Annoyed by harsh criticism of President Bush from former New York governor Mario Cuomo, Dick Morris explains how the Bush administration and the Patriot Act saved New York City from another terrorist attack.
In March of last year, federal intelligence officials reported to the NYPD that they had noticed significant "chatter" by al Qaeda terrorists about the Brooklyn Bridge. (Apparently, the name doesn't easily translate into Arabic.)Posted by Alan at September 13, 2004 01:35 AMUnder the terms of the Patriot Act, which the left criticizes, federal intelligence operatives were obliged to share their findings with the NYPD - precisely the kind of information sharing so little in evidence before 9/11. As a result, the department, under Ray Kelly's able leadership, flooded the bridge with police.
Federal intelligence officials then intercepted a communication to al Qaeda from an operative in New York that the operation against the landmark bridge was impossible because "the weather is too hot."
Bush's military and intelligence officials got a captive, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a top bin Laden deputy, to identify the terrorist assigned to blow up the bridge. Acting on the evidence they elicited from interrogations specifically allowed by the policies of the Bush administration, the NYPD closed in and arrested the terrorist, Iyman Faris, before he could act.
Faris' plans for the destruction of the bridge were chillingly detailed and coincided precisely with the findings of engineers employed by the NYPD to determine how one might go about destroying the 120- year-old landmark.
If the left had its way, we never would have arrested Mohammed or questioned him without his attorney or held him for any length of time. The information-sharing required by the Patriot Act would not have happened, and the bridge might today be a haunting memory along with the estimated 10,000 people who would have perished in the attack.