this technology can be one element of a better solution," says Doron Bergerbest-Eilon, chief executive of Asero Worldwide consulting firm and a former senior official in Israel's security service.

To date, the TSA has more confidence in people than machines to detect suspicious behavior. A small program now is using screening officers to watch travelers for suspicious behavior. "It may be the only thing I know of that favors the human solution instead of technology," says TSA chief Kip Hawley.

The people-based program -- called Screening Passengers by Observation Technique, or SPOT -- began undergoing tests at Boston's Logan Airport after 9/11 and has expanded to about a dozen airports. Trained teams watch travelers in security lines and elsewhere. They look for obvious things like someone wearing a heavy coat on a hot day, but also for subtle signs like vocal timbre, gestures and tiny facial movements that indicate someone is trying to disguise an emotion.

TSA officers observe passengers while consulting a list of more than 30 questionable behaviors, each of which has a numerical score. If someone scores high enough, an officer approaches the person and asks a few questions.

"All you know is there's an emotion being concealed. You have to find out why the emotion is occurring," says Paul Ekman, a San Francisco psychologist who pioneered work on facial expressions and is informally advising the TSA. "You can find out very quickly."

More than 80% of those approached are quickly dismissed, he says. The explanations for hiding emotions often are innocent: A traveler might be stressed out from work, worried about missing a flight or sad because a relative just died. If suspicions remain, the traveler is interviewed at greater length by a screener with more specialized training. SPOT teams have identified about 100 people who were trying to smuggle drugs, use fake IDs and commit other crimes, but not terrorist acts.

The TSA says that, because the program is based on human behavior, not attributes, it isn't vulnerable to racial profiling. Critics worry it still could run afoul of civil rights. "Our concern is that giving TSA screeners this kind of responsibility and discretion can result in their making decisions not based on solid criteria but on impermissible characteristics such as race," says Gregory T. Nojeim, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office.

Mr. Shoval, the Israeli entrepreneur, believes technology-based screening is the key to rolling out behavior-recognition techniques in the U.S. With experience in counter-terrorism service and the high-technology industry, Mr. Shoval developed his Cogito device with leading former Israeli intelligence officials, polygraph experts and computer-science academics.

Here is the Cogito concept: A passenger enters the booth, swipes his passport and responds in his choice of language to 15 to 20 questions generated by factors such as the location, and personal attributes like nationality, gender and age. The process takes as much as five minutes, after which the passenger is either cleared or interviewed further by a security officer.

At the heart of the system is proprietary software that draws on Israel's extensive field experience with suicide bombers and security-related interrogations. The system aims to test the responses to words, in many languages, that trigger psycho-physiological responses among people with terrorist intent.

The technology isn't geared toward detecting general nervousness: Mr. Shoval says terrorists often are trained to be cool and to conceal stress. Unlike a standard lie detector, the technology analyzes a person's answers not only in relation to his other responses but also those of a broader peer group determined by a range of security considerations. "We can recognize patterns for people with hostile agendas based on research with Palestinians, Israelis, Americans and other nationalities in Israel," Mr. Shoval says. "We haven't tried it with Chinese or Iraqis yet." In theory, the Cogito machine could be customized for specific cultures, and questions could be tailored to intelligence about a specific threat.

The biggest challenge in commercializing Cogito is reducing false results that either implicate innocent travelers or let bad guys slip through. Mr. Shoval's company has conducted about 10 trials in Israel, including tests in which control groups were given terrorist missions and tried to beat the system. In the latest Israeli trial, the system caught 85% of the role-acting terrorists, meaning that 15% got through, and incorrectly identified 8% of innocent travelers as potential threats, according to corporate marketing materials.

The company's goal is to prove it can catch at least 90% of potential saboteurs -- a 10% false-negative rate -- while inconveniencing just 4% of innocent travelers.

Mr. Shoval won a contract for the Knoxville trial in a competitive process. Next year, Israeli authorities plan to test Cogito at the country's main international airport and at checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank, where the goal will be to catch genuine security threats while testing the logistics of using the system more broadly. The latest prototype costs about $200,000 a machine.

Even though his expertise is in human observation, U.S. behavior-recognition expert Dr. Ekman says projects like Cogito deserve a shot. He expects technology to advance even further, to devices like lasers that measure people's vital signs from a distance. Within a year, he predicts, such technology will be able to tell whether someone's "blood pressure or heart rate is significantly higher than the last 10 people" who entered an airport.

The Virtual Maginot Line of ... Victory??

Four news stories.

"News" story #1 (full story & link copied below) begins:

"LONDON, Aug. 13 - Four days after the British government said it had foiled a
plot by Islamic radicals to bring down up to 10 passenger jets bound for the
United States, Britain's highest-ranking law enforcement official said today
that about 24 other terrorist conspiracies were still under surveillance in this
country.

"The figure - far higher than had been made known - seemed
likely to alarm many people. It could reinforce calls among Muslim leaders and
other opponents for Prime Minister Tony Blair to reverse foreign policies in the
Muslim world described by Islamic leaders on Friday as providing "ammunition to
extremists that threaten us all.""

You got that? The reporter slips his opinion into the second paragraph of this story, under the guise of divining what "muslim leaders" think -- to make the preposterous assertion that if only we would leave the muslim world alone, the threat would All Go Away. Where is Rodney King when I need him?

Second "news" story (copied below):

""If the British government is serious about defeating terrorism and not
allowing the terrorists to disrupt normal, everyday British life, then it must
provide the additional security staffing.""

Yeah, that's what we need to keep life down to a normal level. Faster body cavity searches and 10 times the cops.

Third news story (copied below):

"Bush said the suspected plot in Britain "reminds us of a hard fact: The
terrorists have to succeed only once to achieve their goal of mass murder, while
we have to succeed every time to stop them.""

Making nicely my point the other day that what Bush is attempting to create is a virtual Maginot line. I could just see the leader of the French in 1940 telling his people -- "The Germans have to succeed only once to achieve their goal of conquering us, while we have to succeed every time to stop them! Build more fortifications!" Yes, that will do it.

To underscore my point about how pointless this approach is, the news is suggesting there are many more plots being "monitered". Indeed. We could talk about the 10 missing Eqyptian exchange students. Completely innocent as the driven snow, we have been told over and over and over.

Uh-huh. Well, who was going to board all those airliners with liquid explosives? Remember, we have "watch lists" that are supposed to keep suspected terrorists and their sympathizers off of airplanes. You would have to think that the plotters know this, and would therefore pick conspirators who could get past the watch list. Otherwise, they don't get their hair gel on board. The fact that the 10 Egyptians disappeared only a day or three before the plot was to be executed is deeply ... fishy.

Then let's take that small group of Muslims arrested (up to 5 as of today) with thousands of cellphones "to make a small profit re-selling them". (News story #4 copied below.) Right.

For those who don't know, one of the weapons of choice of the Iraqi "insurgents" (aka, terrorists) has been cellphones. A pair of wires from the ringer go to a detonator, and you can set off an explosive anywhere by a simple phone call. Even an idiot terrorist can manage this much (especially if he's trained by Iranians). But of course, while we now have means of defeating these guys in Iraq (a plane flies over, Achmed the Camel jockey, while assembling his bomb, goes boom), we don't, here in the States.

Now let's use a little logic. It's rather unlikely that the terrorists thought they could get 1000 cellphones with explosives on board 1000 airplanes. Even someone as stupid as a terrorist would know this. Clearly (to me) they weren't going to do that.

But you don't have to put them all in planes to kill people, create havoc, disrupt the western economy, make the stock market crash, shut down transportation, etc. The sheer number suggests other purposes, and it wasn't stocking cousin Iqbal's Used Cellphone store in Karachi.

Think malls, buses, subways, air terminals, businesses, fast food restaurants, etc. Preposition the devices, then make a bunch of phone calls later on, all at once. That would sow a lot of panic.

I would bet a month's salary this is what the authorities don't want to discuss (I am sure even they can connect even the dots). I don't think they intended to use in conjunction with the plane attacks.

Not enough time, unless the attacks were intended to be at least a month or two later -- we're told the attack was targeted for about Aug 13, but maybe that was a dry run.

But I'd probably put the most likely explanation as being that these guy were trying to buy as many cellphones as they could *before* the plane attacks cause they knew that afterwards there would be a lot more scrutiny of such purchases. It was probably intended as an attack a month or two after the plane attacks.

But speaking of dry runs, not so long ago I saw something similar to my 8/11/2001 experience, but out of SFO last fall. Strange things in the terminal, then on my flight. Three middle-eastern men and a middle-eastern woman, very strange behavior, including repeated trips to the toilet behind the cockpit, visited in sequence by each, then opening and studying an overhead bin where oxygen canisters were stored. There's more, but let's leave it at that. Reported through other channels. You may have read in the paper these last few days that the British conspirators were expected to mix the separate components of their liquid explosives in the bathrooms of the planes. I'll tell you, I almost got up to search the bathroom on that plane flight.

I'm no master spy. I'm just a suspicious guy who blatantly and indiscriminately profiles and pays attention to what's going on around him. And I can weave a conspiracy theory as well as the next whack-job. Was it just coincidence that I was on that flight at that time?

Unlikely. The fact that *I'm* seeing it tells me it's going on much more often than people realize, and the authorities are either missing it entirely or not telling anyone. More likely the former. Which tells you how well the virtual Maginot line concept works.

None of this is going away until we get rid of General McClellan and send Sherman to start devastating our enemies in their homelands.
Robb

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/world/europe/13cnd-terror.html?ei=5094&en=7f237a7bf72cb0b9&hp=&ex=1155528000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

August 13, 2006
Britain Monitoring Other Terror Plots, Official Says
By ALAN COWELL
LONDON, Aug. 13 - Four days after the British government said it had foiled a plot by Islamic radicals to bring down up to 10 passenger jets bound for the United States, Britain's highest-ranking law enforcement official said today that about 24 other terrorist conspiracies were still under surveillance in this country.

The figure - far higher than had been made known - seemed likely to alarm many people. It could reinforce calls among Muslim leaders and other opponents for Prime Minister Tony Blair to reverse foreign policies in the Muslim world described by Islamic leaders on Friday as providing "ammunition to extremists that threaten us all."

Speaking in an interview on BBC television, the British home secretary, John Reid, said that since last year's July bombings, British security services had foiled what he described as four other major conspiracies.

Apparently seeking to bolster official denials of a link between terrorism and Britain's alliance with the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr. Reid also said officials had learned that Al Qaeda first tried to attack a target in Birmingham, Britain, in 2000. "So this has been a long-going threat but it is a chronic one and it is a severe one," he said.

"We now think in retrospect that the first Al Qaeda plot, for instance against this country, preceded by quite a while our intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan and actually preceded 9/11," he said. The remark seemed to be an indirect confirmation, for the first time, that the government saw the hand of Al Qaeda in the latest conspiracy.

Mr. Reid did not give details of any of these purported plots.

Asked about a report in the British Sunday newspaper The Observer that police were hunting "two dozen" terror cells in Britain, Mr. Reid said: "I'm not going to confirm an exact number but I wouldn't deny that that would indicate the number of major conspiracies that we are trying to look at. There would be more which are not at the center of our considerations and there may be more that we don't know about at all."

He also appeared to suggest that some conspirators associated with the plot disclosed last week may still be at large. "We believe it was a major, major plot," he said, describing the police investigation as "ongoing."

"We believe we have the main targets," he said, but did not rule out the idea that other people at large might still be planning an attack or "prepared to use this opportunity to carry out a terrorist attack."

Two weeks after the bombings of July.7, 2005, when four suicide bombers killed 52 commuters on the London transport system, another group attempted what seemed a copycat attack that failed only when its explosives did not detonate.

News of the latest plot on Thursday set off a huge security clamp-down at British airports - particularly at Heathrow in London, Europe's busiest - that resulted in equally huge delays and cancellations in flight schedules. Two airlines, British Airways and Ryanair, warned Saturday that unless security procedures were accelerated, airports would no longer be able to cope with the hundreds of thousands of passengers trying to fly out of Britain every day.

Mr. Reid hinted the security clamp-down may be eased, saying it was "time limited." But he did not say when.
He also said the latest plot provided fresh evidence to support police demands for counterterrorism laws to be amended to permit detention of people without trial or charge for 90 days. The current limit is 28 days.

While the government insists that the latest plot was real, many of its critics today started to question publicly the veracity of the government's depiction of it, citing previous occasions - including an intelligence dossier used to justify the invasion of Iraq 2003 - when official assertions of a threat proved wrong.

Mr. Blair is on vacation in the Caribbean. His absence has been criticized by adversaries who contend that if the plot was as serious as Mr. Reid and others maintain, he should return home.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BRITAIN_TERROR_PLOT_AIRPORTS?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-08-13-08-06-26Aug 13, 8:06 AM EDT
Flight Cancelations Increase at Heathrow
LONDON (AP) -- Airlines canceled almost a third of flights from Britain's busiest airport Sunday, plunging travelers into a fourth day of travel chaos triggered by the foiling of an alleged airplanes bombing plot.

Many passengers were also missing their flights because they were stuck in lengthy security lines, prompting airlines to ask the government to bring in police to speed up the security checks.

British Airways scrapped 30 percent of flights from London's Heathrow Airport on the instructions of the airport operator British Airports Authority, or BAA.

The airport operator said 70 percent of flights on all airlines at Heathrow were expected to operate, but warned that tough new screening measures for passengers and luggage meant delays were inevitable. BAA's chief executive for Heathrow, Tony Douglas, said the airport was doing its best, but that delays "will go on until the security threat level is reduced."

Home Secretary John Reid acknowledged that the security measures would have to be altered.

"The present regime is time limited," Reid told British Broadcasting Corp. television. "We know it is not indefinitely sustainable."
In the wake of the foiled plot to bomb as many as 10 airplanes over the Atlantic Ocean, authorities introduced tough new security measures, including individual searches of all passengers and a ban on carry-on luggage except clear plastic bags containing travel documents and a few essential items. Reid said Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander had asked U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to ease the restrictions imposed by the United States, which include a ban on passengers carrying liquids aboard flights.

On Sunday, British Airways canceled almost 100 flights to Europe from Heathrow and scrapped all its domestic flights from London's second airport, Gatwick. Most long-haul flights were operating, although 10 BA flights to the United States were canceled.

Scores of flights from Britain to Europe and the United States also were canceled Saturday. Passengers were delayed so long by the strict new security measures that many missed their flights.

British Airways said it "cannot rule out the possibility that flights will once again depart without all their passengers because of ongoing problems with BAA's security search process and baggage operation at Heathrow Airport."

Some airlines accused BAA - which operates seven of the country's major airports - of failing to cope with tough new anti-terror security requirements.

"The airport's baggage system cannot process all of the passengers' bags and where passengers have been able to check their bags in, the lengthy queues in the airport security search area means that passengers are unable to get to the departure gate in time," BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh said.

Budget carrier Ryanair appealed to the British government to use police and army reservists to speed up searches at overloaded airport security checkpoints.

Ryanair, which has its British base at Stansted Airport, northeast of London, said it had complied with BAA orders to cancel more than 60 of its Stansted flights this weekend, about 20 percent of the total, but said this overloaded security situation must be fixed by Monday.

"Ryanair and other major U.K. airlines cannot keep canceling flights and disrupting the travel plans of tens of thousands of British passengers and visitors solely because the BAA cannot cope with the new body-search requirements," chief executive Michael O'Leary said.

"If the British government is serious about defeating terrorism and not allowing the terrorists to disrupt normal, everyday British life, then it must provide the additional security staffing."

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060812/2006-08-12T143711Z_01_N1197395_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SECURITY-BUSH-DC.html
Bush says British terror threat may not be over
Aug 12, 10:37 AM (ET) By Steve Holland

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush cautioned on Saturday the threat from a plot to detonate liquid explosives on commercial flights may not have passed and denied Democratic charges he was trying to use the crisis for political gains in an election year.

"We believe that this week's arrests have significantly disrupted the threat," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Yet we cannot be sure that the threat has been eliminated."

British authorities arrested two dozen suspects on Thursday for allegedly plotting to use liquid explosives to blow up airliners flying from Britain to the United States.

The arrests prompted the United States to raise its terror alert to the highest level ever and prompted airports to ban passengers from taking liquids, gels and creams on planes.

Bush, who returns to Washington on Sunday after a 10-day working vacation at his ranch, urged air travelers to be patient with the stricter security measures.

"The inconveniences you will face are for your protection and they will give us time to adjust our screening procedures to meet the current threat," he said.

Democrats on Friday accused Vice President Dick Cheney of trying to use this week's arrests in Britain to Republican advantage in November congressional elections, which will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. Congress.
'AL QAEDA TYPES'

Cheney said on Wednesday the Democrats' defeat of Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman in the state's primary on Tuesday because of his support of the Iraq war could embolden "al Qaeda types."

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement on Friday: "Once again, GOP (Republican) leaders are using terrorism and our national security as a political wedge issue. It is disgusting -- but not surprising."

Bush said the suspected plot in Britain "reminds us of a hard fact: The terrorists have to succeed only once to achieve their goal of mass murder, while we have to succeed every time to stop them."


"Unfortunately, some have suggested recently that the terrorist threat is being used for partisan political advantage. We can have legitimate disagreements about the best way to fight the terrorists, yet there should be no disagreement about the dangers we face," he said.

Democrats in their weekly radio address charged Bush has shortchanged domestic security needs and the war on terror, and they blamed him for bungling the Iraq war.

Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas said the administration's "poor management" in Iraq "has created a rallying cry for international terrorists" and "diverted our focus, our military and more than $300 billion from the war on terrorism."

Pryor said U.S. ports, borders and chemical plants remain unsecured, emergency personnel lack critical resources and the military, including the National Guard, was stretched.

"It's time for Washington to be tough and smart about the threats we face," he said. "Americans deserve real security, not just leaders who talk tough but fail to deliver."
(Additional reporting by Vicki Allen)

http://www.wboy.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=12983
Local Links to Terrorist Arrests
Posted 8/10/2006 06:12 PM
The Washington County Sheriffs Department in Ohio has arrested two men for their involvement in what police say could be aiding terrorists, and one man linked to them could have been doing the same in Taylor County. Story by Sarah Kapis

Last week, the Grafton police pulled over 24-year-old Hashem Sayed for a routine traffic stop. But what they found in his car was far from routine. Patrolman Daniel Laymon recalls the scene, "There were multiple cell phones, roughly 150 to 200 cell phones from multiple retailers," he said.

Buying that many pre-paid phones is not a crime, but the police say it is unusual.

Less than a week later, the authorities in Marietta, Ohio, arrested 20-year-old Osma Sabhi Abulhassan and 20-year-old Ali Houssaiky. Washington County Sheriffs deputies seized several pre-paid cell phones and thousands of dollars in cash. Because of the incidents, Grafton police believe the events are connected.

"The department feels that there are a lot of similar circumstances and there are a lot of similarities between the activity there and the activity experienced here," said Patrolman Laymon.

The activity seems to be more than just a coincidence. All three men are from Dearborn, Michigan and all three gave similar reasons for buying the phones. Sayed said he was buying them to ship to California to sell for a profit. But Washington County's sheriff says that may not be the whole truth. "They are digital for detonating car bombs and they have a particular digital frequency and that's what they're using them for," said Sheriff Larry Mincks.

Mincks says the men also had instructions on how to obtain private flights and airplane passenger information.
"It also had some information concerning airport security and check points."

He says the two men apprehended in Ohio are linked to another man who is being investigated for possible terrorism. Now, police across the state have a warning for residents.

"Not that it's a crime," said Grafton Police Chief, Robert Beltner. "But we can check into it to make sure nothing illegal is going to take place with those phones."

Bush reads Camus

"We're in that race for the duration," Bush said in those remarks.

Bush reading French Existentialists? We're in a race for our lives...

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/08/11/060811231406.rsxjfr54.html

Bush reads Camus's 'The Stranger' on ranch vacation
Aug 11 7:14 PM US/Eastern

US President George W. Bush quoted French existential writer Albert Camus to European leaders a year and a half ago, and now he's read one of his most famous works: "The Stranger."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday that Bush, here on his Texas ranch enjoying a 10-day vacation from Washington, had made quick work of the Algerian-born writer's 1946 novel -- in English.

The US president, often spoofed as an intellectual lightweight, quoted Camus in a February 21, 2005 speech in Brussels praising the US-Europe alliance and urging other nations to help Washington spread democracy in the world.

"We know there are many obstacles, and we know the road is long. Albert Camus said that 'freedom is a long-distance race.' We're in that race for the duration," Bush said in those remarks.