Say, didn’t Al Qaeda’s camps empty out before 9/11, too?
posted at 7:55 pm on August 12, 2007 by Allahpundit
Dan Riehl asked me that last night in response to yesterday’s post about the Roggio’s scoop. Answer, per the 9/11 Commission report: a-yup.
Mihdhar told his cousin that the attacks were to happen in May, but were postponed twice, first to July, then to September. Moreover, one candidate hijacker remembers a general warning being issued in the al Qaeda camps in July or early August, just like the warnings issued two weeks before the Cole bombing and ten days before the eventual 9/11 attacks. During the midsummer alert, al Qaeda members dispersed with their families, security was increased, and Bin Ladin disappeared for about 30 days, until the alert was canceled.
There’s a brief description in Chapter 4 too of Richard Clarke warning Sandy Berger not to wait until after an attack to hit the camps as they’d all probably be empty by then. Could be just a coincidence, of course, but if there’s news in the next week or two of any prominent anti-AQ leaders being assassinated, hit the deck.
“Summer of chatter” fever, baby. Catch it!
Blowback
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There have been a lot of false alarms in the past six years, claiming that the next major terrorist attack on American soil is imminent. Unfortunately it may be the case of the boy who cried wolf.
aunursa on August 12, 2007 at 8:01 PM
Is that before or after the wolf eats all the sheep?
pullingmyhairout on August 12, 2007 at 8:09 PM
If my camp was targeted by Pakistani air forces, I think I would leave too.
bnelson44 on August 12, 2007 at 8:13 PM
Let’s use the example given by our fearless Democratic leadership and simply bury our heads in the sand. I’m sure it will all just go away – after all, everyone knows there really is no war on terror.
thedecider on August 12, 2007 at 8:18 PM
There’s also the possibility that all of the recent “chatter” by Americans concerning bombing Mecca in response to another jihad strike in the US had the desired affect. Might they have all given up and gone home?
(Putting down my crack pipe, now) :)
FloatingRock on August 12, 2007 at 8:19 PM
The bigger question is. . . if we know where the camps are, why weren’t they emptied by Apaches?
- The Cat
MirCat on August 12, 2007 at 8:20 PM
I don’t think that this is unfortunate at all. This suggests, to me at least, that our intelligence agencies are finally doing their job correctly. We hear of a threat and…nothing. That’s the way it should be.
Of course, I’m waiting for the ACLU to file a suit against the government for not allowing Muslim terrorists to properly express themselves due to the FBI, NSA AND CIA’s insistence on profiling terrorists and making the assumption that Muslim extremists will commit crimes that they tell us they will in fact commit.
DeathtotheSwiss on August 12, 2007 at 8:23 PM
This is the quiet stuff that intel wienies look for…
Also when I ho-hum whenever one their new “AMERICAN WILL BURN TOMORROW!” tapes comes out.
John from OPFOR on August 12, 2007 at 8:25 PM
The sheepdogs will always protect the sheep from the wolves.
rockdalian on August 12, 2007 at 8:36 PM
Along with this development, there were over 70,000 gathered in Jakarta in support of a world wide caliphate and sharia law…over 70,000!
Weight of Glory on August 12, 2007 at 8:39 PM
Word out of Afganistan is that the Taliban is ramping up their attacks. It seems it Tet time in Afganistan. Al Queda smells blood in the US press and Congress and wants to deliever a nock out blow.
That base that was attacked a few days ago by 75 Taliban has been attacked twice more since. They are going on the offensive to cause as much damage as they can
William Amos on August 12, 2007 at 8:42 PM
That’s the question I asked in the thread yesterday as well. I hope they left for other reasons.
TheBigOldDog on August 12, 2007 at 8:46 PM
What might be even more worrisome concerning the block quote AP has, is the fact that when the first date of the attack was given, the clearing of the camps did not occur. It also didn’t happen when it was postponed for July. Rather it seems as though the clearing of the camps took place when it was definitely a “go.”
Weight of Glory on August 12, 2007 at 8:48 PM
Which of course seems so obvious to everyone, except congress, the msm and the nutroots.
Now that’s scary.
Good question. Could it be that the ROE invented by a bunch of suits in Washington, D.C. didn’t allow it?
pullingmyhairout on August 12, 2007 at 8:49 PM
Here is a link to the jihad rally:
Weight of Glory on August 12, 2007 at 8:59 PM
opps! I’ll do it this way:
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070812/photos_wl/2007_08_12t040057_450x309_uk_indonesia_muslim
just put it in your browser.
Weight of Glory on August 12, 2007 at 9:00 PM
Maybe they are on summer break.
Zaire67 on August 12, 2007 at 9:21 PM
best not to short sell any airline stocks for a little while, i guess.
They love to time the date with something. what anniversaries do we have coming up?
TexasDan on August 12, 2007 at 9:50 PM
If we know so much about the activity of the camps, why aren’t we hitting them every time they are full?
nottakingsides on August 12, 2007 at 10:13 PM
Ya know, 9/11 is back on a Tuesday again this year.
boomer on August 12, 2007 at 10:19 PM
I’m confused. How did Al Qaeda know when Bush was going to send those airplanes into the buildings rigged with bombs?
pedestrian on August 12, 2007 at 10:46 PM
The notion of lawful conduct of war seems so debilitating that it’s hard to imagine its being very durable. One of the qualities I admire in our enemies is their comparative lack of restraint; I’m not praising unintelligible mayhem, but the capacity for cruelty well used. When “the terrorists have won” and “we’re just as bad as they are,” let’s thank them for increasing our virtue and then use it to destroy them and their god.
Kralizec on August 12, 2007 at 10:56 PM
Obama scared them crapless. Let’s face it, they surrender!!!!
Right?
Hening on August 12, 2007 at 11:03 PM
AllahPundit:
Why is everybody ignoring this passage in Roggio’s piece?
That sure looks like proximate cause to me, with disturbing ramifications of its own which seem to be going unnoted in the flurry of speculation over a new 9/11 style hit.
JM Hanes on August 12, 2007 at 11:22 PM
I really do not want to hear this…my son and his girlfriend are coming home this week from a summer in Norway and I don’t want either any airplane accidents or large city accidents.
Grrrrr!
Bob's Kid on August 12, 2007 at 11:47 PM
I would guess it’s because just a few days ago everybody was slamming Obama for being naive by suggesting that we should bomb targets inside of Pakistan, our “ally”. If you ask me Obama’s biggest mistake was suggesting that we should only bomb inside of Pakistan if Pakistan was unable to do so themselves. We can see what results from providing Pakistan with advanced notice of our plans; the target(s) disappear.
The same thing happened back when Clinton sent a few cruse missiles into that al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. Unfortunately he also made the mistake of informing Pakistan ahead of time and consequently the camp was evacuated before our missiles arrived.
The ONLY reason that Musharraf is our ally is because, so far as we know, he hasn’t yet allowed terrorists to get their hands on Pakistani nukes.
FloatingRock on August 12, 2007 at 11:52 PM
I think they’re just redeploying.
Check Guam.
profitsbeard on August 13, 2007 at 12:08 AM
I get the sense that Musharraf was told about the camps…in order to see if he would do anything about them. I suspect the decision was made that it was the only way, knowing full well the AQ sympathizers in Musharrafs government would give them a heads-up.
If the US hitting them means Msuahrraf falls, who controls their nukes?
If telling Musharraf means the rumor leaks to the camps that they are about to be hit…then they scatter like rats without their safe-haven, which means it might be easier to hit them on the run.
The rumor spreads, the rats scatter, Musharraf keeps his job, the nukes are still in some fashion of control.
91Veteran on August 13, 2007 at 12:12 AM
The gravest threat from Pakistan’s nukes will begin after they’ve developed long range ICBM’s that can reach the continental USA. At that point al Qaeda will be truly safe from our reach else we risk old-fashioned global thermal nuclear war. Our only hope might be if Pakistan believes that we have a robust missile defense in place capable of destroying their new missiles.
FloatingRock on August 13, 2007 at 12:30 AM
We have signifigant assets in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other M.E. countries nearby. Also, the only real democracy in the M.E. (Israel) would be a likely target. And those places are within range of a ship. Hitting the US mainland is not the only way to strike out against the US.
Hopefully, by scattering the rats from their hideouts, they can be taken out piecemeal and the threat reduced.
Texas Nick 77 on August 13, 2007 at 2:45 AM
That’s a good point, Texas Nick 77, however my point wasn’t that destroying al Qaeda in Pakistan would be easy, only that it would be easier now than after Pakistan can threaten to strike our homeland directly. Our footprint in Afghanistan is small and there are ways to position and/or draw down our troops in the region to lessen the risk. However, I don’t believe that it would be very likely Pakistan would resort to a nuclear response if we began a limited bombing campaign of terrorist facilities in the tribal areas. The real threat is that Musharraf’s rule may fail.
Musharraf seems to have virtually no capability to destroy Pakistan’s Jihadis and I haven’t heard any real signs that this is ever likely to change. For years we have been told that the reason Musharraf can’t act is because his control of the country, (and more importantly his control of the nukes), is so tenuous that it is teetering on a knifes edge. If this is true and it’s inevitable that cracking down on the terrorists will lead to Musharraf’s demise, then it’s better that it should happen now rather than later. Otherwise there is no hope that we can ever eliminate al Qaeda or end the Jihad, and at some point in the future it seems likely Jihadis will acquire deliverable WMDs, perhaps including nukes.
Are we going to wait for another attack on the USA before we take the fight into Pakistan where the enemy’s command and control is, to say the least? Will it be too late?
Lets tell Musharraf and Pakistan, and the world if necessary, that the next time we have a shot at terrorist facilities inside of Pakistan’s tribal areas that we are going to bomb the hell out of them without informing anybody first. We’ll make it clear that we have limited objectives and that our beef isn’t with the good people of Pakistan. (Let’s get the old Radio Free America running over there.) If Musharraf’s control begins to falter we will require a contingency plan to take out Pakistan’s nukes, but it seems as though this will be inevitable at some point in the future anyway.
If al Qaeda is smart they will wait until Pakistan has ICBM’s that can strike the USA before they attack us again. At that point our hands will be tied and we will either have to risk a massive nuclear war to respond to the next jihad strike or we will have to ask Musharraf if perchance his rule is finally strong enough now that maybe we could eliminate al Qaeda, pretty please, now that NY and/or DC has been reduced to cinders?
I realize I’m one of the only people here who hold this opinion but I can’t understand how we can win the WOT, the big-picture WOT, without dealing with Pakistan sooner or later. How would the rest of you deal with Pakistan’s Jihadis? More of the same, do nothing?
FloatingRock on August 13, 2007 at 4:21 AM
There are other alternatives, which are also risky. For one, we could try to find a way to bring about democratic elections in Pakistan and hope for a stronger leader that will have popular support and can take strong action against the Jihad. Then the question becomes whether or not the Pakistani army is even capable of defeating the Jihad and it’s sources within Pakistan. If not, will the democratically elected leader have enough popular support to allow the assistance of our military? I’m not so sure and then we’re liable to be right back were we are today with Musharraf: being faced with taking unilateral actions within Pakistan that might destabilize the new democratically elected leader.
FloatingRock on August 13, 2007 at 4:36 AM
But the Democrats have all said that Bush is the real enemy and our main concern with Islamicists should be their human rights. So that’s what I believe, because Democrats are smart and they care.
Halley on August 13, 2007 at 4:49 AM
Unfortunately, an elected leader there could turn out to be not so friendly to the USA. Case in point #1, Egypt, which had been pressured by our state department (lowercase intentional), has now a significant percentage of parliament seats held by the muslim brotherhood (again, lowercase intentional); #2, “palestine”, in which a majority of the voters elected hamas. Of course, in the latter case, the voters had no real choice to vote for officials that had the best interests of the people.
Back to the main topic, it would have been much easier to take out AQ/Taliban had they stayed in a few large camps. And the fact that these camps were abandoned shortly after our intelligence was delivered to the Pakistan government only proves to whom they are loyal. Best bet is to cool it, and when the bad guys recongregate (if they ever do that again), we take immediate action without telegraphing our intentions.
Texas Nick 77 on August 13, 2007 at 6:06 AM
Of course, if we do that, we need to pull a Han Solo and claim “a slight weapons malfunction.”
Texas Nick 77 on August 13, 2007 at 6:10 AM
This is the islamic version of the Nuremberg rallies.
Aylios on August 13, 2007 at 6:51 AM
Yeah, no crap! What the heck am I missing here? If we know where they are at, wouldn’t a couple of M.O.A.B.’s be the solution?
csdeven on August 13, 2007 at 8:17 AM
That’s what I’m missing. The camps are in Pakistan.
Floatingrock makes sense. We need to have a way to eliminate their nukes in case Musharif is overthrown. The question is…..can we get it all? Will we miss a ton of nuclear material that can be used in a dirty bomb?
csdeven on August 13, 2007 at 8:28 AM
FloatingRock, I have a sinking feeling that AQ knows that nukes travel well by ship.
ICBM’s are cold war relics that advertise the origin of the attack.
If AQ has both nukes and ICBM’s they would be foolish not to put a fig leaf on the source of the attack. Any counter strike could then be labeled as an attack on all innocent Muslims.
TunaTalon on August 13, 2007 at 9:15 AM
So, all those guys detained in the US, UK, Spain, France, et al have been just moving violations?
We’ve thwarted many attacks since 9/11…the “boy ain’t cryin’ wolf” here.
Miss_Anthrope on August 13, 2007 at 9:58 AM
Or UFO’s did it. :)
Good point.
Agreed, but smuggling takes far longer and is much more likely to be detected in a manner that would allow us to secure the nuke(s) before detnonation. So if Musharraf fails now and Islamists take over, we’ll have a little time to secure Pakistan’s nukes while the Islamists are still busy trying to figure out how to extricate them and load them onto a vehicles, etc….
Alternatively, if Musharraf fails later and Islamists take over, they may be able to press a button to strike our homeland immediately, or more likely deter us from taking any action against them ever again while they busy themselves with preparations to sneak nukes into the USA. We will enter a new cold war but this time with people for whom death is little deterrent.
I’m not sure that a “cold” war will be possible with Islamists unless, perhaps, Tancredo’s idea of bombing Mecca and other holy sites might be used as an affective deterrent. At any rate, the WOT will be entirely different if we allow this scenario to happen.
FloatingRock on August 13, 2007 at 1:25 PM