WASHINGTON - Earlier this week Attorney General John Ashcroft warned of an attack planned on America for sometime in the coming months. That may happen, but NBC News has learned one of Ashcroft’s sources is highly suspect
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Newsweek's Eleanor Clift has a few questions behind the timing of the new warnings:
May 28 - What was the subliminal message of John Ashcroft’s stepped-up terror warning earlier this week? It’s that if the terrorists want to disrupt the presidential election, that must mean they’re for Democratic candidate John Kerry.Think Madrid. The terrorist train bombings there in March were credited with ousting Spain’s pro-Bush conservative government and propelling the Socialists to power. But Kerry has done a good job in recent days of countering the notion that if he is elected president, America will go soft on terrorism.
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The real story this week is why Attorney General John Ashcroft held the press conference on the new terror warnings and not Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. An aide to a Republican senator on the Armed Services Committee says, “The divisions between Homeland Security and the Justice Department are as profound as between State and Defense.” In a classic case of Washington intrigue, Ridge reportedly leaked word of the upcoming Ashcroft press conference in order to pre-empt it, then went on the morning shows to assure Americans they should go ahead with their summer plans while Ashcroft is saying the end is near.The two men are rivals for who’s in charge, and who gets to protect America. It would be funny if it weren’t for the potentially serious consequences. California Rep. Christopher Cox, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, said the “separate public appearances conveyed the impression that the broad and close interagency consultation we expect—and which the law requires—may not have taken place in this case.”
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You don’t have to be ultra-cynical to suspect the timing of Ashcroft’s dire pronouncements. Bush is in a jam over Iraq, and the exit strategy is changing the subject, or at least broadening it from Iraq to the wider world of terror, where Bush clings to a narrow lead over Kerry in voter confidence. It’s fishy that police departments in the target cities of Los Angeles and New York weren’t notified and learned along with the public about the newest vague threats from television. This was hardly breaking news. Six of the seven names Ashcroft revealed as likely terrorists have been known to the FBI for months, some for as long as two and a half years.
As they used to say: "The Truth is Out There Somewhere."
