Uncle Sam's lucky finds?
Anne Karpf
Tuesday March 19, 2002
The Guardian
It started the day after the attacks on the twin
towers, with the discovery of a flight manual in Arabic and a copy of the
Koran in a car hired by Mohammed Atta and abandoned at Boston airport. In the
immediate shocked aftermath of the attacks, these findings were somehow
reassuring: American intelligence was on the case, the perpetrators were no
longer faceless.
In less than a week came another find, two blocks away from the twin towers,
in the shape of Atta's passport. We had all seen the blizzard of paper rain
down from the towers, but the idea that Atta's passport had escaped from that
inferno unsinged would have tested the credulity of the staunchest supporter
of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism.
Yet we were still in the infancy of coincidence. On September 24 the
belongings of alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui threw up a cropdusting
manual, while four days later came Atta's suicide note, the one with the
counsel to shine your shoes before you meet your maker - a piece of advice
which seemed suspiciously Norman Rockwellesque. It was here, too, that the
stuff about 72 virgins awaiting him in heaven first started to circulate.
In December the laughing, boasting video of Osama bin Laden was unearthed in a
house in Jalalabad. The new year saw no let-up in this serendipitous trove -
January turned up an email sent by "shoe bomber" Richard Reid from a Paris
cybercafe (and found on its hard disk) shortly before boarding the Paris-Miami
flight in which he claimed responsibility in advance for downing the plane.
(Luckily or carelessly, depending on your perspective, Reid had pocketed a
business card from the cybercafe.)
And then, last Friday, Major General Frank Hagenbeck revealed that Americans
had found a whole shelf of field manuals on undertaking terrorist activity, to
put beside the instruction manual on how to use light automatic weapons left
in a training camp in January.
Apart from the fact that the al-Qaida network seem to have a catastrophic way
with lost property, isn't it strange that these most demonised and potent of
terrorists seem unable to operate any weapons without a manual? Dad's Army is
nothing - this bunch sounds as if they wouldn't be able to programme the
video. And if the quality of their manuals is anything like those most of us
have come across, they will still be wrestling with them long after the
guarantee has run out.
Of course you could interpret these discoveries differently. You could detect
in them the clear hand of American propaganda. This isn't, of course, to claim
a dirty tricks department somewhere in the heart of Washington. That would
have you immediately accused of peddling conspiracy theories, though I'm
coming to think that conspiracy theories have had a bad press. What are they,
after all, but "joined-up government" by another name?
All these discoveries can't obscure four things that American intelligence
agencies have notably failed to find. First, even with a bloated expenditure
exceeding Russia's total defence budget, they never managed to find out about
September 11 before the event. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones's new book, Cloak and
Dagger: A History of American Secret Intelligence (Yale), shows how, almost
since their 19th-century inception, American intelligence bureaux have
invented or exaggerated a succession of menaces to defend their spiralling
budgets and demonstrate their own usefulness while failing to tackle
effectively other, more substantial threats.
Second, despite a reward of $2.5m offered at the end of January, the FBI still
hasn't discovered those responsible for last year's anthrax attacks.
Third, American intelligence, tragically, didn't find Daniel Pearl, the US
journalist kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan.
Fourth - and most spectacular - despite having highly sophisticated satellite
tracking equipment, and offering a reward of $25m for information leading
directly to his apprehension or conviction, they still haven't found Bin
Laden.
Is this one reason why the US is talking about an attack on Iraq - a flexing of the military biceps to distract from flabby intelligence? Whatever the case, to find one training manual might be regarded as a stroke of luck. To find a shelf-full looks like desperation
"Secret" plans to protect Blair from
terror attack "accidentally" left in hotel
Published: 25 May 2006
Secret plans to protect Tony Blair from a terrorist attack were left in a hotel, it was claimed today.
They were part of a folder which lists ways in which assassins could try to kill the Prime Minister and other members of the Cabinet, it was alleged.
It includes suggested "attack scenarios" including car bombs, mortar
attack, rocket grenades and suicide bombers.
The dossier covers security arrangements for the forthcoming Labour Party
conference in Manchester in September.
It was left in the Midland Hotel in the city, around the corner from the
conference centre.
It was handed to a newspaper, The North West Enquirer, which handed it to
Greater Manchester Police.
It is not clear how much of a security blunder release of the the details
could be.
The documents were stamped "Restricted" and "Confidential", but Greater Manchester Police said security had not been compromised and no specific threat against the conference or the Prime Minister had been identified.
The information is from a variety of sources dealing with security arrangements for the conference.
A number of different agencies had taken part in the planning and it was not yet known which one had left the dossier in the hotel.
A force spokeswoman said it was not a member of Greater Manchester Police.
Yesterday, the force's anti-terrorism squad carried out a series of raids across the city as part of an investigation into suspects allegedly supporting terrorism in Iraq.
In 1996 Manchester's Arndale centre was bombed by the IRA and the same group killed five in an attack on the Tory Party conference in Brighton in 1984.
A GMP spokeswoman said: "Officers are confident that the folder does not belong to a member of GMP staff and are currently talking to partners to establish how the file was misplaced.
"This is a major security operation involving many agencies and a great deal of planning and information sharing is inevitably involved in dealing with an event of this scale.
"The information which police share with other agencies is risk assessed and the documents in this folder were of a level deemed safe to share with partners.
"Greater Manchester Police take all information and intelligence about security issues extremely seriously.
"There is no intelligence to suggest that this event is a specific target for terrorists. However we are conscious of the fact that the city has been targeted in the past so we need to remain vigilant and it is only right that we have contingency plans in place to deal with all manner of eventualities."
Secret plans to protect Tony Blair from a terrorist attack were left in a hotel, it was claimed today.
They were part of a folder which lists ways in which assassins could try to kill the Prime Minister and other members of the Cabinet, it was alleged.
It includes suggested "attack scenarios" including car bombs, mortar attack, rocket grenades and suicide bombers.
The dossier covers security arrangements for the forthcoming Labour Party
conference in Manchester in September.
It was left in the Midland Hotel in the city, around the corner from the
conference centre.
It was handed to a newspaper, The North West Enquirer, which handed it to
Greater Manchester Police.
It is not clear how much of a security blunder release of the the details
could be.
The documents were stamped "Restricted" and "Confidential", but Greater Manchester Police said security had not been compromised and no specific threat against the conference or the Prime Minister had been identified.
The information is from a variety of sources dealing with security arrangements for the conference.
A number of different agencies had taken part in the planning and it was
not yet known which one had left the dossier in the hotel.
A force spokeswoman said it was not a member of Greater Manchester Police.
Yesterday, the force's anti-terrorism squad carried out a series of raids across the city as part of an investigation into suspects allegedly supporting terrorism in Iraq.
In 1996 Manchester's Arndale centre was bombed by the IRA and the same group killed five in an attack on the Tory Party conference in Brighton in 1984.
A GMP spokeswoman said: "Officers are confident that the folder does not belong to a member of GMP staff and are currently talking to partners to establish how the file was misplaced.
"This is a major security operation involving many agencies and a great deal of planning and information sharing is inevitably involved in dealing with an event of this scale.
"The information which police share with other agencies is risk assessed and the documents in this folder were of a level deemed safe to share with partners.
"Greater Manchester Police take all information and intelligence about security issues extremely seriously.
"There is no intelligence to suggest that this event is a specific target for terrorists. However we are conscious of the fact that the city has been targeted in the past so we need to remain vigilant and it is only right that we have contingency plans in place to deal with all manner of eventualities."