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| Acting CIA chief sez al-Qaeda plots against the US thwarted |
| 2004-07-19 |
| America's spy chief yesterday said while several al-Qaeda plots against America have been foiled since Sept. 11, 2001, the terror threat remains as high as it has ever been. ``We've disrupted plots - maritime plots, air plots, plots against infrastructure, plots being planned overseas - to unfold in the United States in all of these things,'' said John E. McLaughlin, acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, without providing any specifics. But al-Qaeda remains ruthlessly determined to strike America again, he stressed. ``It's important to remember here that for these people, an attack in the United States is the brass ring,'' McLaughlin said on the ``Fox News Sunday'' show. ``We can be successful 1,000 times and these people have to be lucky only once.'' Fugitive al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is probably hiding somewhere near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the spy agency head said. ``A lot of the reports indicate that, and we give some credibility to that,'' McLaughlin said. McLaughlin rejected the recommendation expected this week from the Sept. 11 commission that a national intelligence chief be appointed to oversee all intelligence gathering. ``With some modest changes in the way the CIA is set up, the director of Central Intelligence could carry out that function well and appropriately,'' McLaughlin said. The spy agency head noted that while Iran has been singled out as a state sponsor of terrorism, the country was not directly involved in the 9/11 plot. ``I would stop there and say we have no evidence that there is some sort of official sanction by the government of Iran for this activity,'' he said. McLaughlin said while there were contacts and training exchanges between Iraq and al-Qaeda, there was no ``relationship of operational control or command'' between the two. Still, he cautioned, the exact nature of the relationship remains ``an evolving story.'' |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
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