Are the terror warnings politically motivated? Not by the Bush Admin, but by the Left. There are several new stories today by the NY Times, Washington Post, and the AP, regarding the terror warnings issued Sunday, about both the USA abd Great Britain.
Both the Grey Lady and the AP cite another source for the US warnings:
WASHINGTON — A third person separate from the two prisoners and documents previously disclosed provided information indicating Al Qaeda (search) was plotting to attack U.S. financial buildings, Bush administration officials said Wednesday in seeking to counter criticism their latest terror warning was overblown.
The White House described the information from the third person as “another new stream of intelligence” that supported its decision to issue the warning. It arrived days before the public alert, as officials were reviewing reams of recently obtained documents and photographs that showed surveillance of five buildings in New York, New Jersey and Washington carried out years earlier by Al Qaeda.
And the WP reports on raids in Britain on Al Queda suspects:
A key al Qaeda figure who had access to the surveillance data that led authorities to increase the terror alert level was among those arrested in raids in Britain on Tuesday, according to a senior U.S. national security official. He said the arrests were made on information obtained following the arrests of al Qaeda suspects in Pakistan.
Now, this is all good information. But, it begs the question, did the nay sayers like Howard Dean cause both governments to give out information that they would rather have kept quiet, to show that the alerts were politically motivated to begin with? If you read those articles, or similar ones elsewhere, so did Al Queda. The balance between informing the public and giving free intelligence to the enemy is a difficult one. It doesn’t help when people like Dean play fast and loose with National Security for political gain, or, in this case, to denigrate the Bush administration.
