America Duped on British Terror Plot

[davidbikman]

The story of the British liquid-bombers is quickly falling apart, not that the Times or the Post is taking any notice.

1. First comes the NBC report that many of the accused hijackers did not own passports, thus making them ineligible to board an international flight (Remember, Michael Chertoff said that "We were really getting quite close to the execution phase" of the plot);
2. NBC also reports that the U.S. pressured Britain to arrest the plotters earlier than they had otherwise wanted;
3. The only statement that the accused were planning to use liquid explosives on planes came from an accused murderer who was on the run in Pakistan and subsequently tortured;
4. The explosive the plotters were supposed to be using was identified by government officials to be TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, which as Thomas C. Greene explains, is extremely volatile during preparation, requires carefully controlled conditions to properly mix, including refrigeration (difficult to do in "false-bottomed sports drink bottles") and would require an extremely large quantity in order to damage an aircraft. The idea that a) sufficient quantities of TATP precursors could be smuggled aboard and b) it could be successfully mixed without either blowing up or overcoming the would-be terrorist with its fumes is preposterous.

Folks, this plot was never a plot. National security is being used as a political football, and the media, which could take this nonsensical story to pieces with a couple of days of research, is silent.


* * Always Read More at Times/WaPo Watch * *

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. It was immediately obvious at the time the foiled plot was being announced

that it was bogus. They had no specific details regarding the "liquid explosives". This did not square with their statement that they had the plotters under surveillance for a year. They would have probably let all of them go by now, but it will be a horrible embarrassment, so they are probably trying to pin lesser charges on them related to a scheme to steal money from the Pakistani relief fund.

[patrice]

2. Thanks! for pulling this together davidbikman!

You provide a real service to those, such as I, who have a little trouble keeping up and can't dig through everything on this board and elsewhere to put it together.

[CrispyQ]

3. I liked the photo that a DUer posted yesterday

showing people pouring their 'explosive' material in a large common container. :eyes: Holy shit, who thinks of this stuff?


Welcome to DU, davidbikman! :hi:

[Catherine Vincent]

4. I need to explore DU more.

I didn't know we had a 'National Security' Forum. :-)

[NGC_6822]

5. Catching terrorists

Does this fall into the same category that only one or two
people were ever put into jail for supporting the 9/11 attack?