Source: The New Republic Online
On August 10, British and American officials announced that they had "disrupted," in the words of Scotland Yard, "a major terrorist plot to allegedly blow up aircraft in mid-flight." In statements to the press, officials made the following assertions:
According to senior Bush administration officials, the plotters had devised an elaborate plan to blow up nine (or ten) planes from British Airways, United, Continental, and American Airlines that were headed from Heathrow to Washington, D.C., New York City, and California. It included smuggling the components of the explosive tatp onto airlines along with detonators. At a news conference, Chertoff called the plot "sophisticated." According to Time, a senior official estimated that "about 2,700 people would have perished." These kinds of detailed descriptions of the plot appeared on the major networks and in reports from the wire services and in major newspapers and newsmagazines.
The attack was imminent. According to Chertoff, the plot was "getting really quite close to the execution phase" and was "in the final stages of planning before execution." While the arrests had disrupted the plot, there was no evidence that they had completely blocked it. "We cannot assume that the threat has been completely thwarted," Chertoff said in justifying the first red alert in five years for U.S. airlines. "I think it's pretty clear that, in this case, we don't have everybody," White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend warned the Associated Press.
While those arrested were British Muslims, they were thought to be acting on behalf of or in coordination with Al Qaeda. A "senior US intelligence official" told The Boston Globe, "There are suspicions that there is a real Al Qaeda connection--not just Al Qaeda wannabees or inspire-ees." Pakistani and American officials claimed that the "operational planner" of the conspiracy was Rashid Rauf, a British citizen, whom the Pakistanis said had admitted under interrogation of having met with an Al Qaeda leader in Pakistan.
There are, of course, other details that came out, but these are the main ones; and, over the last three weeks, doubts have been raised about each one of them. If the initial story offered by Chertoff and Townsend--and their British and Pakistani counterparts--represents a house, then that house is now tottering on its foundations and ready to collapse in ruins.
Accounts contradicting the original story have appeared, among other places, in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times, inviting skepticism from my colleague Andrew Sullivan. These accounts appear to have been inspired by leaks from American and British officials. In addition, a source familiar with Pakistani intelligence has told The New Republic that similar doubts about the official story exist within Pakistani ranks.
Did the plotters have a detailed plan that was to be put into effect imminently? According to British officials, there was no evidence that the plotters had agreed on specific planes or set a date. They describe the estimate of ten places as, according to The New York Times, "speculative and exaggerated." The plotters were not even ready to make a dry run, let alone execute the actual bombing. Two of the suspects did not even have passports, without which they could not have boarded a plane. They were experimenting with chemical explosives--hmtd, as it turned out, not tatp--but a chemical expert has raised doubts about whether they could have pulled off an explosion, which requires considerable knowledge and skill.
Was there still a "red alert" danger after the plotters were apprehended? The British themselves had them under close surveillance for months. Authorities, the Los Angeles Times reported, "were confident that their surveillance, assisted by Pakistani security forces, was meticulous and that an attack was not imminent." On August 11--the same day that Townsend was warning of further danger from the terrorists--British Home Secretary John Reid told reporters that he was confident that the main suspects were in custody. Of course, it is conceivable that a duplicate cell of plotters existed, but the British had no evidence of one.
Was the plot an Al Qaeda operation? Rauf himself had been busted by the Pakistanis the day before the London arrests, and, according to the Pakistanis, had admitted--allegedly under torture--to having made contact with Matiur Rehman, whom the Pakistanis claim is an Al Qaeda operative. But that's hardly proof of Al Qaeda direction. Moreover, Rauf's role remains unclear. A British counterterrorism official told the Los Angeles Times that Rauf was not the plot's "mastermind." And Rauf's actual connection to Al Qaeda is also suspect. Rauf has been linked to Jaish-e-Mohammed, which operates in Kashmir. There could still be an Al Qaeda link. But, like all the initial details of this case, it remains in doubt.
As the details have become murky, what has also been cast in doubt is the explanation of why the arrests were made in the first place. According to British officials, the Brits did not want to arrest the plotters; they preferred to see who else, over the next months, the plotters recruited and made contact with. But their hand was forced when the Pakistanis arrested Rauf on August 9. Why the Pakistanis did so remains unclear, but there is a speculation that they did so at U.S. urging. "There have been reports that U.S. officials pushed for the arrest," the Los Angeles Times reported on August 20.
Once the arrest was made, the British decided to act, but exactly why they did so also remains unclear. According to The Boston Globe, the British became concerned when one of the suspects disappeared. British officials also claimed that, after Rauf's arrest, one of his associates had sent a message to the plotters that ordered to "go now" with the plan. But a British official later told The New York Times that the message was not that explicit.
Another possibility, voiced by Pakistan's dissenting press, is that George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Pervez Musharraf accelerated the crisis for political reasons--Bush and Blair to buttress their flagging popularity and Musharraf to endear himself to his chief protector, the United States. Pakistan's Daily Times says the recent revelation reinforces "the sceptics who have alleged that the brouhaha was created by the US and British governments, in collusion with Pakistan, to help stabilise the falling ratings of President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair." That's mere speculation, of course.
That is clear is that, once the arrests were made, the Bush administration used the threat to stoke public fears about "Islamic fascism" while portraying itself and the Republican Party as the only ones capable of quieting these fears. Said Bush on August 10 in Green Bay: "The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation ... [O]bviously, we still aren't completely safe, because there are people that still plot and people who want to harm us for what we believe in. It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America." Townsend was quick to suggest that the administration had a hand in apprehending the "Islamic fascists." "This shows how we're better equipped to fight the enemy now," she told Newsweek.
Republican politicians, facing election challenges in November, were quick to exploit the official version of the Heathrow plot. Montana Senator Conrad Burns, who is eager to change the conversation in Montana from his connections to Jack Abramoff, ran an ad that began: "This is Conrad Burns. Islamic terrorists plotted to blow up ten planes. But they were stopped because the terrorists' conversations were monitored. We must remain on guard ... Even after confirmed successes, Jon Tester, liberal judges, and their allies oppose anti-terror programs."
None of this is to suggest that the United States and Great Britain don't face a threat of terrorist attack from radical Islamic militants. If the Heathrow plotters had been allowed to operate with impunity, they might have succeeded sometime this fall or early next year in blowing up ten airliners. But, by hyping the danger--as he had previously done with the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction--Bush administration officials create the possibility that the public, when it sees through the administration's attempt to manufacture hysteria, will turn cynical and not take seriously the need to remain vigilant in the face of a genuine threat from abroad.
John B. Judis is a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.