The long reach and ambitions of al-Qaida

NEW YORK - Former CIA Director George Tenet’s defense of his agency’s performance in the lead-up to the war in Iraq will echo from now through Election Day next year, but other disclosures in his new book are equally sobering and, in laying out the scope of al-Qaida’s ambitions, sometimes far more frightening.

The book, “At the Center of the Storm,” which is being published Monday, reveals that al-Qaida or groups affiliated with it have undertaken several other operations aimed at equaling or even surpassing the carnage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The operations, which either were thwarted by authorities or were canceled for one reason or another, included efforts to assassinate Vice President Al Gore with anti-tank missiles during a trip to Saudi Arabia, release cyanide in the New York subway system and procure weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, from Pakistani nuclear scientists.

In one especially chilling assertion, Tenet reveals that several intelligence sources were indicating in fall 2001 that a small nuclear weapon may have been smuggled into the United States.

The plot to kill Gore
Tenet discloses that in 1998, Saudi officials foiled a plot by Abdel Rahim al-Nashiri to smuggle four Sagger anti-tank missiles from Yemen into Saudi Arabia a week or so before Gore was scheduled to visit the kingdom. But their reluctance to let the United States know what was going on created significant tension between the two nations.

Tenet writes that it was reasonable to have expected the Saudis to pass the information along as soon as possible, but they did not.

After low-level discussions failed to produce a sense of urgency among the Saudis, Tenet flew to Riyadh to meet with Prince Naif, the interior minister and the man in charge of the Saudi secret police.

Tenet describes meeting with Naif in an opulent palace in Riyadh. He was accompanied by two colleagues, Deputy Director John McLaughlin and John Brennan, director of the CIA’s National Counterterrorism Center. Naif, by contrast, was joined by dozens of Saudi officials.

Tenet said he struggled to remain polite as Naif filibustered. Eventually, he had enough. He edged toward the prince, put his hand on his knee and asked, “Your royal highness, what do you think it will look like if someday I have to tell the Washington Post that you held out data that might have helped us track down al Qaeda murderers, perhaps even plotters who want to assassinate our vice president?”

Tenet told the prince he would be coming back each week to make sure intelligence flowed both ways.

Overall, however, Tenet makes it clear that he had warm relations with Saudi leaders. He says King Abdullah was instrumental in breaking logjam of the flow of intelligence and cites Naif’s son, the Saudis’ counterterrorism chief, as one of Washington’s best friends in countering al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida’s WMD plans
Tenet’s most frightening chapter is on al-Qaida’s plans to develop weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. It is titled “They Want to Change the World.”

Tenet writes that U.S. intelligence agencies “established that Al Qaeda had clear intent to acquire chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons to cause mass casualties in the United States.”

According to Tenet, intelligence officials learned that Saudi extremist elements were planning to conduct a cyanide gas attack on the New York subway system in fall 2003 using a homemade device. But first, they requested permission from al-Qaida leaders.

“Chillingly, word came back from Ayman al-Zawahiri in early 2003 to cancel the operation and recall the operatives who were already staged in New York ‘because we have something better in mind.’ ”

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