Views > June 8, 2007

Entrapping Inflated Threats

Was the terrorist plot to blow up JFK Airport a threat or a joke?

By Salim Muwakkil

Abdul Kadir, one of the four men charged in an alleged terrorist plot to blow up a pipeline that fed fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy International Airport, is a former member of the Guyanese Parliament and former mayor of Linden, Guyana. The fuel line the group allegedly planned to sabotage originates in Linden, N.J. This Linden-Linden axis heavily implicates Kadir.

I am being facetious of course. However, had law enforcement officials made this connection during their announcement of the plot in early June, there is little doubt the national media would have incredulously reported it as a credible link.

In fact, the actual announcement was just marginally more credible. “Had the plot been carried out, it could have resulted in unfathomable damage, deaths and destruction,” Roslynn R. Mauskopf, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said after the news conference detailing the failed plot.

But many security experts doubt the planned attack could have produced the catastrophic consequences presented so dramatically at the press conference. Even the New York Times downplayed the news two days later with the headline “Papers Portray Plot as More Talk Than Action.”

The Department of Justice complaint charges Kadir, Russell Defreitas, Kareem Ibrahim, Abdel Nur and unnamed others, with conspiring to “deliver, place, discharge and detonate an explosive device in, into and against a public transportation system, to wit: John F. Kennedy International Airport.” The alleged ringleader of the plot was Defreitas, a 63-year-old native of Guyana who has been a U.S. citizen since the ’60s. Nur also is Guyanese and Ibrahim is from Trinidad.

But law enforcement officials admit Defreitas was nowhere near capable of mounting such an attack. He is a retired JFK cargo worker who had neither the financial wherewithal, the equipment nor an executable plan. Mark J. Mershon, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York office, said, “the ambitions were horrific, the capacities were very limited, but they kept trying.”

Mershon’s statements bring to mind the words of FBI Deputy Director John Pistole, who declared during an equally dramatic news conference in June 2006 in Miami that a terrorist plot to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower “was more aspirational than operational.” Pistole was referring to the arrest of seven men of Haitian descent charged with conspiring to destroy several buildings, including Sears Tower, by use of explosives.

In fact, there are many other similarities between the two cases. Undercover informants in criminal jeopardy initiated both cases. In the Miami case, the informant was a Middle Eastern native seeking U.S. residential status by aiding the FBI. In the current case, the informant reportedly is a convicted drug dealer whose sentence, according to the complaint, “is pending as part of his cooperation agreement with the government.” In both cases, the undercover informants supplied much of the money and equipment to conduct the so-called surveillance of potential terrorist targets.

The informants also supplied some of the plans for the attacks, as none of the participants in either the Sears Tower or JFK Airport plots had experience in terrorist activities, or any relevant military training. In some instances, the informants acted more as agent provocateurs than accomplices. The Miami informant suggested targets and supplied videotaping equipment, according to the Sept. 6, 2006, Washington Post. In New York, the informant (“the source”) also provided cash, videotaping equipment and transportation, according to the DOJ complaint.

These extenuating circumstances are drowned out by the chest-thumping rhetoric of law enforcement officials eager to make a splash about their success in the “war on terror.” The possibility that the informants were seeking governmental favor by inflating the plots and entrapping the men has likewise been downplayed in the national media, even though the likelihood seems quite plausible.

Of course, perhaps the government is truly disrupting potentially catastrophic terrorist plots. To be sure, the Bush administration’s foreign policy is provoking the kind of global anger that motivates terrorists to attack the United States. As GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul notes, they attacked us for a reason. “We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us.”

There’s no doubt that attacks are best thwarted by busting terrorists’ plans at their incipient stages. Moreover, rigorous police work and effective intelligence sharing seem to be more effective at combsating the terrorist threat than bombastic rhetoric and a bombs-laden foreign policy.

But the various terrorist “plots” exposed by the Bush administration so far have been notable for their lack of credible threat, the central role of a criminal informant and the strong whiff of political opportunism.

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• Reader Comments

  “But the various terrorist “plots” exposed by the Bush administration so far have been notable for their lack of credible threat, the central role of a criminal informant and the strong whiff of political opportunism.”

  And if the plot had been carried out just how would Mr. Muwakkil have written the story?  Weeell, perhaps something along these lines…
  --------------
  The Bush administration, whose foreign policy has provoked the kind of global anger that motivates terrorists, resulted in this unfathomable example of damage, death and destruction.

  In spite of six years in which to develop a network of human informants and claiming our involvement in Iraq was needed to “keep them over there” we are less secure than ever.

  As GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul notes, they attacked us for a reason. “We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us.”

  We should now sponsor a “Farm Aid” type fund raiser for the families of the alleged terrorists who perished in the suicidal conflagration. (Willie Nelson, are you there for us?)
  --------------
  And is this article NOT political opportunism?

  Posted by whattheheck on Jun 8, 2007 at 7:09 AM

  The problem is that we become so inured to the steady stream of bullshit threats that when a real one comes along that needs attention other than government media hype we’ll get Katrina all over again and voters will just yawnnnnnnn......

  Posted by ppatt on Jun 8, 2007 at 9:42 AM

  Based on the bush anit-terror efforts to date one would assume poor, easily misled Black men from Carribean nations are the biggest threat to national security and crooks looking to cut deals are our best intelligence sources.  The conspiracy theorist in me says the US is laying the groundwork to justify lableing Carribean nations “terrorist states” so they can be invaded, as in Haiti minus Aristede.  Sure, the US can bully little islands but gets its ass kicked everywhere else.

  Posted by theloneous on Jun 8, 2007 at 1:02 PM

  This administration has shown that it will say and do anything to make the public think it is “protecting” America.
  Using jailhouse informant’s can be risky. And it can pay off.
  That is the trouble with an administration like what we are burdened with now; we never know when they might be telling the truth.
  With the Shrub, it is somewhat easier; if’n his lips is moving, he’s likely lying.
  Just like the days before the ‘04 “election”, the terror alert kept inching upward. After the “election”, the terror alert all but disappeared.
  The Homeland Security Department has proven itself to be a joke almost.
  A boat load of refugee’s washes ashore in Southern FL and the first the Coast Guard knew of it was the TV reports of folks jumping out of a boat.
  A man has his passport flagged to be held, and the Custom’s agent decides it’s all a mistake.
  Meanwhile, the Shrub goes to bed each night at 9pm and sleeps soundly, knowing that he is still “protecting” America, and getting richer by the minute.

  Posted by farmer on Jun 12, 2007 at 5:52 AM

  OK, ITT, let’s try to look at the subject a bit more objectively.

  I’ll borrow Ron Paul’s quote from your article to use in a different context.
  “We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us.”

  Article head and subhead:
  Entrapping Inflated Threats
  Was the terrorist plot to blow up JFK Airport a threat or a joke?

  We all know your offices are located in Chicago. What if an informant provided information that some wacko who disagrees with your anti-military, anti-administration, anti-Bush general approach to nearly every issue is believed to be planning to blow you up.

  Would you want the authorities to take it seriously?

  Would you pass it off as a probable joke?

  Chances are it would not be a radical Muslim, since if they read your magazine or website, they would be more apt to send a contribution. But the radical right as evidenced in Oklahoma is capable of putting on a pretty damaging demonstration when it decides to.

  If they were prevented from carrying it off should the newspapers play it down because they were inept?

  Would you want them to leave out adjectives like catastrophic?

  If they turned out to be a bunch of elderly discontented immigrants would you urge the incident just be forgotten?

  Would you think the police should refrain from using whoever may be effective — like doing a deal with a drug dealer?

  On 9/11 when it was reported that there may have been another plane headed for Chicago — I was very concerned because one of my sons was living downtown and working near the Sears tower. Are we so far form that terrible day that we can scoff at a plan as only a “joke”?

  You say, “But the various terrorist “plots” exposed by the Bush administration so far have been notable for their lack of credible threat, the central role of a criminal informant and the strong whiff of political opportunism.”

  When is a murder plot only a “plot”?

  I am less than impressed with the efforts at homeland security — the color coding and frisking grandma while seven thousand Macedonians could somersault over our borders undetected and pass for undocumented guests.

  But, could it be possible that someone working on homeland security has the smarts to only reveal the less sophisticated attempts they have foiled rather than tip off the methods they used to prevent the more serious ones?

  I, for one, really hope this is so.

  Posted by whattheheck on Jun 13, 2007 at 6:22 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 14 posts.

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