Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Did George Tenet drop a "bombshell" on The Factor?
Fox is running ads this morning hyping Bill O'Reilly's interview of George Tenet, which I admit might be entertaining. The promos claim that Tenet "drops a bombshell," and then cuts to him saying that the government had a report after September 11 that terrorists had deployed a small nuclear weapon deployed in New York City.
Uh, yeah.
Not only is this not a "bombshell," it isn't even news. That report, which the intelligence "community" apparently regarded as quite credible, set off a frantic and then-secret scramble to hunt for the bomb in Manhattan in the fall of 2001. The whole incident was deadly serious and intensely scary for the people who knew about it, and is widely regarded as having informed the Bush administration's decision to focus on the possible links between al Qaeda and states, the only entities known to have the resources to buy, build, or deploy nuclear weapons. The story is recounted in some detail in George Friedman's excellent book on that time, America's Secret War
Now, it is interesting that Fox regards Tenet's account of the Manhattan nuke scare as a "bombshell." Yes, it has every interest in hyping its interview, but still. Is this actually news to people? Tell us in the comments whether you knew about this story or not. If not, does the media's failure to cover this story help explain why there is such a gulf between the Administration's view of the threat and that of the average American? Finally, should the Administration -- which to my knowledge has never really talked about the Manhattan nuke report -- have used it to explain its preoccupation with WMD in the run-up to the Iraq war, or in defense of its decision since?
Release the hounds.
26 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed May 02, 02:29:00 PM:
I admit I did not know about this report previously. But after September 11 I assumed such a thing was possible and assumed the government would also assume that somebody, sometime would be trying to unleash some such thing on an American city--even if it was 'only' a dirty bomb and not the real deal capable of producing Condi's now-infamous mushroom cloud.
By 
ScurvyOaks, at
Wed May 02, 02:38:00 PM:
I'd never heard about it before. Shame on the media -- and on this Administration, which has done such a lousy job of communicating with the American people.
By Coach Morgan, at
Wed May 02, 03:04:00 PM:
I heard about it sometime after the events
By Escort81, at
Wed May 02, 03:36:00 PM:
I hadn't heard about it, though I generally consider myself to be reasonably well informed.
The fact that I don't live or work in the metro NYC area is probably not a good reason for me not to know about this story.
By Escort81, at
Wed May 02, 03:51:00 PM:
I apologize for going off topic in this thread and going back to a previous thread, but I had to share this tidbit about Iran and Star Wars III (the movie, not any nickname for a missile defense system) as it related to a discussion about Frank Miller.
By , at
Wed May 02, 03:52:00 PM:
I had heard about it on blogs. Then I had forgotten about it.
The media put it down the memory hole. Because they quickly moved as the Media always does to the terrorists side. Rosie's view that she sympathizes with terrorists is probably held by most reporters and editors.
And yes this accounts for the gap between the Bush Admin and the Press. Which believes a nuking of an American City to be something out of 24, not ever a possibility.
Yes it's a bombshell. Because Tenet admits they seriously thought it was happening.
By Cobb, at
Wed May 02, 04:12:00 PM:
By RandomThoughts, at
Wed May 02, 04:59:00 PM:
I had not heard about it. Should it have been reported after the fact?
Well, if they didn't find anything, then either they would look stupid for thinking there was one in the first place orrrrr, its actually still hidden.
Hmmmm, how far away from New York City would you have to be?
By Purple Avenger, at
Wed May 02, 05:47:00 PM:
Never heard of it. Not surprised though...
By Fausta, at
Wed May 02, 06:15:00 PM:
I had heard of it, but only as a rumor.
By lugh lampfhota, at
Wed May 02, 06:24:00 PM:
I remember the event and understand why the administration didn't chat it up. The administration was trying to restore both our economy and some sense of security. The MSM didn't report the event much, just rumors of Feds with geiger counters in NYC, then dropped the story. It got my attention though!
By , at
Wed May 02, 06:33:00 PM:
By SR, at
Wed May 02, 06:57:00 PM:
Never heard of it. Remember the Smoters Brothers routine about hearing about Custer's last stand on the radio yesterday. Bush is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Just the way it is. I sure hope Petreus gets results soon.
By , at
Wed May 02, 08:19:00 PM:
Never heard it TH and I'm a voracious consumer of information. Maybe being outside of the East Coast makes a difference?
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Wed May 02, 09:16:00 PM:
I doubt that I had heard about it, as I think I would have held that particular scrap on my disk, y'see? People were offering the possibility that there were already small nukes in place around the US, but I don't recall Manhattan specifically.
Oh, I'm East Coast, though some may doubt whether NH is in the main information thruway.
By DWPittelli, at
Wed May 02, 09:55:00 PM:
I bet most of us heard of it at the time, but then forgot about it. It's easy to forget an apparently false report. Indeed, it's often advantageous to do so, unless you're especially interested in the meta-story. Who can remember all the false reports from the 72 hours after 9/11, and who would want to, if that meant increased confusion about what actually happened?
Similarly, in a Texas Holdem poker game, you will frequently be guessing about what other people hold, and updating each guess on each card and betting round. After the showdown, you learn what they actually had. And you remember that and correlate it to their betting behavior. But you probably don't want to remember what you might have thought they had, except to the extent you think it will help you avoid misjudgments later.
By , at
Wed May 02, 10:14:00 PM:
I read about something like that, and I am not sure if it was the same story. Something about the Fed's driving past mosques with Geiger counters. If I remember the story correctly, they said it wasn’t clear that they were looking for a completed bomb, or just radioactive material.
By Miss Ladybug, at
Wed May 02, 11:44:00 PM:
I don't recall specifically hearing about this, but after 9/11, I fully expected some other kind of attack within the U.S. in fairly short order, so hearing it now doesn't necessarily surprise me.
As for why I don't recall hearing it, I realize there are things the government finds out that should not become common public knowledge for very important reasons (why did we think that - was it the bad guys testing out responses/reactions to see what we would do? maybe there was chatter about it, but we didn't want certain sources/methods being compromised?). However, if this was something the media got hold of, they should have reported on it. Hell, they report on other classified info all the time, when it hurts the Administration, but they ignore stuff that would legitimize what the Adminstration has done/is doing.
By , at
Thu May 03, 02:40:00 AM:
I don't remember hearing about a credible threat that a nuclear weapon was in NYC, although I do remember hearing about officials using geiger counters to check some areas- seems like there was some objection that it was a violation of search and seizure rights to "search" an area with the geiger counter, because it could pick up radiation sources that were inside a private home, office, etc. without needing a search warrant to search those specific premises.
I think I've stayed pretty well informed since 9-11, and I'm sure I would have remembered such a story when I saw the second season of 24, even if it had slipped to the back of my mind. "Oh- I wonder if this is what is was like in New York when they thought there was a suitcase nuke there?"
By , at
Thu May 03, 04:43:00 AM:
Having lived in NY at the time and remembering going to times square at new year and having geiger counters passed over me to get through barriers, I knew something was up, but I did not know it was anything other than a generalized threat.
By Steve, at
Thu May 03, 04:46:00 AM:
Here in Australia, I do remember reading about a nuclear bomb scare in a US city which involved agents running around secretly with Geiger counters. I remember being surprised at the time, and telling my left leaning brother, who likes to downplay the seriousness of terrorism, that this indicates how genuine the concerns of the US really are.
However, I seem to recall that the story was from far from front page news, and quickly disappeared with no follow up. It was easy for people to overlook.
By , at
Thu May 03, 10:37:00 AM:
Intimately familiar with this incident. It was a certainly a worrisome time. Watching Fox news was telling. They mentioned that many of the cabinet level players were leaving town that day and even commented that it was odd that President Bush didn't wave to the press core as he was walking to the helicopter to leave for Camp David.
By ulrich, at
Thu May 03, 12:04:00 PM:
I was in 9/11 - WTC 7 - and remember this story coming out, surrounded by criticism from Guiliani's administration - something like they or some other important authorities hadn't been told until after the fact. I'm pretty sure this came out within a month or two of the event itself. I also remember buying Israeli and US gasmasks, iodine pills, some other crap, food and etc. in Greenwich village in immense lines. People in the city knew about this, anyway.
What was more remarkable, I thought, is what prevailed after 9/11: a conspicuous absence of public officials observing that, really, the major worry is nuclear terrorism. The blogosphere, of course, mentioned it, talked about unaccounted for Russian suitcase nukes, nukes planted by the KGB in the USA, nukes in shipping containers detonated in Brooklyn dock yards, and so on, but the public officials never mentioned it really, to my knowledge, until Rumsfeld made his "mushroom cloud" remark before a Senate committee and was much excoriated in the media thereafter.
Oh yeah. They don't want to nuke us. Terrible those Cold Warriors were in charge, the ideologues! They don't know anything!!!
Ha. What morons end up the stooges of Salzburger, hippy trustfund baby. It is ludicrous.
By Kid Various, at
Thu May 03, 12:08:00 PM:
Kid Various *did* know about this previously, and quite frankly, it was probably a good idea for the Administration to not publicize it. Basically because it didn't pan out, it would have been spun by the media as a classic example of a Bush Administration "intelligence failure" and evidence of the administration overeacting.
That said, The Kid is glad that they took this lead very seriously and hopes that, in the future, they will continue to do so.
Given our ailing status concerning offensive operations in the Long War, defense is going to play a larger role and we have to get better at it.
By Unknown, at
Thu May 03, 02:06:00 PM:
I've known about it for years.
By , at
Thu May 03, 05:07:00 PM:
I had heard about it. I was in Philly when 9/11 happened but grew up in Brooklyn, NY.
Also read about nuclear medicine treated patients being yanked off the NYC subway by uniformed and plainclothes cops because the radioactive tracer dyes set off the hidden sensors. Patients in the know now carry a note from the doctor treating them.
A NYTimes reporter was taken off a white house tour after a radioactive tracer set off the sensor in the white house.
