This dubious and unverifiable allegation collapses of its own weight when viewed against years of established fact and information. Skepticism from within the US intelligence ranks themselves has only added to Bush’s new political problem.

Bush’s Warmed-Over Action Thriller

Bush’s new “disclosure” is a story worthy of the television show “24,” and reminiscent of the movie “Independence Day” (in which the Library Tower was destroyed by invading space aliens). It is a “greatest hits” legend that conveniently brings together all of the “best” post-9/11 propaganda in one magnificent piece of Mighty Wurlitzer noise. From Khalid Sheik Mohammed to Osama and Jemaah Islamiya; from caves to shoe bombing and hijacked airliners; from Afghanistan to Indonesia to Los Angeles.

A February 9 Associated Press account of Bush’s new claims reads as follows [my emphasis in italics, comments bracketed-LC]:

”Bush has referred to the 2002 plot before. In an address last October, he said the United States and its allies had foiled at least 10 serious plots by the al-Qaida terror network in the last four years, including plans for Sept. 11-like attacks on both U.S. coasts. The White House initially would not give details of the plots but later released a fact sheet with a brief, and vague, description of each.

"The president filled in details on Thursday. He said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003, had already begun planning the West Coast operation in October, just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. One of Mohammed's key planners was Hambali, the alleged operations chief of the al-Qaida related terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Instead of recruiting Arab hijackers, Hambali found Southeast Asian men who would be less likely to arouse suspicion and who were sent to meet with Osama bin Laden, Bush said. [See below regarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Al Qaeda-LC]

"Under the plot, the hijackers were to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door of a commercial jetliner, take control of the plane and crash it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, Bush said. In his remarks, Bush inadvertantly referred to the site as ‘Liberty Tower,’ and immediately afterward, the White House corrected him. [Such an obvious blunder strongly suggests that Bush is reading a script, and one he does not even know very well.-LC]

"The president said the plot was derailed when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al-Qaida operative. Bush did not name the country or the operative.

"Bush has been on a campaign to defend his controversial domestic monitoring program. But the White House would not say whether the 2002 plot was thwarted as a result of the National Security Agency program to eavesdrop on the international e-mails and phone calls of people inside the United States with suspected ties to terrorists." [The underlying spin agenda is obvious.-LC]

"Bush said only that ‘subsequent debriefings and other intelligence operations’ after the arrest of the unnamed operative led to information about the plot, and to the capture of other ringleaders and operatives involved in it. Hambali, for instance, was captured in Thailand in 2003 and handed over to the United States.

"'It took the combined efforts of several countries to break up this plot,' the president said. 'By working together, we took dangerous terrorists off the streets. By working together, we stopped a catastrophic attack on our homeland.'

"Bush's speech in October cited two other attacks inside the United States that were foiled, including one to use hijacked planes to attack the East Coast in mid-2003.”

Realities Expose Bush’s Lies

As amply documented at the independent web site you are now reading, and related web sites and publications, 9/11 was a crime that was planned, orchestrated and carried out by the US government and its proxies. There is exhaustive evidence exposing the fact that the 9/11 pretext is a lie, the “war on terrorism” is a lie, and that “Osama bin Laden” and “al Qaeda” are creations of, and guided assets still working at the behest of, Anglo-American intelligence (the CIA, Pakistan’s ISI, etc.).

Even as the lies continue to be compounded, distorted and spun in increasingly grotesque fashion by Bush and functionaries, the entire “war on terrorism” façade collapses with a simple glance at documented facts. Michel Chossudovsky’s America's "War on Terrorism" and Mike Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon:The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil are two definitive books that exhaustively document this evidence.

Against this body of evidence, Bush’s new Los Angeles terror plot story instantly falls apart and is exposed as yet another malodorous deception.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM), the alleged 9/11 mastermind, is the star of Bush’s new claim. KSM is (as many other alleged members of “al Qaeda”), at best, a double or triple agent, and perhaps one of the many victims of US torture, who has been forced to “sing” for his captors. At worst, he is, like Osama bin Laden, dead -- or a myth. Moreover, everything about the KSM case, from his profile to his so-called arrest, is bogus and a part of an elaborate US propaganda and intelligence operation:

9/11 and the Smoking Gun that Turned on Its Tracker

In Crossing the Rubicon, Mike Ruppert writes: “ . . . it is interesting to note that the US government has failed to produce -- publicly, or for the one failed 9/11 criminal prosecution in Germany of Mounir el Motassadeq -- either bin al-Shibh or KSM as material witnesses. No mere mortal has seen either one of them since their reported captures. Credible reports have told us that KSM was killed. Any information alleged to have come from these ‘captured’ suspects has come in the form of ‘press release prosecution’ by the government. None of it has ever been independently authenticated.”

The other star villain of the new Bush claim is the southeast Asian-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group. Obviously, Bush is attempting to reintroduce the group purportedly responsible for the Bali bombings.

But as documented by Michel Chossudovsky in Fabricating an Enemy, claims against JI and its “operational leader” Hambali, merely point back to the CIA, exposing yet more deception on the part of the Bush administration and its proxies.

Chossudovsky wrote: “The bomb attack was allegedly perpetrated by Jemaah Islamiah, a group, which operates in several countries in South East Asia. Press reports and official statements point to close ties between Jemaah Islamiah (JI) and al Qaeda. The JI’s "operational leader" is Riduan Isamuddin, alias Hambali, a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war, who was trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“The training of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and Pakistan was a CIA sponsored initiative launched under President Jimmy Carter in 1979, using Pakistan’s ISI as a go-between.

“In addition, Jemaah Islamiah has links to Indonesia’s military intelligence, which in turn has links to the CIA and Australian intelligence . . . Indonesia’s intelligence apparatus has for more than 30 years been controlled by the CIA.

“In the wake of the October 2002 Bali bombing, a contradictory report emanating from Indonesia’s top brass, pointed to the involvement of both the head of Indonesian intelligence, General A. M. Hendropriyono, as well as the CIA:

“ ‘The agency and its director, Gen. A. M. Hendropriyono, are well regarded by the United States and other governments. But there are still senior intelligence officers here who believe that the C.I.A. was behind the bombing.’

“In response to these statements, the Bush administration demanded that President Megawati Sukarnoputri, publicly refute the involvement of the U.S in the attacks. No official retraction was issued. Not only did President. Megawati remained silent on this matter, she also accused the US of being:

“ ‘a superpower that forced the rest of the world to go along with it . . . We see how ambition to conquer other nations has led to a situation where there is no more peace unless the whole world is complying with the will of the one with the power and strength.’

“The links of JI to the Indonesian intelligence agency were never raised in the official Indonesian government investigation --which was guided behind the scenes by Australian intelligence and the CIA.”

Not Even the President’s Men

Less than 24 hours following Bush’s grandstanding, officials and counter-terrorism experts have already raised questions about the veracity of Bush’s statements and the obvious political spin.

From a Washington Post account:

“ . . . several US intelligence officials downplayed the relative importance of the alleged plot and attributed the timing of Bush’s speech to politics. The officials, who declined to be identified because they did not want to criticize the White House publicly, said there is deep disagreement within the intelligence community over the seriousness of the scheme and whether it was ever much more than talk.

“One intelligence official said nothing had changed to precipitate the release of more information on the case. The official attributed the move to the administration’s desire to justify its efforts in the face of criticism of the surveillance, which had no connection to the incident.

“Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist who heads the Washington office of the Rand Corporation, said Bush’s account adds some interesting detail to the Library Tower episode. But he said it still leaves key questions unanswered about the case and its significance.

“ ‘It doesn’t really give us any more indication of whether this was a plot that was derailed or preempted, or a plot that was more in the realm of an idle daydream,' Hoffman said.”

This is tantamount to a resounding slap to Bush’s face. With his popularity ratings and credibility at rock bottom, Bush cannot even muster up a consensus among his own operatives.

Bush has also opened himself and his administration to a new round of scrutiny and political fallout. Again, from the Washington Post account:

“Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday that he was blindsided by Bush’s announcement of new details about a purported 2002 plot.

“‘I’m amazed that the president would make this (announcement) on national TV and not inform us of these details through the appropriate channels,’ he said. ‘I don’t expect a call from the president -- but somebody.'"

Reading between the obvious lines, at best, the fact there was no call suggests that the story was bogus from the start, or the Bush administration is criminally negligent in not warning officials in Los Angeles. Either way, the Bush administration loses.

The Real Threat

It is increasing political desperation and a threat to his presidency, not a real terror threat against the US, which has pushed Bush into a new phase of “war on terrorism" propaganda. Now that it is no longer politically effective merely to brandish the bogus threat and the fear. Bush and his functionaries must now attempt to sell their ability to solve a bogus problem, and portray themselves as the homeland’s premier “anti-terrorist” saviors, with Bush as the man in charge of a successful and necessary world police state and dictatorship that must never end.

Bush has declared that “America remains at risk” and that “we cannot let the fact that America hasn’t been attacked in four and a half years since September 11, 2001, lull us into the illusion that the threats to our nation have disappeared. They have not.”

He is correct in one respect: America, and the world, remain at high risk for new attacks, new wars, and unprecedented new crimes -- from the Bush administration itself. The more desperate the administration becomes, the higher that risk.