No Direct Evidence of Plot To Attack Around Elections

[Roland99]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55597-2004Oct22.html
On Sept. 15, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and John E. McLaughlin, then acting director of the CIA, brought a special note of concern to their daily briefing with President Bush.

Fresh intelligence had arrived pointing to plans for a mass-casualty terrorist attack before Election Day, bolstering previous indications that such an assault was possible on U.S. soil, according to accounts of the briefing provided to Mueller's and McLaughlin's subordinates. What's more, intelligence officials told Bush, there was reason to believe that the plotters may already have arrived in the United States, according to the accounts. The new information led the FBI and other agencies across the government to launch a well-publicized campaign aimed at foiling potential plots before the elections, including hundreds of interviews in immigrant neighborhoods and aggressive surveillance of suspected terrorist sympathizers.

But five weeks after the effort began, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials say they have found no direct evidence of an election-related terrorist plot. Authorities also say that a key CIA source who had claimed knowledge of such plans has been discredited, casting doubt on one of the earliest pieces of evidence pointing to a possible attack...

..."We've not unearthed anything that would add any credence to talk of an election-related attack," said one senior FBI counterterrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because authorities have been instructed not to talk publicly about the issue before the elections. "You can never say there is not a threat, but we have not found specific evidence of one."

The Bush Who Cried Wolf!