Was New York subway threat a hoax?
City officials don't believe report that bomb threat was made up, but feds do.
New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly both
expressed doubts Tuesday over a Monday report that last week's subway bomb threat was a hoax.
Newsday reports that Mr. Bloomberg said he didn't believe that the threat had been confirmed as a hoax, despite media reports to the contrary. And Mr. Kelly said the informant in Iraq could not have recanted his warning because "US authorities in Iraq have lost track of him."
The reports, citing unnamed sources, claimed an informant in Iraq who had told US authorities about the possible threat by Al Qaeda later admitted he made it up.
The informant's allegation prompted city officials and FBI last week to issue a dire public warning and to flood the subway system with thousands of extra police officers. After four days of high alert, the officials announced on Monday there was no clear evidence an attack would be carried out and scaled back the protection.
MSNBC reports that government sources have told
NBC, however, that although last week's threat
may have been a hoax, it is "premature" to conclude that the informant made up the story. Two of the three sources contacted by NBC for their story said that there was reason to believe he had made up the story, possibly for money. This conclusion was reached on the basis of conversations with others who know the informant.
The Washington Post reports that, while Bloomberg called it the "most specific threat the city has ever received," officals of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were skeptical of the informant's claim almost from the beginning, calling it "not credible." But DHS officials played down differences with city officials. The possibility of the threat
being a hoax became apparent when US officials found the alleged plotters in Iraq.
US troops in Iraq captured three suspects south of Baghdad who the informant said were involved in the alleged plot. But none of the suspects, including two who were given polygraph examinations, corroborated the informant's allegations or appeared to have any connection to a terrorist plot, according to intelligence officials.
ABC News reports, however, other federal government sources say that the informant has been found again, and is
sticking to his story, despite the three suspects passing polygraph tests that showed they were not involved in any plot. "He has not recanted nor in any way said anything to indicate that he believes his original info was false," an official told ABC News. The
Los Angeles Times reports that federal sources are now saying intelligence officials are
trying to determine if the informant "intentionally misled them or if he was acting in good faith but on bad information, perhaps for payment or favored treatment."
But the Times also reports that privately some federal officials criticized the way Homeland Security handled the situation. The informant had provided some useful information in the past, but this time he could not even answer the most basic questions about the plot, including how the attackers were supposed to get to New York.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security sent the information to local officials in New York, as they are supposed to do, while authorities in Iraq raced to corroborate the allegations. The alert was described as being uncorroborated and lacking in credibility, officials said.
But before the story could be checked out, Department of Homeland Security officials alerted state security directors in a conference call, according to [a] federal law enforcement official, who described the call as being unnecessary. That call and other efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to spread the news of the threat allowed it to leak out to the news media, thus forcing New York's hand in going public, the two federal officials said.
New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin writes that the way the federal government, from President Bush to DHS officials, handled the subway threat, leaves him
confused about the role that Washington sees for itself in these situations.
Even as the city was scrambling to protect the subway and commuter rails from what Mayor Bloomberg called a "specific" plot, Washington, which passed on the threat to New York, was saying the report was of "doubtful credibility." The next day, Bush actually claimed this was the way the system was supposed to work. "Our job is to gather intelligence and pass it on to local authorities. And they make the judgments necessary to respond," he said. Asked if Bloomberg overreacted, Bush said, in part, "The American people have got to know that, one, we're collecting information and sharing it with local authorities on a timely basis. And that's important." There you have it – the gazillions we spend on security only pay for bureaucrats to push paper. Whatever happens after that, it's not their problem. But
The New York Times reports that the way the threat was then handled by New York city officials, particularly Mayor Bloomberg, has also raised concerns among antiterrorism experts, and some of Bloomberg's political opponents. Bloomberg made the announcement about the threat last week an hour before a mayoralty debate in Harlem that he had already decided to skip.
The Times also reports that Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte would have a "long look" at how the threat was handled by local and city officials. And Police Commissioner Kelly agreed that the "apparent confused stream of information from Washington" warranted a review.
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