The Must-Read Of The Weekend…
…,if you haven’t already come across it, is TIME’s excerpt from the new Ron Susskind book on the Bush Administration and the War on Terror. The headline is the revelation that there was a pretty well-developed plot to release poison gas in the NY subway. Read it all; our good friend AJ finds the revelations to be harmful to national security – maybe so, though I’m sure the book was vetted. For myself, I found it to be a timely reminder that the threats we face are real – and terrifying…
The book was obviously vetted and it’s laughable to think that the US would allow our own mole within al Qaeda to be compromised by it. It’s clear that “Ali” was either killed or somehow incapacitated, keep in mind that the excerpt deals with events that are over three years old.
The article itself is definitely a must read (in fact, I ordered a copy of the book right after reading it), but parts of it seem questionable. I have a hard time believing that al Qaeda was in possesion of such a weapon system, took the time to use extensive surveillance on the subway system in NYC with operatives and then inexplicably decides to call off the attack. It just doesn’t make any kind of sense. At the moment when American troops were occupying Baghdad, launching a chemical attack would have been a huge blow to America and a big coup for al Qaeda. Nonetheless, I look forward to reading the book to see if any more light is shed on this.