CHAPTER XX
The Post 9/11 Terror Alerts

The Bush Administration has put the country on “high risk” Code Orange terror alert on several occasions since September 11, 2001. Without exception, Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda was identified as “a threat to the Homeland”. The official announcement invariably points to “significant intelligence reports” or “credible sources” of a terrorist attack “from the international terrorist group Al Qaeda” or by “terrorist mastermind Al-Zarqawi”. (See Chapter XIII.)

Since 9/11, most Americans have accepted these terrorist warnings at face value. The terror alerts have become part of a routine: people have become accustomed in their daily lives to the Code Orange terror alerts.

Moreover, they have also accepted the distinct possibility— stated time and again by the Department of Homeland Security— of a Code Red Alert, which would trigger an emergency situation. Supported by a barrage of media propaganda, these repeated terror alerts have created an environment of fear and intimidation, a wait and accept attitude, a false normality.

The disinformation campaign, which feeds the news chain on a daily basis, supports this process of shaping US public opinion. The hidden agenda ultimately consists in an environment of fear and intimidation, which mobilizes public support for an actual national emergency, leading to the declaration of martial law.
 

Terror Alerts based on Fabricated Intelligence

On 7 February 2003, two days after Colin Powell’s flopped presentation on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction to the UN Security Council, a Code Orange Alert was ordered. (See Chapter XIII.) Powell’s intelligence dossier had been politely dismissed. The rebuttal came from UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix, who showed that the intelligence presented by Colin Powell had been blatantly fabricated and was being used as pretext to wage war on Iraq.

The Bush administration declared a Code Orange terror alert as a “save face operation”, which contributed to appeasing an impending scandal, while also upholding the Pentagon’s planned invasion of Iraq.

Media attention was thus immediately shifted from Colin Powell’s blunders at the UN Security Council to an imminent terrorist attack on America. Anti-aircraft missiles were immediately deployed around Washington. The media became inundated with stories on Iraqi support to an impending Al Qaeda attack on America.

The objective was to present Iraq as the aggressor:

The nation is now on Orange Alert because intelligence intercepts and simple logic both suggest that our Islamic enemies know the best way to strike at us is through terrorism on US soil.1

Also planted in the news chain was a story—allegedly emanating from the CIA—on so-called “radioactive dirty bombs”.2 Secretary Powell had warned that,

“it would be easy for terrorists to cook up radioactive ‘dirty’ bombs to explode inside the US. … ‘How likely it is, I can’t say. … But I think it is wise for us to at least let the American people know of this possibility.’”3

Meanwhile, network TV warned that “American hotels, shopping malls or apartment buildings could be Al Qaeda’s targets as soon as next week.”
In the weeks leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Administration’s disinformation campaign consisted in linking Baghdad to Al Qaeda. The objective was to muster unbending support for President Bush and weaken the anti-war protest movement.

Following the February 2003 announcement, tens of thousands of Americans rushed to purchase duct tape, plastic sheets and gas masks.

It later transpired that the terrorist alert was fabricated, in all likelihood in consultation with the upper echelons of the State Department.4

The FBI, for the first time had pointed its finger at the CIA.

This piece of that puzzle turns out to be fabricated and therefore the reason for a lot of the alarm, particularly in Washington this week, has been dissipated after they found out that this information was not true,” said Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counter-terrorism chief and ABCNEWS consultant. …

According to officials, the FBI and the CIA are pointing fingers at each other. An FBI spokesperson told ABCNEWS today he was “not familiar with the scenario,” but did not think it was accurate.5

While tacitly acknowledging that the alert was a fake, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge decided to maintain the Code Orange Alert:

Despite the fabricated report, there are no plans to change the threat level. Officials said other intelligence has been validated and that the high level of precautions is fully warranted.6

A few days later, in another failed pre-invasion propaganda initiative, a mysterious Osama bin Laden audio-tape was presented by Sec. Colin Powell to the US Congress as “evidence” that the Islamic terrorists “are making common cause with a brutal dictator”.7 Curiously, the audio tape was in Colin Powell’s possession prior to its broadcast by the Al Jazeera TV Network.8

Homeland Security’s Fake Christmas Terror Alert

On December 21, 2003, four days before Christmas, the Homeland Security Department again raised the national threat level from “elevated” to “high risk”.9

In his pre-Christmas Press Conference, Homeland Security Department Secretary Tom Ridge confirmed in much the same way as on February 7, 2003, that “the US intelligence community has received a substantial increase in the volume of threat-related intelligence reports”. According to Tom Ridge, these “credible [intelligence] sources” raise “the possibility of attacks against the homeland, around the holiday season”.10

While the circumstances and timing were different, Secretary Tom Ridge’s December 21, 2003 statement had all the appearances of a “copy and paste” (déjà vu) version of his February 7, 2003 pre-invasion announcement, which the FBI identified as having been based on faulty intelligence.

The atmosphere of fear and confusion created across America contributed to breaking the spirit of Christmas. According to the media reports, the high-level terror alert was to “hang over the holidays and usher in the New Year”. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned that:

Terrorists still threaten our country and we remain engaged in a dangerous—to be sure—difficult war and it will not be over soon. … They can attack at any time and at any place.” … With America on high terror alert for the Christmas holiday season, intelligence officials fear Al Qaeda is eager to stage a spectacular attack—possibly hijacking a foreign airliner or cargo jet and crashing it into a high-profile target inside the United States.11

The official Christmas 2003 announcement by the Homeland Security Department dispelled any lingering doubts regarding the threat level:

The risk [during the Christmas period] is perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11, 2001. … Indications that [the] near-term attacks … will either rival or exceed the [9/11] attacks. And it’s pretty clear that the nation’s capital and New York City would be on any list.12

Following Secretary Tom Ridge’s announcement, anti-aircraft missile batteries were set up in Washington:

And the Pentagon said today, more combat air patrols will now be flying over select cities and facilities, with some airbases placed on higher alert.13

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld commented: “You ask, ‘Is it serious?’ Yes, you bet your life. People don’t do that unless it’s a serious situation.”14
According to an official statement: “intelligence indicate[d] that Al Qaeda-trained pilots may be working for overseas airlines and ready to carry out suicide attacks.”15

More specifically, Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists were, according to Homeland Security, planning to hijack an Air France plane and “crash it on US soil in a suicide terror strike similar to those carried out on September 11, 2001.”

Air France Christmas flights out of Paris were grounded. F-16 fighters were patrolling the skies.

Yet once again, it turned out that the stand down orders on Air France’s Christmas 2003 flights from Paris to Los Angeles, which had been used to justify the Code Orange Alert during the Christmas holiday, had been based on fabricated information.

According to the official version of events, Washington had identified six members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban on the Air France passenger list:

US counter-terrorism officials said their investigation was focusing on the “informed belief” that about six men on Air France Flight 68, which arrives in Los Angeles daily at 4:05 p.m., may have been planning to hijack the jet and crash it near Los Angeles, or along the way.

 

That belief, according to one senior US counter-terrorism official, was based on reliable and corroborated information from several sources. Some of the men had the same names as identified members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, a senior US official said. One of the men is a trained pilot with a commercial license, according to a senior US official.

US law-enforcement officials said the flights were canceled in response to the same intelligence that prompted … Homeland Security … to ratchet up the nation’s terror-alert level to orange. …

With that information, US authorities contacted French intelligence. … They prevailed upon Air France to cancel [their flights], because the original intelligence information warned of more than one flight being commandeered.16

Other media confirmed that the reports gathered by American agencies were “very, very precise”. Meanwhile Fox News pointed to the possibility that Al Qaeda was “trying to plant disinformation, among other things to cost us money, to throw people into panic and perhaps to probe our defenses to see how we respond.”17

“Mistaken Identity”

Throughout the Christmas holiday, Los Angeles International airport was on “maximum deployment” with counter-terrorism and FBI officials working around the clock.

Yet following the French investigation, it turned out that the terror alert was a hoax. The information was not “very very precise” as claimed by US intelligence.
The six Al Qaeda men turned out to be a five year old boy, an elderly Chinese lady who used to run a restaurant in Paris, a Welsh insurance salesman and three French nationals.18

On January 2, 2004, the French government finally released the results of their investigation which indicated that the intelligence was erroneous: There “was not a trace of Al Qaeda among the passengers”.

The intelligence was fake. And this had already been uncovered prior to the Christmas holiday, by France’s antiterrorist services, which had politely refuted the so-called “credible sources” emanating out of the US intelligence apparatus.

France’s counter-terrorism experts were extremely “skeptical” of their US counterparts:

We [French police investigators] showed [on 23 December] that their arguments simply did not make sense, but despite the evidence, the flights were cancelled. … The main suspect [a Tunisian hijacker] turned out to be a child. … We really had the feeling of hostile and unfriendly treatment [by US officials] (ils nous appliquent un traite-ment d’infamie). The information was not transmitted through normal channels. It wasn’t the FBI or the CIA which contacted us, everything went through diplomatic channels.19

The decision to cancel the six Air France flights was taken after two days of intense negotiations between French and American officials following the completion of the French investigation.

The flights were cancelled on the orders of the French Prime Minister following consultations with Secretary Colin Powell. Despite the fact that the information had been refuted, Homeland Security Secretary To m Ridge insisted on maintaining the stand-down order. If Air France had not complied, it would have been prevented from using US air space, namely banned from flying to the US.

It was after News Year’s Day, once the holiday season was over, that the US authorities admitted that they were in error, claiming that it was an unavoidable case of “mistaken identity.” While tacitly acknowledging their error, Homeland Security insisted that “the cancellations were based on solid information.”

Emergency Planning

Had the flights not been cancelled, the Administration’s justification for Code Orange Alert would have been put in jeopardy. Homeland Security needed to sustain the lie over the entire Christmas holiday. It also required an active Orange Alert to launch emergency planning procedures at the highest levels of the Bush Administration.

On December 22, 2003, the day following Secretary Ridge’s Christmas announcement, President Bush was briefed by his “top anti-terror advisors” in closed door sessions at the White House. Later in the day, the Homeland Security Council (HSC) met, also at the White House. The executive body of the HSC, the so-called Principals Committee (HSC/PC), was headed by Secretary Tom Ridge. It included Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary, Emergency Preparedness and Response, who overseas the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).20

In the wake of the HSC meeting held on 22 December, Secretary Ridge confirmed that:

we reviewed the specific plans and the specific action we have taken and will continue to take.21

In accordance with the official pre-Christmas statement, an “actual terrorist attack” in the near future on American soil would trigger a Code Red Alert, which in turn, would create conditions for the (temporary) suspension of the normal functions of civilian government. (See Chapter XXI) This scenario had in fact been envisaged by Secretary Tom Ridge in a CBS News Interview on December 22, 2003: “If we simply go to red … it basically shuts down the country”, meaning that civilian government bodies would be closed down and taken over by an Emergency Administration.22

Setting the Stage for a Pre-Election Terror Alert

Seven months later, at the height of the 2004 presidential election campaign, the Bush Administration launched yet another high profile terror alert. Based on so-called “credible” reports, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned that Osama was “planning to disrupt the November [2004] elections”. A large scale attack on American soil was supposedly being planned by Al Qaeda during the presidential election campaign:

Credible reporting indicates that Al Qaeda is moving forward with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States in an effort to disrupt our democratic process. … This is sobering information about those who wish to do us harm. … But every day we strengthen the security of our nation.23

According to Secretary Ridge, “possible targets” included the Democratic National Convention scheduled for late July 2004 and the Republican Convention in New York in August 2004.

Barely a few days prior to Tom Ridge’s somber announcement, a spokesman of Northern Command Headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, confirmed that NorthCom—which has a mandate to defend the Homeland—was “at a high level of readiness” and was proceeding with the (routine) deployment of jet fighters over major cities as well as the stationing of troops at key locations.24

This new terror warning by Homeland Security and the impending military deployment, served to create an aura of insecurity concerning the November presidential elections.

In other words, the Orange alert, triggered at the height of the presidential race, was an integral part of Bush’s campaign. It consisted not only in galvanizing public opinion in support of his “war on terrorism” agenda, but also in creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in the months leading up to the November 2004 elections.

Homeland Security Department Secretary Tom Ridge did not elaborate on the nature of the intelligence: “we lack precise knowledge about time, place and method of attack. … [T]he CIA, the FBI and other agencies, are actively working to gain that knowledge.”25

These high profile statements had thus “set the stage”. Barely a few days later, CIA Acting Director John McLaughlin confirmed that the threat was real:
Their work is highly compartmented to a small group of people, probably living in a cave somewhere, and our country doesn’t keep secrets very well. So we have to watch what we release about the details. But this is a serious threat period.26

The warning was based, according to CIA’s Mc Laughlin, on “solid intelligence”:

I think the quality of the information we have is very good …It is [however] necessary for us to hold back a lot of the specifics, because those are the things we need to stop this.27

The “Solid Intelligence” turns out to be Fake

Two weeks later, pursuant to McLauchlin’s statement and the CIA’s investigation, the administration triggered a Code Orange Alert in New York City, Washington DC and Northern New Jersey. This time it was Wall Street, the IMF and the World Bank which were supposedly being threatened by Al Qaeda.

Homeland Sec.Tom Ridge confirmed that the intelligence was “not the usual chatter. This is multiple sources that involve extraordinary detail”:

This afternoon we do have new and unusually specific information about where Al Qaida would like to attack. … The quality of this intelligence, based on multiple reporting streams in multiple locations, is rarely seen, and it is alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information. Now, while we are providing you with this immediate information, we will also continue to update you as the situation unfolds.

As of now, this is what we know: Reports indicate that Al Qaeda is targeting several specific buildings, including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in the District of Columbia, Prudential Financial in northern New Jersey and Citigroup buildings and the New York Stock Exchange in New York.

Let me assure you—let me reassure you, actions to further strengthen security around these buildings are already under way. Additionally, we’re concerned about targets beyond these and are working to get more information about them.

Now, senior leadership across the Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with the White House, the CIA, the FBI, and other federal agencies, have been in constant contact with the governors, the mayors and the homeland security advisers of the affected locations I’ve just named.28

Ye t barely two days later, US officials were obliged to admit that this high quality intelligence referred to by Secretary Tom Ridge was not so precise after all. In fact, it was even less “specific” than in previous terror alerts.

In an ABC interview, Deputy National Security Adviser Frances Townsend admitted that the August 1st 2004 alert was based on “outdated intelligence” going back to 2000/2001, i.e., prior to 9/11:

What we have learned about the 9/11 attacks, is that they do them [plans for attacks], years in advance and then update them before they launch the attacks.29

According to Townsend, “the surveillance actions taken by the plotters were “originally done between 2000 and 2001, but were updated—some were updated—as recently as January of this year”.30

Frances Townsend headed the White House counterterrorism program. She was Richard Clarke’s successor on the National Security Council, holding the Number Two position after National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Her own statements on the nature of the intelligence blatantly contradicted DHS Sec Tom Ridge, who had referred to “the quality of this intelligence, based on multiple reporting streams in multiple locations”.

The Mysterious Pakistani Computer Engineer

The hundreds of photos, sketches and written documents used to justify the “high risk” Code Orange terror alert, had emanated largely from one single source of information, following the highly publicized arrest in mid July of a 25 year old Pakistani computer engineer, Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan.31

Other than a New York Times report dated August 2, 2004 which had been quoted extensively by news agencies around the World, nothing was known about this mysterious individual. On his computer, Noor Khan, described as “a mid-ranking Al Qaeda operative”, had information dating back to 2000 and this data, we were told, was the main source of the intelligence used by the CIA to document the threats to financial institutions in Washington DC, New York City and Newark, New Jersey.32

The Pakistani connection focusing on the 25-year-old engineer was presented by the media as the missing link.

The CIA Meeting at Langley on July 29

The CIA held a key counter-terrorism meeting on Thursday the 29th of July starting at 5 pm.33 This meeting, which was described as routine, was attended by senior officials from the CIA, the Pentagon and the FBI.34

According to an unnamed senior intelligence official (who in all likelihood attended the meeting), the decision to launch the “high risk” (Code Orange) terror alert was taken on that same Thursday evening, within hours of Senator John Kerry’s acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention:

At the daily CIA’s 5 p.m. counterterrorism meeting on Thursday [29 July 2004], the first information about the detailed al Qaeda surveillance of the five financial buildings was discussed among senior CIA, FBI and military officials. They decided to launch a number of worldwide operations, including the deployment of increased law enforcement around the five [financial] buildings [World Bank, IMF, NYSE, Citigroup, Prudential].35

On what solid intelligence was that far-reaching 29 July decision taken?

On that same Thursday at Langley, when the decision was taken to increase the threat level, the “precise” and “specific” information from the Pakistani engineer’s computer, including “the trove of hundreds of photos and written documents”, was not yet available.

A senior intelligence official said translations of the computer documents and other intelligence started arriving on Friday [one day after the decision was taken to launch the operation].36

According to a White House aid, President Bush had been “informed of the potential threat Friday morning [July 30] aboard Air Force One”.37 The information from Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan’s computer, however, was only made available ex post facto on the Friday. In other words, President Bush’s approval to raising “the threat level” was granted in the absence of “specific” supporting intelligence:

“We worked on it late, and through that night [Friday]” he [the intelligence official] said. “We had very specific, credible information, and when we laid it in on the threat environment we’re in,” officials decided they had to announce it.

 

[At first], top administration officials had decided to wait until yesterday [Saturday] to announce the alert, but more intelligence information was coming in—both new translations of the documents, and analysis of other sources’ statements—that deepened their concern about the information, and persuaded them to move ahead swiftly. “There was a serious sense of urgency to get it out,” the senior intelligence official said. …

On Saturday, officials from the CIA, the FBI, the Homeland Security and Justice departments, the White House, and other agencies agreed with Ridge to recommend that the financial sectors in New York, Washington and North Jersey be placed on orange, or ‘high,’ alert. Ridge made the recommendation to Bush on Sunday morning, and Bush signed off on it at 10 am.38

Out of date Intelligence

Following the DHS’s Sunday August 1st advisory that the Bretton Woods institutions were a potential target, the World Bank spokesman Dana Milverton retorted that the information obtained from the Pakistani engineer’s computer was “largely out of date’’: “[A] lot of it was actually public information that anyone from outside the building could have gotten.’’39

One federal law enforcement source said his understanding from reviewing the reports was that the material predated Sept. 11 and included photos that can be obtained from brochures and some actual snapshots. There also were some interior diagrams that appear to be publicly available.40

According to a New York Times report:

The information, which officials said was indicative of preparations for a possible truck- or car-bomb attack, left significant gaps. It did not clearly describe the suspected plot, indicate when an attack was to take place nor did it describe the identities of people involved.41

Fabricated Intelligence for Political Gain

Not only was the “out of date intelligence” being used to justify a “high risk” threat level, the actual decision to launch the Code Orange alert was taken within hours of John Kerry’s acceptance speech, prior to actually receiving the (out of date) supporting intelligence from Pakistan.

No specific intelligence from the illusive Pakistan engineer’s computer was reviewed at that Thursday evening meeting at CIA headquarters on 29 June 2004.42
 

Tom Ridge’s Mea Culpa

Shortly after leaving his position at the HSD, Tom Ridge acknowledged that the terror alerts were indeed based on “flimsy evidence” and that he had been pressured by the CIA to raise the threat level:

“The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level. … Ridge [said] he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or ‘high’ risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

“More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it. … Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don’t necessarily put the country on [alert]. … There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, ‘For that?’”44

Nothing indicated that the decision to increase the threat level had a real foundation. When Tom Ridge was asked “what he would say to skeptical people who see a political motive in the terror alert, he replied: ‘I wish I could give them all Top Secret clearances and let them review the information that some of us have the responsibility to review. We don’t do politics in the Department of Homeland Security.’”43

The threat of an impending terror attack was fabricated. The deployment around the five financial buildings was totally unnecessary. Public opinion was deliberately misled.
 

Notes

1. The New York Post, 11 February 2003.
2. ABC News, 13 February 2003
3. ABC News, 9 February. 2003.
4. ABC News, 13 February 2003,
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. US official quoted in The Toronto Star, 12 February. 2003.
8. Ibid.
9. See Department of Homeland Security at http//www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/index.jsp 
10. For complete statement of Secretary Tom Ridge, 21 December 2003, see http//www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/
11. Boston Globe, 24 December 2003.
12. Tom Ridge’s 21 December 2003 Statement, op. cit.
13. Associated Press, 23 December 2003.
14. Quoted by ABC News, 23 December 2003.
15. ABC News, 23 December 2003.
16.Seattle Post Intelligencer, 25 December 2003.
17. Fox News, 28 December 2003.
18. Le Monde, Paris and RTBF TV, Bruxelles, 2 January 2004.
19. Ibid.
20. White House Briefing, 22 December 2003. See also Stephanie Griffith, “Bush convenes anti-terror security meeting as US goes on higher alert”, AFP, 22 December 2003.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Quoted in Associated Press, 8 July 2004.
24. Atlantic Journal and Constitution, 3 July 2004.
25. CNN, Tom Ridge interviewed by Wolf Blitzer, 11 July 2004.
26. CNN, John McLaughlin interviewed by Wolf Blitzer, 14 July 2004.
27. Ibid.
28. Tom Ridge’s news conference, 31 July 2004, quoted in ABC Good Morning America, 3 August 2004.
29. Ibid.
30. NBC Today, 3 August 2004, quoted in The Guardian, 3 August 2004.
31. Associated Press, 3 August 2004.
32. New York Times, 2 August 2004
33. Washington Post, 3 August 2004.
34. See The CIA website at http//www.cia.gov/terrorism/ctc.html
35. Washington Post, 3 August 2004.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. The Guardian, 3 August 2004.
40. Ibid.
41. New York Times, 3 August 2004.
42. Washington Post, 3 August 2004.
43. Washington Post, 3 August 2004
44. USA Today, 10 May 2005.

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