United States President George Bush claimed on Thursday that at least 10 al-Qaeda attacks had been thwarted since September 11, including three inside the US, during an impassioned speech in which he defended the war in Iraq and the wider fight against terrorism.
The president also said the US had stopped five more attempts by terrorists to ”case targets in the US or infiltrate operatives into the country”.
Among the 10 plots cited by Bush, and later released as a dossier after much criticism for the vagueness of his claims, were three involving UK targets. The White House referred to them as the UK urban target plot of 2004 ”using explosives against a variety of sites”, in the UK, but remaining unnamed; the 2003 Heathrow airport plot where ”the US and several partners disrupted a plot to attack Heathrow airport using hijacked commercial airliners”; and a bombing campaign planned for spring last year said to be ”large-scale”. Again, the supposed targets were not specified.
He used a speech in Washington to attack Osama bin Laden, accusing the al-Qaeda leader of ordering Muslims to carry out suicide attacks while he [Bin Laden] ”never offers to go along for the ride”.
Facing a plunge in domestic support for the war, Bush delivered what some commentators described as a darker and more nuanced speech than usual.
He said Islamist radicals were seeking to ”enslave whole nations and intimidate the world” and had made Iraq their main front in a war against civilised society, which he said was a prime reason not to withdraw troops from the country.
”There’s always a temptation in the middle of a long struggle to seek the quiet life, to escape the duties and problems of the world and to hope the enemy grows weary of fanaticism and tired of murder,” he said, before insisting: ”We will never back down, never give in and never accept anything less than complete victory.”
The president outlined a five-point strategy to win the war on terror, the first of which was stopping attacks before they happen. ”Overall, the United States and our partners have disrupted at least 10 serious al-Qaeda terrorist plots since September 11, including three al-Qaeda plots to attack within the United States,” he said. ”We’ve stopped at least five more al-Qaeda efforts to case targets in the United States or infiltrate operatives into our country.”
Bush did address the evolving terror threat, describing the recent bombings in Bali, London and elsewhere as a ”new terror offensive”, carried out by a variety of different groups from global, borderless terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda to smaller, locally organised militants without any central command.
He likened Islamist militants to communists, claiming terrorists were preparing a future of oppression and misery, and adding that they were being ”aided by elements of the Arab news media that incites hatred and anti-semitism”.
Bush rarely mentions Bin Laden by name in public, with the failure of US forces to capture or kill the terrorist leader a source of embarrassment to the administration. But on Thursday he name-checked the al-Qaeda leader on several occasions.
”What this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers. He assures them that this is the road to paradise — though he never offers to go along for the ride.”
New York’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said on Thursday night the city’s subway system had received a specific threat ”originating overseas” that it might be attacked within days. He said the threat, which led to police stepping up patrols on the subway on Thursday, was the most specific terrorist threat officials had received to date.
Counter measures
Bush’s five ways to defeat terrorism:
- Prevent attacks before they occur
- Stop outlaw regimes gaining weapons of mass destruction
- Deny radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes
- Deny Islamic militants control of any nation, eg Iraq and Afghanistan
- Advance democracy across the Middle East to deter militant recruits – Guardian Unlimited Â