Terrorist Attacks Thwarted

Factual Questions
1

I heard today the head of one of the congressional intelligence committees state that the US Government has thwarted attacks against the US. Does anyone know of any such cases?

I want to define an attack against the US pretty narrowly. I realize that my restrictions eliminate several examples. However, I believe that these restrictions are ones the “average voter” would assume to be in effect. I may well be wrong on this, but lets limit the replies to cases that satisfy this set of limitations.

First it has to be a specific operation intended to cause damage. Not a sleeper cell or scouting, or training operations, but a planned effort to actually cause damage.
Second, limit the examples to post 9/11.
Third, the target is within the terrority of the United States.
Fourth, if possible limit the example to one where there was a realistic chance that damage would occur if the attack wasn’t stopped. I realize this is subjective, but if possible provide enough information for people to judge for themselves.

I can’t think of any, but perhaps I missed it.

Thanks

2

This?
Fact Sheet: Plots, Casings, and Infiltrations Referenced in President Bush’s Remarks on the War on Terror

3

Thanks
those are the kind of things I had heard about.
In all those cases plots were disrupted and individuals were engaged in reconnaissence for plots. In my opinion, those are judgement calls. Two people sitting around a table in Pakistan fantisizing about nucing new york could find themselves disrupted. An extreme example, but I am looking for one case where the authorities have charged in open court an individual who is shown to be actively engaged in an attack. Had materials, plans for a target, etc. The individual who was accused of looking for a cable cutter to cut the cables on a road bridge-but was convicted of providing material support to an enemy, is a good example of what I am not looking for. What he is accused of is silly, what he was convicted of is nebulous. Not saying it is a bad conviction, but it doesn’t satisfy the condition in my OP.

Does anyone have an example of an attack that was thwarted?

4

I understand that Saddam Hussein was recently prevented from unleashing nuclear war by President Bush’s prompt invasion. :rolleyes:

5

Do you really think that’s an appropriate response in this forum?

6

Yeah, it wasn’t Bush, but Blair who claimed Saddam could unleash not nuclear, but chemical or biological weapons in "45 minutes, or the next one’s free.

7

Thwarting a sneak attack before it begins requires espionage, counter-espionage, and counter-counter-espionage. You need these tactics because you need to find out who is planning what action, where in the timeline they are in their plan, and who all is involved as operators and supporters.

If you go public about which plot you’ve just busted, you risk giving the enemy a clue as to how you did it. What equipment and personnel were at your disposal, what information you acquired that gave you the tip off, etc. Once that information is known to the enemy, he can take actions to make those resources unavailable to you next time. Neutralizing personnel who had access to the information you were acting on, changing techniques, etc.

Also, once you have the pulse of the enemy operations, you must allow some plans to go through in order to maintain your position of clandestine superiority and allow the bad guys to believe you don’t have a clue.

With that in mind, I find it very difficult to believe we will ever know anything like the full extent of success or failure of our attempts to thwart attacks. Occasionally we may act with “just a little too perfect timing” once an attack has become apparent and save a bunch of lives in the public view, but that sort of showboating risks failure and unintended deaths.

8

Great. Same question to you - and some others. Is yours an appropriate post to a GQ topic? How is it responsive in any way to the OP? How is it not an overtly politically-charged statement? Has it anything at all to do with the question - a question which definitely has a factual answer - in the OP? How is your response not a continued attempt to inject irrelevant politics into a place where such is proscribed?

9

I’m going to say that Squink’s response differs in that it was made in the truest spirit of The Dope.
That is, someone said something inappropriate and off-topic, and Squink corrected them, with a cite, on a niggling matter of detail. To my mind, that is the consumation of The Dope’s marriage to the fight on ignornance.
Thus, Cheers to Squink, but as you stated, Jeers to Glee, who really ought to have known better.

10

Well yeah, actually the potential attacks Blair brought up do fit into the catagory of attacks that might have been thwarted. I’ve already provided what appears to be the most definitive answer available to the OP. If rbroome wants more, as he has asked, we have to forge farther afield for examples. The fact that Blair’s claims were poorly founded is irrelevant to the spirit of the OP. The claims were made.

11

All right. You make a good point, Squink. I will retract my objections to your second post.

12

I appreciate that my post may have come over as a casual political swipe, and apologise that I wasn’t clearer.

Rbroome asked for examples of:

"First it has to be a specific operation intended to cause damage. Not a sleeper cell or scouting, or training operations, but a planned effort to actually cause damage.
Second, limit the examples to post 9/11.
Third, the target is within the terrority of the United States.
Fourth, if possible limit the example to one where there was a realistic chance that damage would occur if the attack wasn’t stopped. I realize this is subjective, but if possible provide enough information for people to judge for themselves. "

Both the US and UK Governments claimed that Saddam was planning to unleash WMD’s (nuclear weapons were specifically mentioned) and implied he had links to 9/11.
I wanted to make the point that we are reliant on our Governments whenever ‘National Security’ is involved, and that from events such as the Iraq War, it is clear that they make mistakes that embroil us in conflicts with thousands of casualties, and probably years of futher incidents.

It is rare that a senior politician such as Robin Cook (UK Foreign Secretary) resigns over a war, so I do think I am making a valid point. remember that this guy saw **all ** the information:

‘None of us can predict the death toll of civilians from the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq, but the US warning of a bombing campaign that will “shock and awe” makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at least in the thousands.’

‘We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.
Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.’

‘Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create?’

‘What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops.’

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2859431.stm

13

I should have realized this would be a controversial question. I apologize. My intention is to find some cites, not debate the Iraq war.

Lets refine the OP a bit more:

  1. Exclude actions having to do with Iraq. Remember I am looking for events that had as their target the territory of the US. I imagine that many in the US felt threatened by the Iraqi government, but I don’t remember anyone claiming knowledge of a planned attack by Iraq on the US. In any event, to keep it simple, lets leave out Iraq.
  2. I understand the importance of keeping secrets in a secret war. But I don’t think we should keep everything secret. Public support is an important asset in any war, and being able to show some success will strengthen that support. I am looking for any example of where the US government thwarted an actual attack, either in the planning or execution stage, and chose to/had to talk about it and bring charges related to the attack against one or more individuals for that attack.

I recognize that it is possible that no such public information exists, that is why I am asking others if they are aware of any.

14

I agree. The current administration will use this logic to claim they can’t tell us anything. Thus making their patented “Tiger repellent” national defense appear perfect and useful. I will be astounded if the OP gets any factual answers.

15

I like how every thread on SDMB that has over 10 responses automatically has a Simpsons reference in it somewheres. I rather enjoy it.

But back to the OP, I seem to recall something about a plot to crash a plane into the U.S. Bank Tower (Library Tower) in LA, a few years ago.

16

I think what we know publicly of the Padilla Plots might come close to the OP. The weakest link is the first point. So I will take it last.

Check

Check

Check on plot 1 :
Padilla was going to locate three apartment buildings supplied by natural gas and blow them up.

No Check on plot 1a:
Padilla was going to “find a way” via the Internet to build a radiological device or “maybe a nuke” …

Well Padilla saw himself as here to do damage. But he had not ID’ed the Apartments yet – so there was going to be “scouting” before he acted. But it was not a sleeper cell or training operation. Really it was just a case of him being arrested the minute his fanny left the plane at the Chicago airport (Zubaydah, then in custody, gave him up).

17

[QUOTE=jimmmy]
I think what we know publicly of the Padilla Plots might come close to the OP.

Thanks!
That is the kind of information I am looking for. I had heard that the information about Padilla was significant, but his detention as an enemy combatant overshadowed that. The report you cite was informative.

Does anyone know what Padilla was charged with?

Now that there is one cite, does anyone know of a second? (greedy I know :slight_smile: ).

18

Well as you note Padilla was held for 3 years with no charges. The issue of whether or not this was Constitutional is still before the Supreme Court. In November 2005 Padilla was charged with three counts – conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and providing material support to terrorists.

The ones I can think of don’t – quite - fit your criteria.

Shoe Bomber Richard Reid meets all the criteria except the target was a U.S. bound plane and not (point 2) within the United States

The Buffalo support cell meets all the OP requirements – except that it is “support” (point 1)

I am very shakey on the Ujaama Case According to the indictment Ujaama conspired with confederates “to murder and maim,” while discussing crimes that included robberies, poisoning water supplies and firebombing vehicles. So on the face of it he probably makes the OP. But when you really read about him it looks like he was a hustler- trying to get $$ from OBL and the Feds are using him to get to Abu Hamza. So i think it may fail on the “realistic” criteria (but he wasn’t trying to assemble a bomb on the internet at his local library - it was pretty simple stuff - so I don’t know)

The White House talks about a mid-2003 plot to use highjacked planes to strike at East Coast Targets – but I don’t know enough about it to answer this in a GQ way (or really in any way at all)