Al-Qaida false alarm

According to a June 3 headline in the Washington Times, “CIA says al-Qaida ready to use nukes.” That headline and the exclusive accompanying story sent shock waves across the country and around the world. You’ve probably been hiding in your basement fallout shelter ever since.

The story by Times investigative reporter Bill Gertz is even more frightening than the headline. Gertz begins, “Al-Qaida terrorists and related groups are set to use chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in deadly strikes, according to a new CIA report.”

Wow. It’s not just al-Qaida we have to worry about. And it’s not just getting nuked in our jammies. There are also other “related” terrorist groups out there ready to strike us and they have chemical and biological weapons, as well as nukes

What chemical weapons? Gertz mentions mustard gas, cyanide, Sarin and VX.

What biological weapons? Gertz mentions anthrax, ricin and botulinum toxin.

How serious is the threat?

Well, it must be very serious, indeed. Usually Gertz doesn’t tell us where he gets his “secret” information. He claims his “sources” insist on remaining anonymous.

Presumably, Gertz checks out “secret” info with multiple independent sources before printing it. That’s what Bob Woodward and Sy Hersh and all good investigative reporters do.

Of course, even if the Washington Times story had been written by Jayson Blair – formerly of the New York Times – about a classified document, no CIA official would publicly confirm or deny its accuracy. By law, no one who is properly cleared can ever publicly comment on classified information.

So, you cannot assume that a story by an investigative reporter about a classified subject is accurate simply because no government official steps forward to deny it.

Unfortunately for Gertz, he based his story on a CIA document that was not classified and his characterization of what it said was wildly inaccurate.

So, later that same day, the CIA posted the entire document – “Terrorist CBRN: Materials and Effects” – on its website, with the following disclaimer at the top and bottom:

Please note: “This pamphlet contains a summary of typical agents and CBRN devices available to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. It is not intended to be a summary of the overall threat from al-Qaida’s CBRN program.”

In other words, the CIA document is not what Gertz said it was.

Notice that the CIA document is an information pamphlet and that it is undated. It’s the sort of thing passed out at “homeland security” public meetings.

The CIA pamphlet provides a list of bad things that terrorists might like to get their hands on, but the list is not exhaustive. For example, plastique or fertilizer-fuel oil explosives are not mentioned, even though explosives have thus far been the terrorist’s weapon of choice. Box cutters are also not mentioned.

Nowhere does it say – as Gertz says it does – that “Al-Qaida terrorists and related groups are set to use chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in deadly strikes.”

Here is what the pamphlet does say about al-Qaida:

• “Several groups of mujahedin associated with al-Qaida have attempted to carry out ‘poison plot’ attacks in Europe with easily produced chemicals and toxins best suited to assassination and small-scale scenarios.”
  
• “Analysis of an al-Qaida document recovered in Afghanistan in summer 2002 indicates the group has crude procedures for making mustard agent, sarin, and VX.”
  
• “A document recovered from an al-Qaida facility in Afghanistan contained a sketch of a crude nuclear device.”

Terrorists may have attempted to “poison” Europeans with cyanide and may have attempted to make nerve agents, but the CIA pamphlet doesn’t chronicle any successes.

So, don’t you feel somewhat silly, hiding in your basement because someone found a sketch of a crude nuclear device – reportedly downloaded from the Internet – in an abandoned building in Afghanistan.

Do you believe the recounting of that year-ago discovery justifies this week’s shocking headline – “CIA says al-Qaida ready to use nukes”?

Nowhere in the pamphlet does the CIA say any such thing.

Either Gertz has a reading comprehension problem or he has deliberately misled us.

Which brings us to the burning issue of the day – where are all those “weapons of mass destruction” the CIA allegedly said Saddam had ready for use?

Well, maybe none of the CIA secret reports ever said that Saddam did. Maybe the media elite and certain anonymous government officials also have a reading comprehension problem. Or maybe they deliberately misled us.