Bush: Al Qaeda Wanted to Hit West Coast

Feb. 9, 2006 — -- President Bush outlined details of a thwarted terror plot to attack the tallest building on the West Coast, saying the plot shows the United States faces a threat from a determined enemy and that global cooperation is needed to stop it.

In remarks at the National Guard Memorial Building, the president gave details on the disruption of a plot by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to have terrorist operatives hijack a commercial airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door and fly the plane into the tallest building on the West Coast, the Library Tower in Los Angeles.

Bush said Mohammed sought out young men from Southeast Asia who may have aroused less suspicion by U.S. authorities and enlisted a terrorist leader named Hambali to head the plan. But the president said the plot was derailed in early 2002 when a Southeast Asia nation that he did not identify arrested a key al Qaeda operative, which led to the capture of the ringleaders and operatives who were recruited for the plot.

White House Homeland Security adviser Fran Townsend said on a conference call with reporters that the agency does not know when the plot was scheduled for but that Mohammed began to initiate it in October 2001.

Between then and February 2002, when the lead operative was arrested, the terrorists involved traveled to Afghanistan and met with Osama bin Laden. Townsend would not release the names of these terrorists or say if they met with bin Laden after U.S. forces were in Afghanistan.

Bush reiterated the administration's assertion that just because there hasn't been an attack in the United States since 9/11, it does not mean the threat has disappeared.

"America remains at risk, so we must remain vigilant," the president said this morning. "We'll stay on the offensive. We will hunt down the terrorists. And we will never rest until this threat to the American people is removed."

This is a common refrain of Vice President Dick Cheney, who said as recently as Tuesday on PBS that it is not an accident that the United States has not been hit with a terrorist attack in four years. "Some people think it's just dumb luck," Cheney said. "No, it's not."