Book: al-Qaida planned gas attack on NYC
(AP)
Updated: 2006-06-19 10:04
New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Tom Kelly
declined comment.
According to the report, President Bush was shown a model of the weapon in
March 2003 and ordered alerts sent through the U.S. government. When
intelligence arrived that al-Zawahri had called off the attack, Bush worried
that something worse was in the works, Suskind writes.
At least two of Suskind's sources remembered Bush saying, "This is bad
enough. What does calling this off say about what else they're planning? ...
What could be the bigger operation Zawahri didn't want to mess up?" the author
said.
"What has been concluded for the most part is this: al-Qaida's thinking is
that a second-wave attack should be more destructive and more disruptive than
9/11," Suskind told the magazine in an interview.
The informant, who had become disgruntled with al-Qaida's leadership, linked
the organization's top operative on the Arabian peninsula to the plot, Suskind
writes. The operative was later killed in a standoff with Saudi authorities.
The excerpt of Suskind's book, "The One Percent Doctrine," was to appear in
Time's issue hitting newsstands Monday. Suskind is a former Pulitzer
Prize-winning reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
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