Did the US Know About the Glasgow Attack in Advance?
ABC News is reporting something that would represent gross negligence on the part of the American government if true:
A secret U.S. law enforcement report, prepared for the Department of Homeland Security, warns that al Qaeda is planning a terror “spectacular” this summer, according to a senior official with access to the document.” This is reminiscent of the warnings and intelligence we were getting in the summer of 2001,” the official told ABCNews.com. U.S. officials have kept the information secret, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today on ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that the United States did not have “have any specific credible evidence that there’s an attack focused on the United States at this point.” As ABCNews.com reported, U.S. law enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago warning of terror attacks in Glasgow and Prague, the Czech Republic, against “airport infrastructure and aircraft.” The warnings apparently never reached officials in Scotland, who said this weekend they had received “no advance intelligence” that Glasgow might be a target. Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff declined to comment specifically on the report today, but said “everything that we get is shared virtually instantaneously with our counterparts in Britain and vice versa.”
Steve Benen points us to James Joyner:
It would be an outrage, indeed, if we had solid intelligence about an attack in the UK and didn’t get around to warning them.
Who to trust – ABC News or the Bush Administration?