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| Acting CIA chief sez al-Qaeda plots against the US thwarted |
| 2004-07-19 |
| America's spy chief yesterday said while several al-Qaeda plots against America have been foiled since Sept. 11, 2001, the terror threat remains as high as it has ever been. ``We've disrupted plots - maritime plots, air plots, plots against infrastructure, plots being planned overseas - to unfold in the United States in all of these things,'' said John E. McLaughlin, acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, without providing any specifics. But al-Qaeda remains ruthlessly determined to strike America again, he stressed. ``It's important to remember here that for these people, an attack in the United States is the brass ring,'' McLaughlin said on the ``Fox News Sunday'' show. ``We can be successful 1,000 times and these people have to be lucky only once.'' Fugitive al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is probably hiding somewhere near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the spy agency head said. ``A lot of the reports indicate that, and we give some credibility to that,'' McLaughlin said. McLaughlin rejected the recommendation expected this week from the Sept. 11 commission that a national intelligence chief be appointed to oversee all intelligence gathering. ``With some modest changes in the way the CIA is set up, the director of Central Intelligence could carry out that function well and appropriately,'' McLaughlin said. The spy agency head noted that while Iran has been singled out as a state sponsor of terrorism, the country was not directly involved in the 9/11 plot. ``I would stop there and say we have no evidence that there is some sort of official sanction by the government of Iran for this activity,'' he said. McLaughlin said while there were contacts and training exchanges between Iraq and al-Qaeda, there was no ``relationship of operational control or command'' between the two. Still, he cautioned, the exact nature of the relationship remains ``an evolving story.'' |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #8 No man is more reviled on a ship after a REFTRA or INSURV visit than a DCA. Actually, if you do your job right, the DCA should be the most reviled man before OPPE, REFTRA, or INSURV. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2004-07-19 10:22:18 PM |
| #7 Jarhead, I am impressed with McLaughlin. An organizatrion with brains and determination should do the job now that the shakles are being removed. The judgement of the CIA's effectiveness should be done by Congress. If Congressmen wanted to perform oversight effectively, it wouldn't be hard to come up with a batting average on intelligence items. It would work very simular to Fred's terrorism futures set-up, but it would deal with individual pieces of intelligence. Regardless, the results would), have to be classified - until political football season rolled around. OT - with respect to civil liberties, does anyone ever notice how tame the provisions of the evil Patriot Act are when compared to the Espionage Act (1917), Sedition Act (1918) or Smith Act? |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-07-19 4:42:13 PM |
| #6 Jarhead: I hear you bro, but I want the CIA to show me the money. Curse the politicos of course, but the CIA really needs to start showing what they are doing for us. They need to balance out their spectacular failures with some successes. I call bullsh!t on their claims without publicizing the results to back them up. |
| Posted by: Anonymous5862 2004-07-19 3:57:59 PM |
| #5 Carl, the CIA for all it's probs had 25 years of hand cuffing from stupid policies (Toricelli) and gutting by the Clinton admin. I don't blame it all on the agents, I blame it on the piss-ant politicians who put them in the position of having no human intel. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-07-19 3:29:05 PM |
| #4 DCA? Yikes! No man is more reviled on a ship after a REFTRA or INSURV visit than a DCA. Nothing is less glamorous than watertight doors or fire hoses, but without them the ship goes to the bottom if hit. A perfect analogy. |
| Posted by: dreadnought 2004-07-19 3:14:38 PM |
| #3 I was a Damage Control Assistant(DCA) on a ship. Sucessful DCA's remain happily "thankless." Post 9/11, our homeland team has made internal security boring an uneventful. I hope all firemen, policemen and EMT's continue to be underappreciated for the near future. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-07-19 12:02:05 PM |
| #2 (not a shot at you by any means eLarson, but:) It will continue to be a thankless job until the CIA starts displaying some necessary PR awareness. Frankly, after their singular lack of success in foreseeing any major event over the past, oh, two decades (Collapse of the USSR ? HEL-lo !), I am unwilling to accept the claim that they have necessarily unpublicized "successes". Uh-uh, I don't believe you guys anymore. Start figuring out how to publicize your "successes" without compromising yourself. And you better start soon, because right now I am on the "raze the CIA, sow Langley with salt, and start over" end of the spectrum, so you guys have a looooooong way to go. /rant |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H 2004-07-19 11:51:55 AM |
| #1 Keep up the great work. It is a pretty thankless job, since the more successful you are, the less apparent it is that you've done anything. So: Thank you. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-07-19 11:18:29 AM |