JFK Plot was More Talk Than PLan of Action

The Bush gang have used the threat of a terrorist attack for political reasons in the past. This is no different. The timing of the arrest was particularly curious, at a time the administration was under siege in Iraq and domestically:

[...]the criminal complaint filed by the federal authorities against the four defendants in the case — one of them, Abdel Nur, remained at large yesterday — suggests a less than mature terror plan, a proposed effort longer on evil intent than on operational capability.

(Ms. Mauskopf noted in her news release that the “public was never at risk” and told reporters that law enforcement “had stopped this plot long before it ever had a chance to be carried out.”)

It was a pipe dream:

Some law enforcement officials and engineers also dismissed the notion that the planned attack could have resulted in a catastrophic chain reaction; system safeguards, they said, would have stopped explosions from spreading.

Its hype, intended to frighten the public far beyond the real threat:

“It has a bit of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight to it,” Mr. Sonnett said. “It would have served the federal government well to say that.”

The seeming gap between the rhetoric at Saturday’s news conference and the reality of the threat could reflect a change in approach among law enforcement officials.