How an Al-Qaeda Cell Planned a Poison-gas Attack on the N.Y. Subway

June 17, 2006 1:51 PM

How an Al-Qaeda Cell Planned a Poison-gas Attack on the N.Y. SubwayAl-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. They were stopped not by any intelligence breakthrough, but by an order from Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri. And the U.S. learned of the plot from a CIA mole inside al-Qaeda. These are some of the more startling revelations by author Ron Susskind, whose new book The One Percent Doctrine is excerpted in the forthcoming issue of TIME. It will appear on Time.com early Sunday morning.
posted by Postroad (73 comments total)

Newsweek story on this revelation
posted by Postroad at 1:56 PM on June 17, 2006

How does one disprove this kind of story?
Its nothing more than a gut reactiion, but this smells like Bushian disinfo to me.
posted by Fupped Duck at 2:02 PM on June 17, 2006

I recall a story involving scuba diving Al Qaeda's attacking ports in New York. Then there was the one about the Al Qaeda how was going to saw one of the cables off on the Brooklyn Bridge, sending it crashing into the water.

Then there was the one about the......
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 2:05 PM on June 17, 2006 [1 favorite]

I presume this "mole" is dead, because if he isn't, his life span just dramatically decreased.

Personally, I think it's Rovian Bullshit. Then again, if Bush told me the sun rose to the east, I'd wait until sunrise to agree with him.
posted by eriko at 2:07 PM on June 17, 2006

Suskind is pretty reliable, though.
posted by kgasmart at 2:14 PM on June 17, 2006

In order to make Hydrogen Cyanide in the method the article describes, you need Sodium Cyanide .

Which I would think would be hard to get a hold of...

I guess not.
posted by toftflin at 2:17 PM on June 17, 2006

Why assume this is not real? Do you not agree that our society (and any society for that matter) is open to attack by folks who committ their entire resources to killing?

If the attack was indeed called off, I'd guess it was because the potential death toll was too low for al Qaeda. We'd certainly glean valuable info about the organization investigating such an attack - probably too much of a trade-off for the terrorists.

From a strategical standpoint, this is al Qaeda's biggest weakness. Because they need to maintain operational secrecy simply to exist, they must save up for the one big 9/11 style super-shot when attacking America. These attacks require the most time and resources in planning and are probably more prone to being stopped by authorities.
posted by b_thinky at 2:17 PM on June 17, 2006

Hm. The text in the linked article is duplicated, like someone cut it from an electronic copy of the book and then pasted it twice into the webpage. Annoying.
posted by voltairemodern at 2:17 PM on June 17, 2006

Holy crap, I cannot believe some of the responses in this discussion. It is "Rovian Bullshit", or "Bushian disinfo".

These are the kinds of comments that give the Republicans and their supporters cause to question the opposition in this country. Instead of people questioning the legitimacy of the information and the story, they question whether or not this is White House propaganda.

Personally, I wouldn't doubt that there are dozens of plans in the works or that there have been dozens of attempts made that have been stopped just short and the CIA/FBI/DOD have kept it all on the down low. More to the point, I don't think any of that would be a plan by the Bush Administration to maintain or gain power.

Hey, I ain't no fan of the current administration either - but I have no doubt that there are lots of people planning lots of bad things for the United States, and under those circumstances I'm willing to cut Bush & Co. a little bit of slack.
posted by tgrundke at 2:18 PM on June 17, 2006

I have no doubt that there are lots of people planning lots of bad things for the United States, and under those circumstances I'm willing to cut Bush & Co. a little bit of slack.

For how long, however? They've had quite a lot of 'slack' already. When is enough, enough? Where do you think the tipping point should lie?
posted by Dipsomaniac at 2:24 PM on June 17, 2006

The poison gas attack (yikes) may have been stopped but regular, long term NYC subway riders still have to deal with the dangers of breathing asbestos fibers loosened from the subway tunnel walls.
posted by nickyskye at 2:26 PM on June 17, 2006

Dipsomaniac : "For how long, however? They've had quite a lot of 'slack' already. When is enough, enough? Where do you think the tipping point should lie?"

I'm not sure if I follow. The argument is that it's likely that some terrorists have probably planned to commit some acts of terror in the US, and for whatever reason haven't. As such, when informed of a planned but not executed terrorist attack, tgrundke is willing to cut Bush & Co. some slack and accept that the planned attack may have been an actual planned attack, and not orchestrated disinformation by the government. Are you saying that there is some statute of limitations, some period after which all news of planned terrorist attacks should automatically be assumed to be government disinformation?
posted by Bugbread at 2:27 PM on June 17, 2006 [1 favorite]

Dipsomaniac - I don't necessarily look at this as a 'tipping point'. On the issue of national security, having studied as much as I have on the subject, I have no reason *not* to believe the article. This discussion should not be so much about the Bush Administration as it is about the data being presented.

The data being presented, along with the volumes of other information I have studied over the years lead me to believe that this is completely plausible and not a political play.

I understand the argument that we shouldn't let the government lead us along fearing 'terrists for generations, but this is a legitimate threat just as there was a legitimate threat from the Soviets for a generation.
posted by tgrundke at 2:28 PM on June 17, 2006

there have been dozens of attempts made that have been stopped just short and the CIA/FBI/DOD have kept it all on the down low.

They probably have interrupted and stopped planned attacks.

A question I have -- what purpose was/is the DHS color-coding threat level? It seemed to have been used as a 'fear tactic' before the 2004 elections. Remember, whenever there was the tiniest hint of "terrur' (or even what later turned out to be bogus evidence and data) up went the terror alert. Hasn't happened lately. Will we see this boogeyman tactic come out just prior to the mid-term elections this coming November?
posted by ericb at 2:29 PM on June 17, 2006

See the problem here is that this administration has lied so damned often, and hidden so much information, even if something was the truth, it sounds like a lie. To turn a phrase, "'Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again'"

And there is the point, for 'our protection' the Bush administration doesn't tell anyone anything. They keep alleged criminals locked up without charge, meaning in essence no one is held accountable for these terror plots, and in the rare times when someone is put on trial, the charges they are arrested on are magically forgotten about and they are tried on immigration violations.
posted by MrLint at 2:30 PM on June 17, 2006

bugbread -

Thank you for that clarification of my point - you hit the nail on the head, far more succintly than I could have.
posted by tgrundke at 2:30 PM on June 17, 2006

Ron Suskind doesn't seem a likely source of administration propaganda considering his previous, unflattering work on Bush. And I don't find it that hard to believe. After all, they still don't know who was behind the Anthrax attack, and another chemical attack almost was laucnhed by a domestic terrorist group.
posted by homunculus at 2:30 PM on June 17, 2006

See the problem here is that this administration has lied so damned often, and hidden so much information, even if something was the truth, it sounds like a lie.

Secrecy in the Bush Administration

"Rep. Henry A. Waxman has released a comprehensive examination of secrecy in the Bush Administration. The report analyzes how the Administration has implemented each of our nation’s major open government laws. It finds that there has been a consistent pattern in the Administration’s actions: laws that are designed to promote public access to information have been undermined, while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or to operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded. The cumulative result is an unprecedented assault on the principle of open government. "

Secrecy in the Bush Administration Report [PDF]

posted by ericb at 2:33 PM on June 17, 2006

FYI, the source inside Al-Qaeda that tipped off the Americans was killed in a shootout with Saudi authorities.

Suskind quotes a CIA operative as questioning whether it was an accident that the Saudis had killed the kingpin who could expose a cell planning a chemical weapons attack inside the U.S. "The Saudis just shrugged," the source tells Suskind. "They said their people got a little overzealous."
posted by Brian James at 2:33 PM on June 17, 2006

Bushsecrecy.org.
posted by ericb at 2:34 PM on June 17, 2006

Leaves me with a strange feeling of deja vu.
Leaves me with a strange feeling of deja vu.
posted by caddis at 2:37 PM on June 17, 2006

they must save up for the one big 9/11 style super-shot when attacking America.

I don't see it. All Al-Qaeda has to do is detonate five hand grenades at five randomly selected U.S. shopping malls, and even if no one is killed, the U.S. goes into utter terror-induced lockdown, martial law, the works. Sedition laws to follow.

If Al-Qaeda thinks every attack needs to be on the scale of 9/11, then that's they're greatest weakness.
posted by kgasmart at 2:37 PM on June 17, 2006

Proper link -- Secrecy in the Bush Administration Report [PDF].
posted by ericb at 2:38 PM on June 17, 2006

Maybe if Tommy Franks hadn't let bin Laden escape at Tora Bora and we'd finished off al Qaeda instead of invading Iraq, they wouldn't be able to launch attacks like these.

Or maybe they got what they wanted when we invaded Iraq and didn't feel like another attack was needed.

Is there any al Qaeda statement (maybe one of bin Laden or Zawahiri's public statements) to support the idea that each attack has to be more spectacular than the next? I agree with kgasmart that small-scale attacks would be effective.

It's a chemical weapons plot and our mole is named Ali? Maybe it's Chemical Ali.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:44 PM on June 17, 2006

kgasmart, you're probably correct, but look at Israel or Britain - people do become accustomed to terror tactics..

Ultimately, you have to ask, what does Al-Qaeda want?
posted by Chuckles at 2:48 PM on June 17, 2006

Ultimately, you have to ask, what does Al-Qaeda want?

Us out of the Middle East. But by getting the giant to lash out blindly - a la Iraq - you can really get closer to that end.

people do become accustomed to terror tactics..

Not in the old US of A, we won't. We'll tear ourselves, and each other, apart.
posted by kgasmart at 3:07 PM on June 17, 2006

I love the hubbub about the fact that the terrorists seem to have discovered the "equivalent of splitting the atom" by making binary munitions. Perhaps they read about it on Wikipedia.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 3:36 PM on June 17, 2006

"Holy crap, I cannot believe some of the responses in this discussion. It is "Rovian Bullshit", or "Bushian disinfo," tgrundke feels from the gut.

But MrLint nails it, "See the problem here is that this administration has lied so damned often, and hidden so much information, even if something was the truth, it sounds like a lie."

On 9-10-2001 most liberals thought George Bush was just a lowlife election thief. On 9-12-2001 most Americans, liberal or conservative, along with the rest of the world, would have followed him to war in Afghanistan. Remember the flags?

Bush squandered all that unity and took us into a disastrous war in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the 9-11 attack. His administration has been an un-ending lie and an enormous misdirect. Some people even wonder if there was neocon involvement in the terrorist attack, and that’s not a healthy way to think.

We should read that poison gas attack story and think, "heck of a job CIA." But instead Rovian bullshit comes to mind. That indeed is truly dangerous for Americans.

Bush’s actions have done nothing but put us in more danger, and that's at the very heart of why he has to go.
posted by BillyElmore at 3:41 PM on June 17, 2006

These are the kinds of comments that give the Republicans and their supporters cause to question the opposition in this country.

Yeah, it's impossible to get elected in this country if people have "cause to question" you.
posted by delmoi at 3:51 PM on June 17, 2006

Also, terrorists were practically minutes away from poisoning the world via the Sydney olympics, but they were stopped by a crack anti-terror team called Rainbow 6. Phew!
posted by antifuse at 3:52 PM on June 17, 2006

Speaking of terrorist attacks with chemical weapons inside the United States, how's that anthrax investigation coming?

A question I have -- what purpose was/is the DHS color-coding threat level?

It accomplished its purpose when President Bush was re-elected in 2004. Tom Ridge admitted last year that the alerts were often raised for political reasons.

According to this DHS chronology of terror alerts, the last time the overall threat level changed was when it was lowered from Orange to Yellow on January 9, 2004.

It was raised from Yellow to Orange "specifically for the financial services sectors in New York City, Northern New Jersey, and Washington, DC," on August 1, 2004, and lowered back to Yellow on November 10, 2004, after the threat of Kerry getting elected had passed.

It was raised from Yellow to Orange for mass transit on July 7, 2005, in response to the London bombings, and lowered back to Yellow on August 12, 2005. That's the only time it's been changed since the 2004 election.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:01 PM on June 17, 2006

The terror color allert will never go back to "green" again in our lifetimes.
posted by Balisong at 4:22 PM on June 17, 2006

maybe it was a disinformation attempt by al queda ... "oh, look, we could slap together some stuff from home depot and make a real deadly weapon ... but we decided not to because we've already made our point"

of course, if it's really that easy, why is time magazine telling everyone in america about it? ... sounds a bit easier than a ryder truck and fertilizer doesn't it?
posted by pyramid termite at 4:27 PM on June 17, 2006

While cyanide has a justified rep as being a toxic gas, it's not ideal for this kind of attack. Among other faults:

If cyanide doesn't kill you outright, you probably won't suffer any lasting effects from it. (Some few can suffer brain damage or blindness, but most will recover completely.) Partly that's because we're all subjected to low level exposure to cyanide all the time, in smoke and in many kinds of food, and we have metabolic mechanisms for dealing with it.

The toxic dose of cyanide is quite large compared to some other kinds of poisonous gases. For instance, hydrogen sulfide is ten times as poisonous; VX is thousands of times as poisonous. The reason cyanide is usually more dangerous than hydrogen sulfide is that HS occurs naturally in lethal concentrations and so we've evolved to be repelled by the outright stench of it. Cyanide gas doesn't occur naturally in lethal concentrations, so it apparently actually has a somewhat pleasant smell (a bit like almonds).

The biggest problem with cyanide is that it's lighter than air. It will rise and dissipate, even in somewhere like a subway station. Unless you're releasing huge amounts of it from a compressed cannister, the large space in a subway station and the constant wind will make the gas dissipate quite rapidly, diluting it to below a toxic concentration.

The upshot is that you could cause quite a commotion, but you're not actually likely to kill a lot of people unless you have a lot of gas to release quite rapidly.

And keep in mind that the Tokyo nerve gas attack only killed a dozen people. Subways are actually a crummy place to try to use a poison gas, anyway.

Chlorine would be a better attack gas than cyanide in nearly every regard if you're trying to plan a terrorist attack. Even if it doesn't kill you, it causes permanent damage (skin burns, pneumonia, and blindness being the most common results). It's quite heavy, and it's extremely easy to produce in quantity using products which can be bought in any grocery store.

But in WWI when they were using poison gas big-time on the battlefield they quickly abandoned both cyanide and chlorine and moved to other, much more effective agents -- like mustard gas. (Vesicants are really viciously nasty.)

In case anyone wants to get really nerdy, the target of cyanide is an iron-bearing enzyme called cytochrome C oxydase, which is present in the mitochondria of all cells. It binds to the iron atom and prevents the enzyme from doing its job, thus making it impossible for the cell to use oxygen to produce energy from sugar.

Hydrogen sulfide targets the same enzyme, but it's better at it, and that's why HS is so deadly.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:28 PM on June 17, 2006

i was wondering about the efficiency of cyanide ... hmm ... chlorine ... hell, anyone could do that ...
posted by pyramid termite at 4:36 PM on June 17, 2006

...And some brown guy could just walk up to you on the street tomorrow and kick you in the penis. Time to start tapping more phones!
posted by rxrfrx at 5:28 PM on June 17, 2006

I thought about making that point -- and pointing out that gas attacks in subways are hard, AUM popped off Sarin, of all things, in multiple places in the Tokyo Subway and managed to kill 14.

If Sarin -- a chemical who's sole purpose is to kill humans -- can only manage to whack 14 when released in multiple places in the subway, I'm not particuarlly worried about Hydrogen Cyanide. It's hard to keep a given concentration of gas in a subway, given the large pistons moving through tubes, pushing air around.

Why assume this is not real?

Because Bush has repeatedly lied about threats to the US for political purposes. REPEATEDLY. So, whenever the administration mentions a threat to the US, I assume that it is lying about this threat in an attempt to get political cover for some other horror.

So, for now, I'm flat out assuming that this is, at best, an overblown fantasy of A-Q, at worst, an outright lie by the administration to cover up its failed domestic and foreign policy.
posted by eriko at 5:31 PM on June 17, 2006

"These are the kinds of comments that give the Republicans and their supporters cause to question the opposition in this country. Instead of people questioning the legitimacy of the information and the story, they question whether or not this is White House propaganda."

When the white house has been caught publishing disinformation many MANY times, even creating a brand new agency just for this purpose, it's natural and logical to assume that ANY information released by the government on subjects such as these is possible propaganda. When you consider the nature of Al-Queda and its history as a database of anti-Soviet CIA funded and trained insurgents, one must treat any information pushed by the war-hungry government with extreme skepticism. I can't believe there are people credulous enough to continue to believe anything put out by the rightful heirs to Goebbels legacy - namely, "Turd Blossom" Rove.
posted by Sukiari at 5:59 PM on June 17, 2006

Are you saying that there is some statute of limitations, some period after which all news of planned terrorist attacks should automatically be assumed to be government disinformation?

No, I'm saying that given the amount of exaggerations and outright falsehoods that Bush et. al. have told the public, why is news of planned terrorist attacks to be treated with less cynicism than something more innocuous, especially given the administration's history of raising the threat level to get a bump in the polls?

Given the - shall we say - poor record of Bush et. al. actually having evidence to back up what they say, I can't think of much reason to assume that *this* threat is authentic when so many other 'threats' have been shown to be blown out of proportion to the point of being ludicrous. It's gotten so that Bush needs more than someone with a better (that is, more honest) track record would need.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 6:00 PM on June 17, 2006

Theres a plan to play bagpipes in central park as well , we're hoping the notes will go into your ears , rearrange your brain cells and force you to buy haggis.
posted by sgt.serenity at 6:23 PM on June 17, 2006 [1 favorite]

The author's website.
posted by homunculus at 7:26 PM on June 17, 2006

To correct the original article:

Cyanide is nothing at all like the gases that were used in concentration camps, which were nerve gasses. People get confused because Zyklon-B uses cyanide as a chemical precursor but the mechanism and the lethality are completely different.

If I remember my Loompanics book "Silent Death" (that was unfortunately stolen at one of my parties), the most effective, practical "poison gas" is probably Soman which also has the "advantage" of contaminating a wide area and needing extensive decontamination (and also being quite a lot more toxic than Sarin for example). On the other hand, Sarin makes a really good cloud so if you had a good nebulizer and a lot of people you could probably do terrible things.

Apparently, the V-series nerve gasses are an order of magnitude more toxic than the Sarin/Tabun/Soman "G-series" family and are even "stickier" than Soman, but I don't know if the syntheses for these horrible substances are readily available (and let us hope not).

I am glad that terrorists don't seem to go for this stuff very often.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:33 PM on June 17, 2006

"Fearing that al-Qaeda's engineers had achieved the holy grail of terror R&D — a device to effectively distribute hydrogen-cyanide gas, which is deadly when inhaled"

I'm sorry. I have to comment again. This is SUCH BULLSHIT. Hydrogen cyanide just isn't THAT toxic.

The holy grail of terror R&D would be:

1. an explosive, equivalent to C4, that uses no nitrates (and so has a different chemical "nose")

2. a simple nerve gas plant. drop in precursors at the top. you get a little device that looks like an air purifier but really nebulizes nerve gas.

The horror potential of nerve gas is far greater, as well. Cyanide makes you basically asphyxiate. That's horrid but familiar -- you just fall over and die. If you don't die, you're probably fine in a few weeks.

With the nerve gas, you twitch yourself to death. If you don't die, you twitch for weeks, months, years.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:43 PM on June 17, 2006

Gasses smasses. al Qaeda is all about symbolism for the Muslim world. Knocking over two of the world's tallest buildings - macho symbol of power. Killing lots of people with poison gas - kind of weeny and evil looking symbol. A better bet would be to cripple western commerce in some fashion, such as an attack on NYSE, electronic funds transfer systems etc.
posted by caddis at 7:53 PM on June 17, 2006

The target of nerve gases such as VX, Sarin, Tabun, and Soman is acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme which appears in synapses which use acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter. The nerve gases are extremely strong and efficient antagonists for acetylcholinesterase, preventing it from breaking down excess acetylcholine in the synapse. As a result, acetylcholine builds up resulting in excessive and disordered nerve firing. The result, in 20-30 seconds, is a total cessation of meaningful ordered neural activity in the brain, leading cessation of breathing and death.

The antidote is atropine, which is what makes "Deadly Nightshade" deadly. But it has to be administered within seconds to be effective. It binds to acetylcholine receptors in the nerves, effectively shutting them down. That means that the build up of acetylcholine no longer causes excessive nerve firing.

Now if you want a really nasty inhalable poison, you've got to like arsine, arsenic tri-hydride. In apallingly small quantities, it causes red blood cells to burst, leading to circulatory collapse and death.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:55 PM on June 17, 2006

A better bet would be to cripple western commerce in some fashion, such as an attack on NYSE, electronic funds transfer systems etc.

Or you can prove how brave and dedicated you are to the cause by doing a DDOS against a minor blog.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:59 PM on June 17, 2006

Steven C Den Beste, I need to keep your email in a file for the next time I need some help with fictional murders. Your details are awesome.
posted by Hildegarde at 8:28 PM on June 17, 2006

tgrundke: "I have no doubt that there are lots of people planning lots of bad things for the United States, and under those circumstances I'm willing to cut Bush & Co. a little bit of slack"

Here's my thing, tgrundke - sure, I agree with you that the boys at Defense and Homeland Security, not to mention the CIA and the FBI, have their hands full. But guess what? That's their FUCKING JOB! While I offer my heartfelt congratulations and sincere gratitude when they are able to prevent terrorists from attacking the U.S., I also believe that they are doing their job - and I expect them to do it well. And I don't think they did it very well at all on 9/11, or the months leading up to it.

Yeah, I know - WE have to be right 100% of the time, but the terrorists only have to be right ONCE. It's hard. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you, that it's difficult to prevent terrorists from attacking us? I don't - instead, I pay taxes, I learn as much as I can about the situation in the world, I try to make informed and moral decisions about who I vote for, and I expect that the people running the country will do so intelligently and responsibly.

Unfortunately, this has not been the case for the last 6 and a half years. So I feel no reason to cut the administration any slack. Do your fucking jobs and shut up about it - that's what I say.

/rant
posted by fingers_of_fire at 8:41 PM on June 17, 2006

er... FIVE and a half years...
posted by fingers_of_fire at 8:45 PM on June 17, 2006

I don't think this is any kind of disinformation campaign, in part because this isn't the first time this kind of thing has come up.

In Italy in 2002, a group of wannabe terrorists, Moroccans, purchased about 5 kilos of Potassium Ferrocyanide from a garden shop. They seem to have seen the "cyanide" part and assumed they were buying a deadly poison, which they apparently intended to use in an attack against the US embassy.

What they don't seem to have realized is that Potassium Ferrocyanide is not poisonous, and it's very difficult to liberate any significant quantity of cyanide gas from it. The reason the stuff was being sold openly was because it's not a threat. (Based on their respective LD-50's, potassium ferrocyanide is half as poisonous as table salt.)

Our enemies have proven themselves again and again to not be very sophisticated. Some of them are, but a lot of them are bumblers. The fact that this plan wasn't actually very well conceived doesn't dissuade me from believing the report. The fact that it's claimed that al Qaeda top brass vetoed the plan is entirely believable; they may have realized that the plan was ill-conceived and unlikely to be very successful.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:00 PM on June 17, 2006

lupus_yonderboy,
Cyanide is nothing at all like the gases that were used in concentration camps, which were nerve gasses. People get confused because Zyklon-B uses cyanide as a chemical precursor but the mechanism and the lethality are completely different.

I and the wikipedia entry are both confused. Care to explain how Zyklon-B's mechanism is more like a nerve agent than like HCN?
posted by Opposite George at 9:09 PM on June 17, 2006

“He received the finest medical attention on the planet…We got him in very good health so we could start to torture him.”
posted by euphorb at 9:27 PM on June 17, 2006

Cyanide is nothing at all like the gases that were used in concentration camps

But saying "a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps" fits right in with the administration's efforts to equate the War on Terror to World War II and raise The Terrorists to the same level as the Nazis.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:15 PM on June 17, 2006

posted by quonsar at 10:23 PM on June 17, 2006

this is al Qaeda's biggest weakness

Don't you have to exist, to have a greatest weakness?
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:44 PM on June 17, 2006

Our enemies have proven themselves again and again to not be very sophisticated.

Yet we allow NSA sweeps of our idiot enemies that includes the contact information of every law abiding person in the US in that sweep. I'd hope more people would stand on principle.

al Qaeda's actual weakeness is that they shouldn't be able to scare us. No matter what some group of people does, they can not affect our way of life.
posted by ryoshu at 1:34 AM on June 18, 2006

This alleged revelation is three and a half years old. Why release it now? The answer to this question is the reason people cannot stomach the Bush administration. Scaring people into voting for you... is that not er, terrorism?
posted by crowman at 5:34 AM on June 18, 2006

Why would the Bush Administration make up a story about a terrorist attack that they failed to stop? Isn't the implication of the piece, that had Zawahiri not called it off, there was nothing we could have done about it?

The rational response to that is that Homeland Security was doing a crappy job, and you have to wonder how all those tax dollars are being spent.

Of course, the spin on this will be that more funding is needed. And possibly some new laws.
posted by mkultra at 8:21 AM on June 18, 2006

you have to wonder how all those tax dollars are being spent.

What's there to wonder?

You know how those tax dollars are being spent: massive payouts to friends which are quickly laundered since anything under the "security" rubric requires no justification or cost/benefit analysis.
posted by sonofsamiam at 8:52 AM on June 18, 2006

Here is the excerpt.
posted by homunculus at 9:45 AM on June 18, 2006

And here is an interview with the author: And then what happened?
posted by homunculus at 9:47 AM on June 18, 2006

mkultra - their motivation would be to illustrate that the terrorist menace is still real and therefore we need to continue to restrict civil liberties and empower the only party that has any kind of record on National Security (ie the GOP).

(I'm not saying I buy any of this - I don't know if this particular terrorist plot was real or not. I don't really care - if it isn't real, there are probably enough real ones like it that this isn't too far-fetched. I also think that the GOP's record on National Security is abyssmal - otherwise there's a good chance that I'd be able to see those towers out my window still.)

(And I ride the NY subway everyday...)
posted by fingers_of_fire at 9:48 AM on June 18, 2006

Wait a minute. Ron Suskind is the guy who interviewed John DiIulio. "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," says DiIulio. "What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

And the book with Paul O'Neill. At cabinet meetings, he says the president was "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection," forcing top officials to act "on little more than hunches about what the president might think."

Suskind is about the last guy you'd expect to be a mouthpiece for alarmist White House propaganda.

Wait a minute....

OH NOES! THEY GOT TO RON SUSKIND!!!
posted by russilwvong at 10:48 AM on June 18, 2006

Here's the book excerpt on Time's website, along with an interview with Suskind.
posted by russilwvong at 10:51 AM on June 18, 2006

Al Qaeda = evil empire! They plot our destruction from secret underground bunkers! They have cells in every country of the world! They're a sophisticated network of trained assassins bent on killing us all!
posted by ludwig_van at 11:12 AM on June 18, 2006

The rational response to that is that Homeland Security was doing a crappy job

Homeland Insecurity

"According to a new Department of Homeland Security report, New Orleans is still unprepared for another catastrophic hurricane more than 10 months after Katrina. Washington, D.C. and New York don’t meet guidelines for responding to major disasters. The shortcomings in emergency planning, including antiquated and uncoordinated response guidelines, are cause 'for significant national concern,' Homeland Security’s analysis concluded."

Heckuva a job, Bushie. Unprepared for natural disasters and terrorist threats!
posted by ericb at 11:38 AM on June 18, 2006

tgrundke:

"These are the kinds of comments that give the Republicans and their supporters cause to question the opposition in this country. "

That's one way to look at it.

Another is the fact that some people can say that and not sound completely insane says something about the current government.

Although I don't know if it's true that this story is a "Rovian Plot," (I doubt it) Rove, the Bush Administration, and the "Conservative Movement" in general have lied so much about so many different things so consistently, I wouldn't be surprised if it is true!
posted by JKevinKing at 1:21 PM on June 18, 2006

Releasing gas on a subway is such a silly way to go about things. Surely it would be much better to release poison in such a way that no-one realised they'd been poisoned until they were already effectively dead? Are there any inhaled poisons which have no symptoms for an hour or two? If so, I've always thought the best way to kill hundreds if not thousands of people is to stand pretty girls outside the perfume counters of department stores and get them to spray people in the face as they walk past. Hours later, you have thousands of people dropping dead at the same time, and who's going to remember the overenthusiastic perfume salesgirls?
posted by talitha_kumi at 4:09 AM on June 19, 2006

who's going to remember the overenthusiastic perfume salesgirls

...wearing gas masks? Or are they suicide sprayers?
posted by staggernation at 7:56 AM on June 19, 2006

The preparation and planning that goes into this is patently unnecessary. Simply perform a chlorine leak via your own household ingredients:

Find a high chlorine bleach, and a high-ammonia cleaner. When outside, mix the two together in a bottle, instantly sealing the lid airtight.

Tape the bottle to the underside of a seat in a public transport of some type before swiftly leaving and opening the bottle.

Et voila.

Seriously, I've found that explosives and deadly gases, (not to mention multiple floral poisons), can be synthesised very easily. Though I made and found recipes before Homeland Security came along, so my info's probably on a shut-down website somewhere.
posted by malusmoriendumest at 7:58 AM on June 19, 2006

Count Richard Clarke among the skeptics.
posted by edverb at 8:19 AM on June 19, 2006

Nothing not simply a lethal gas, but stuff similar to that which was was used in Nazi death camps, people!

I like how he ups the scare quotient with that phrase. I guess that's what makes him a pro.
posted by moonbiter at 8:40 AM on June 19, 2006

who's going to remember the overenthusiastic perfume salesgirls
...wearing gas masks? Or are they suicide sprayers?

You get suicide bombers, so why not suicide sprayers?
posted by talitha_kumi at 3:12 AM on June 26, 2006