http://www.jinsa.org/JINSAReports/3455
Plotting and Uncovering Plots
JINSA Report #581 7 July 2006

If you were investigating a plot to blow up the Holland Tunnel and flood
lower Manhattan, a la lower New Orleans, would you rather have The New York
Times or the government of Lebanon as your ally? The Supreme Court (which
ruled that terror suspects have rights under the Uniform Code of Military
Justice and the Geneva Conventions even though they are neither American
service personnel - to whom the UCMJ pertains - nor adherents to the
requirements of the Convention) or the government of Lebanon? The Italian
judiciary or the government of Lebanon?

Score one for Lebanon.

Amir Andalousli, a suspected member of al Qaeda, was arrested in Beirut.
The Lebanese government had planned to announce the arrest, according to
The Daily News (NY), but when the U.S. expressed interest in him,

"U.S. agents were allowed to take part in the interrogation of Andalousli"

and the investigation was


"kept under wraps for months while the FBI and NY police worked to arrest
co-conspirators."


How do you suppose U.S. agents learned about the plot? President Bush
once said, "If al Qaeda is calling you, we want to know why." It is
unclear whether NSA wiretaps on phone calls coming into the country from
known/suspected al Qaeda sources overseas had anything to do with it,
but we imagine so and hope so as we wonder whether that investigative
resource has closed in the intervening months because of the NYT story.

And we should be pleased that Andalousli was captured neither here nor
in Italy.  Italian judicial authorities are currently seeking the
extradition
of 22 CIA agents and decapitating their own Military Intelligence and
Security Service (SISMI), NOT over an intelligence FAILURE, but over
SUCCESSFUL cooperation  with the U.S.
According to the Italian press, the director of SISMI's division dealing
with
international terrorism and the head of the agency's operations in northern
Italy
have been arrested for cooperating in the arrest of a radical Egyptian
cleric
believed to have fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia and served as a recruiting
agent
for al Qaeda.  ([The Bosnian government  has been a major ally  against
terrorist recruitment and transit on its soil] ).  We don't think the
Italians would have invoked the UCMJ for Andalousli had they caught him, but
the rights of identified soldiers belonging to signatories of the Geneva
Convention surely would have been accorded the terrorist planning to blow up
the Holland Tunnel. And they probably wouldn't have allowed U.S.
investigators to interrogate him, lest we ask harsh questions.

The tunnel scheme, it appears was based on faulty engineering principles,
however the plan was apparently far more serious and advanced than the
"Miami Seven" operation detailed last week by the FBI.
Even if they couldn't flood lower Manhattan, a bomb in the tunnel would have
been catastrophic for New York and for the country. Bravo to the FBI, the
CIA and - oddly - thank you to the government of Lebanon for applying what
mechanisms still exist to capture those who seek our destruction.


JINSA
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