NoaIzumiDick Morris responds to my blog!
January 14th 2009 13:25
Well, no, not really, but while I was browsing Townhall.com looking for new material, I ran across an article by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann that coincidentally answered a challenge I posed in my last post.
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Readers will remember that in my post yesterday about an article by David Stokes, I asked for an example of a terrorist attack that been stopped thanks to “enhanced interrogation”. The Morris and McGann article posted yesterday on Townhall.com, Obama is Emasculating Intelligence (great visual imagery there), includes the following paragraph,
“Doesn't he realize that without warrantless FISA wiretaps we could never have uncovered the plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge (how could we have gotten a warrant for conversations about the bridge when we didn't yet know that al Qaeda had it in its sights?) Has he forgotten that we only found the name of the operative who was tasked with destroying the bridge because we subjected Kahlid Mohammed, the mastermind of 9-11, to "rough" interrogation techniques?”
It refers to a plot by truck driver and Al-Qaeda associate Iyman Faris to bring down the Brooklyn bridge by using blowtorches to sabotage the support structure. According to the New York Times, government officials claimed that it was a wiretap that tipped authorities off to the plan.
Really Long Link (subscription to NYT needed)
However, the “plot” to destroy the bridge was stopped not by the US government, but by Al-Qaeda. Iyman Faris was tasked to scout the Brooklyn Bridge and acquire materials in advance of the attack, but in late 2002 he reported back that the plan most likely wouldn’t work because the bridge was too big and too secure.
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
Morris also apparently forgot that under the FISA rules, authorities are allowed to listen in on suspects’ phone calls for three days before needing a warrant.
As for the claim that Faris (who, in May 2003, was sentenced to 20 years for aiding Al-Qaeda) was given up by Kalid Mohammed while under enhanced interrogation, the folks in Newsweek tell a different story, that he was identified through “cell phones and computer discs found in Mohammed's Pakistani safe house”
Really Long Link
In addition, according to the same story, Faris’ involvement with terrorism most likely ended the moment his boss was captured. Which makes sense; if an operative may have been compromised, you err on the side of caution, assume he has been compromised, and don’t use him again. So the initial capture did the whole job. It would also explain why Faris wasn’t a very useful double agent. (He worked for the FBI for a month only, which led to no arrests and no plots uncovered.) His former associates assumed he had been turned the moment they heard about Khalid Mohammed’s capture.
So, wiretaps revealed a plan that had been cancelled and wouldn’t have worked anyway, and torture revealed a name that the authorities already had of someone who wasn’t an active terrorist anymore. That’s good work there, boys. Makes breaking the law and being a pariah at home and abroad worth it.
Better luck next time.
Really Long Link
Readers will remember that in my post yesterday about an article by David Stokes, I asked for an example of a terrorist attack that been stopped thanks to “enhanced interrogation”. The Morris and McGann article posted yesterday on Townhall.com, Obama is Emasculating Intelligence (great visual imagery there), includes the following paragraph,
“Doesn't he realize that without warrantless FISA wiretaps we could never have uncovered the plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge (how could we have gotten a warrant for conversations about the bridge when we didn't yet know that al Qaeda had it in its sights?) Has he forgotten that we only found the name of the operative who was tasked with destroying the bridge because we subjected Kahlid Mohammed, the mastermind of 9-11, to "rough" interrogation techniques?”
It refers to a plot by truck driver and Al-Qaeda associate Iyman Faris to bring down the Brooklyn bridge by using blowtorches to sabotage the support structure. According to the New York Times, government officials claimed that it was a wiretap that tipped authorities off to the plan.
Really Long Link (subscription to NYT needed)
However, the “plot” to destroy the bridge was stopped not by the US government, but by Al-Qaeda. Iyman Faris was tasked to scout the Brooklyn Bridge and acquire materials in advance of the attack, but in late 2002 he reported back that the plan most likely wouldn’t work because the bridge was too big and too secure.
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
Morris also apparently forgot that under the FISA rules, authorities are allowed to listen in on suspects’ phone calls for three days before needing a warrant.
As for the claim that Faris (who, in May 2003, was sentenced to 20 years for aiding Al-Qaeda) was given up by Kalid Mohammed while under enhanced interrogation, the folks in Newsweek tell a different story, that he was identified through “cell phones and computer discs found in Mohammed's Pakistani safe house”
Really Long Link
In addition, according to the same story, Faris’ involvement with terrorism most likely ended the moment his boss was captured. Which makes sense; if an operative may have been compromised, you err on the side of caution, assume he has been compromised, and don’t use him again. So the initial capture did the whole job. It would also explain why Faris wasn’t a very useful double agent. (He worked for the FBI for a month only, which led to no arrests and no plots uncovered.) His former associates assumed he had been turned the moment they heard about Khalid Mohammed’s capture.
So, wiretaps revealed a plan that had been cancelled and wouldn’t have worked anyway, and torture revealed a name that the authorities already had of someone who wasn’t an active terrorist anymore. That’s good work there, boys. Makes breaking the law and being a pariah at home and abroad worth it.
Better luck next time.
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