JFK terror plot bogus
Newsday - June 6, 2007
Credibility of JFK terror case questioned BY CAROL EISENBERG
When U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf described the alleged terror plot
to blow up Kennedy Airport as “one of the most chilling plots
imaginable,” which might have caused “unthinkable” devastation, one
law enforcement official said he cringed.
The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been
at risk. And the notion of blowing up the airport, let alone the
borough of Queens, by exploding a fuel tank was in all likelihood a
technical impossibility.
And now, with a portrait emerging of alleged mastermind Russell
Defreitas as hapless and episodically homeless, and of co-conspirator
Abdel Nur as a drug addict, Mauskopf’s initial characterizations seem
more questionable — some go so far as to say hyped.
“I think her comments were over the top,” said Michael Greenberger,
director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the
University of Maryland. “It was a totally overstated characterization
that doesn’t comport with the facts.”
Greenberger said he has no argument with police pursuing and stopping
the alleged plotters.
“I think they were correct to take this seriously,” he said. “… But
there’s a pattern here of Justice Department attorneys overstating
what they have. I think they feel under tremendous pressure to
vindicate the elaborate counterterrorism structure they’ve created
since 9/11, including the Patriot Act.”
Mauskopf declined to comment Tuesday, but Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford)
dismissed criticism of law enforcement as “the price of success when
you haven’t been attacked in six years. We’ve gone from criticizing
them for not doing enough immediately after 9/11 to now criticizing
them too much.”
But some say it is time for a more nuanced public discussion.
Terrorism expert Peter Bergen said he doesn’t consider the airport
plot or most of the recent homegrown cases serious threats but
believes law enforcement officials are right to pursue them.
“Obviously they’re talking about stuff,” he said. “But did they have
the capabilities or training to do it? The answer is obviously not.
It seems to me the reason the London plot worked is these guys had
gone to an al-Qaida training camp. … To become an effective
terrorist, generally you have to go to a training camp. Timothy
McVeigh was an effective terrorist because he could draw on his years
of military background.”
In this case, the alleged plotters had no money and never succeeded
in hooking up with the head of an Islamist group in Trinidad called
Jamaat al Muslimeen, according to the criminal complaint. While
alleged mastermind Defreitas told the FBI informant that he learned
to make bombs in Guyana, there is no other indication of technical
expertise. Friends say he supported himself by selling incense on
street corners and collecting welfare.
What, then, is the line between informing and scaring the public –
and is there a political cost in crossing it?
Steven Simon, a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations,
said the government’s hyperbolic descriptions — whether of this case
or of the alleged plot to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago — could
erode public confidence in law enforcement and lead to confusion
about the terror threat.
“First, it creates the public impression that the adversary is just a
bunch of losers who do not have to be feared,” he said. “Second, the
fact that these hapless people are angry enough to seek to attack the
U.S. raises the issue of other more competent, well-organized groups
that might be escaping police detection.”
Which is not to say that the threat is not real.
The law enforcement official chagrined by Mauskopf’s characterization
said that just because the airport plotters had no expertise doesn’t
mean they couldn’t have inflicted pain — whether catastrophic or not.
“What everyone in law enforcement is struggling with since 9/11 is
finding the balance between the traditional crimefighting and
counterterrorism methods,” said the official, who asked not to be
named. “In … crime-fighting, something has happened, you
investigate, and you arrest. … In terrorism, it’s all about
prevention.
“This guy wanted to cripple JFK International Airport. … It’s not
really useful in the overall scheme of things to wonder whether he
would have achieved anything. Because unless you’re the one standing
guard at the tank farm, and you’re going to stop the thing, it’s pure
speculation. … Isn’t the whole point that we want to stop these
folks before they try to hit us?”