"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
Terror Warning: What
The Hell Was That?
Posted 6:27 p.m., May 27, 2004
"Ever get the feeling that you've been cheated?"
-- Johnny Rotten
... "There's not a consensus within the administration that we need to raise the threat level."
-- Tom Ridge,
Secretary of Homeland Security
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You may have noticed that a few nights ago I posted a little item here in which I put out what probably sounded like a kind of last will and testament of affection toward those of you, my friends, who read the stuff I write here.Well, last night while watching Nightline, I saw a report that so pissed me off that I went in and deleted it. I didn't even cut and paste it to a Word document to preserve it, or put it in my archives. I regret that because I don't like revising history. But I also don't like the Bush administration scaring the bejeezus out of me for nothing.
Well, maybe it's not for nothing, I acknowledge. It is absolutely possible that bad shit could go down, and soon, on the terror front.
Certainly, I took it with all seriousness when I read on the San Francisco Chronicle Web site a few days ago that an unnamed federal official told The Associated Press that "terrorists are already in the United States and may be seeking to use chemical, biological or radiological weapons in an attack."
To me it sounded like--and was communicated as--the most serious threat the country has faced since the terror chatter just before Sept. 11. Based on what I read and the subsequent coverage, things looked very grim. Too grim for partisan spin. "I will spare you the ignominy of speculating what this might do to the president's poll numbers," I wrote Tuesday night. In the face of sobering information like this, I added, who cares?
Well, it's looking increasingly like the Bush administration cares.
Nightline last night, and CBS News tonight, along with the Washington Post, New York Times and others, have all filed reports noting that the messages emanating from the federal government about these summertime terror threats are decidedly mixed.
FBI chief Robert Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft held a press conference Wednesday gloomily forecasting that al-Qaida was 90 percent complete in its preparations to "hit America hard," possibly at a major public event like the summer Olympics or political conventions.
But as CBS's Bob Orr reported tonight, the rest of the federal government, including the Homeland Security Department, and the nation's mayors, all heard the details while watching television. And even after Ashcroft and Mueller sounded those dire warnings, the national terror alert did not change. We're still on yellow.
What the hell gives?
One unnamed administration official told Orr that the threat-warning process was never supposed to work like that after Sept. 11, but that "the whole warning process was usurped by the attorney general."
"Beyond that, senior counterterrorism officials questioned the legitimacy of the bulletin, saying there is no new specific credible evidence pointing to an eminent attack in the U.S."
-- Bob Orr, CBS NewsNew York Times reporters Richard W. Stevenson and Eric Lichtblau today write that speculation is running rampant in D.C. that the president's poll numbers do lie behind the new warning, which produced only one previously unknown name or face, and no new hard information about a possible strike that hasn't already been out there for months.
"[S]ome opponents of President Bush, including police and firefighter union leaders aligned with Senator John Kerry, the expected Democratic presidential candidate, said the timing of the announcement appeared intended in part to distract attention from Mr. Bush's sagging poll numbers and problems in Iraq."The administration did not raise the terrorist threat advisory from its current level of elevated, or yellow, and the White House said Mr. Bush would not alter his schedule because of security concerns."
-- Richard W. Stevenson and Eric Lichtblau, the New York TimesCBS's Orr, however, points in a different direction. According to his story tonight, the mixed signals produced a question from President Bush, aimed at both Ashcroft and Ridge, suggesting that the president is not directly behind the warnings. An "administration official," Orr reports, said that at one point Wednesday, Bush asked his two cabinet officers, "Are you guys synched up on this plan?"
"There is suspicion inside federal agencies that the attorney general may be hyping the threat in a turf battle over controlling domestic security. At a minimum, sources say, the administration in-fighting has done nothing to better inform or reassure the American public."
-- Bob Orr, CBS NewsI will say that one good thing came out of this episode, which again, may have reality behind it, but which looks damnably fishy. The positive result is the way that the suspects' photos were put on display for wide distribution, "America's Most Wanted"-style. That is a good thing, and exactly the kind of tactic that 9/11 commission member Bob Kerrey has said might have thwarted Sept. 11, had it been done back then.
So that's some solace. And the government would do well to keep using that method. But it would do even better to do it when there's real information to impart so as not to fall into the position of becoming the government that cried wolf.
My overriding sense right now is frustration and, yeah, a bit of anger. I admit it. I don't appreciate the government going out of its way to spook me, whether it's because the "war on terror" is the only area where the president's polling numbers remain high, or if it's in the cause of shoring up the sagging fortunes of the A.G.
No, I don't like that one bit.
-- Kevin Featherly
