Reading Wapo's and LA Times stories on the alert, I still can't figure out if the alert was overblown or justified. The intelligence seems to be a mix of old and new. So what's the bottome line? I need to know for discussing with (convincing) my friends and enemies. What's our best talking points on this?
My feeling is that, of course we know al Qaeda wants to attack us and so these sites and the whole country in general should already be prepared without needing an alert. These alerts should only be justified if there is something specific and new to point to.
One criticism I have of the alert is there doesn't seem to be anything there giving a target date range for an attack, so I wonder if that means they are they going to have increased security at those sites indefinitely? Or just till after the election?
The only thing they have on a date is, as in the Wapo story:
Intelligence officials said that the remarkably detailed information about the surveillance -- which included logs of pedestrian traffic and notes on the types of explosives that might work best against each target -- was evaluated in light of general intelligence reports received this summer indicating that al Qaeda hopes to strike a U.S. target before the November presidential elections.
The election warning comes from something Ridge said: "Credible reporting now indicates that al-Qaeda is moving forward with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States in an effort to disrupt our democratic process." But as usual he was very vague about his sources. Has this been confirmed elsewhere? Looking at the background briefing on that statement, my reading of it is that it was based mostly on the Madrid attack and general statements made in the past, not new specific intelligence. The "official" would not give any specific new information to base it on. My BS detector is sparking but is that fair?
Signed,
Confused in Peoria