BY ALAN MAASS
On June 10, the US attorney general John Ashcroft announced that an alleged al Qaeda operative, who was plotting to set off a bomb packed with radioactive material in Washington, DC, had been arrested.
The announcement sparked a wave of panic, the mainstream media leading the way as their “experts” frantically described the potential devastation that such a “dirty bomb” would wreak.
The supposed terrorist, US citizen Abdullah al Muhajir, is in a military prison. He is classified as an “enemy combatant”, which means that he can be held without being charged until the “end of hostilities”.
There are gaping holes in Washington's case against al Muhajir. There was no “dirty bomb”. Al Muhajir had neither access to bomb-making materials nor the technical knowledge to build one, and there is no evidence that he had contacts to help him. As deputy US defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz later admitted: “I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk.”
Why did the administration wait five weeks to mention that it had “foiled” a terrorist plot? Al Muhajir had been arrested in early May.
The announcement coincided with congressional hearings into whether the Bush administration had missed prior warnings of the September 11 attacks. Plus the White House wants lawmakers to approve the reorganisation of the federal government's law enforcement and security apparatus into a unified Department of Homeland Security.
[From Socialist Worker, weekly paper of the US International Socialist Organization. Visit <http://www.socialistworker.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, June 26, 2002.
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