Bush Offers Details of 2002 Plot in Defense of Terror Strategy

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — President Bush defended his anti-terrorist policies anew today, asserting that the United States and its allies had foiled a terrorist plot meant to bring down a Los Angeles building that is the tallest in the United States west of the Mississippi River.

Mr. Bush said that just a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, terrorists planned to hijack another airplane by using "shoe bombs" to breach the cockpit door. Their target, had the hijacking been carried out, would have been the U.S. Bank Tower, the president said. (Government counterterrorism officials have acknowledged before that the tower would be a particularly inviting target.)

Osama bin Laden himself was involved in the plot, which was to be carried out by Southeast Asian men on the assumption that they would not arouse as much suspicion as Middle Easterners, Mr. Bush told the National Guard Association here. "Their plot was derailed in early 2002, when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key Al Qaeda operative," he said. "Subsequent debriefings and other intelligence operations made clear the intended target and how Al Qaeda hoped to execute it."


Now, you must wonder. Had we elected Gore, would his post 911 policies have had the same outcome?