Bush cites plot as wiretap defense

WASHINGTON – President Bush, under pressure from Congress, defended his campaign against terrorism Thursday, offering for the first time a vivid account of a foiled al-Qaida plot to strike the United States after Sept. 11, 2001, by crashing a hijacked commercial airliner into a Los Angeles skyscraper.

Bush said four southeast Asians who met with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in October 2001 were taught how to use shoe bombs to blow open a cockpit door and steer a plane into the Library Tower. Asian authorities captured the four before they could execute the plan, he said.

Declaring that “America remains at risk,” Bush cited the episode as an example of international cooperation against terrorism and argued against complacency. “We cannot let the fact that America hasn’t been attacked in four and a half years since September 11, 2001, lull us into the illusion that the threats to our nation have disappeared. They have not,” he said.

The reported West Coast plot has been disclosed before but never in as much detail. The president’s speech came on the same day as a Senate hearing into the Bush-ordered warrantless surveillance of telephone calls and e-mail by Americans and their contacts overseas.

White House officials said they decided in the last three weeks to declassify the plot so Bush could have an example to provide publicly.

But several U.S. intelligence officials downplayed the importance of the alleged plot and attributed the timing of Bush’s speech to politics. The officials said there is deep disagreement within the intelligence community over the seriousness of the scheme and whether it was ever much more than talk.

One intelligence official said nothing had changed to precipitate the release of more information on the case. The official attributed the move to the administration’s desire to justify its efforts in the face of criticism of the surveillance program.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist who heads the Washington office of Rand Corp., said Bush’s account adds some interesting detail to the Library Tower episode. But he said it still leaves key questions unanswered about the case and its significance.

“It doesn’t really give us any more indication of whether this was a plot that was derailed or pre-empted, or a plot that was more in the realm of an idle daydream,” Hoffman said.

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