The situation has evolved throughout the day.
What was initially reported as a set of explosions
and electrical transformers has clearly evolved
into terrorist attacks across London.
What has been targeted have been London's underground,
its subway, the London Underground system
has been shut down.
We also know that there was at least one explosion
onboard a double-decker bus in central London.
Eyewitnesses telling us that as they walked past the bus,
just about four hours ago now,
there was an explosion onboard.
They turned their head.
They saw the top coming off the bus.
When Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge
raised the terror alert level on certain financial buildings
in New York, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. last summer,
he cited intelligence that was very specific
and very alarming.
But there is new information that maybe those areas
weren't the true target.
It turns out while much of the alarm at the time
was about the casing of these financial buildings
in New York, Washington, and Newark, New Jersey,
there was an actual active al-Qaeda plot on
involving some of the characters who did that casing,
but they weren't plotting to attack New York,
New Jersey, or Washington.
They weren't plotting to attack anything
in the United States at all.
The active plot involved a big bomb attack in London.
The ring that was at the center of that,
which was headed by suspect Iran Burrot,
otherwise known as Esam al-Hindi,
was mashed back a few months ago.
They are now incarcerated, but the original intelligence
seems to have been off the mark
about what their aim and goal was.
There has been a bit of alarm among U.S. agents
stationed in Britain.
In fact, FBI agents were so spooked
by some of this intelligence that they have been reluctant
to take to London Underground.
They've been taking taxis rather than the subways
because apparently the underground was supposed
to be part of the plot.
I have reiterated the promise that when we have specific,
credible information, we will share it.
Now this afternoon, we do have new
and unusually specific information
about where al-Qaeda would like to attack.
Reports indicate that al-Qaeda is targeting
Citigroup buildings in the New York Stock Exchange
in New York.
We must understand that the kind of information
available to us today is the result
of the president's leadership in the war against terror.
The reports that have led to this alert
are the result of offensive intelligence
and military operations overseas,
as well as strong partnerships with our allies
around the world, such as Pakistan.
Pakistani intelligence sources are accusing
the Bush administration of undermining its fight
against al-Qaeda by revealing Khan's name
while he was still working as an undercover double agent.
Unnamed U.S. officials leaked his name to the press
in an attempt of the Bush administration
to defend last week's heightened terror threat level.
A big break came in the al-Qaeda investigation
in Pakistan in June.
Mohammed Naeem Nur Khan, who was living in Lahore
and was a computer whiz, arrested on July 13th,
but he was willing to begin informing on al-Qaeda
and to keep his correspondence on the line.
It was from his computer files that the U.S. learned
that there had been a plot against
U.S. financial institutions.
The decision was made by the Bush White House
to release this information, and Tom Ridge came out
on Sunday, August 1st, and announced there was such a plot
and there would be extra security for those institutions.
In the course of the off-the-record briefing
the Homeland Security did for the press,
a Bush administration official mentioned
that the information had come from Mohammed Naeem Nur Khan.
Now, he was still a double agent and was undercover
and was sending email messages on Sunday
and the following Monday to his al-Qaeda contacts in London,
who still thought he was on the inside.
The next day, the New York Times printed the name,
and it's a principle that you don't tell the press things
you don't want to see in the newspapers.
That caused a big furor in Pakistan and the United Kingdom
where there were ongoing sting operations
being run through Khan, and the British had to swoop in
and arrest 13 of Khan's correspondents,
lest they scatter once they heard he had been arrested,
and in fact, they lost five of them,
and many they're going to have to release
for lack of evidence.
So the cases haven't been made,
and Thasul Sala Hayat, who is the Pakistani interior minister,
is just furious, and he said that, you know,
Khan is the kind of asset that could eventually
have led to bin Laden himself having not been outed.
It's very clear from the reaction in Britain
that they are very upset.
MI5 actually has given an interview to the New York Times
in which they have complained about the damage
that was done to the ongoing cases.
Condi Rice admitted that the name had been, in fact,
provided to the press on background,
and then she said she didn't know if he was a double agent.
And Home Secretary David Blunkett, in an op-ed,
criticizing the Bush administration
for having done this.
Because his name was revealed in the press,
they have no choice but to attempt to arrest these people.
In many instances, they may not actually
have enough evidence against them to hold them,
because being in email contact with Mohammed Naeem Nur Khan
is not a crime.
We now know that the information was very old,
that it is often said by the Bush administration officials
that it had been updated as recently as January of 2004.
But the Guardian has revealed that what they really mean
is the file had been opened as recently as January 2004.
No new information was added to it.
We don't have evidence of ongoing operational activities.
So it's old information, and they dried up
this potentially very rich well of further tracking
and information.
Might have led to Bin Laden himself.
Might have led to a very severe crippling
of al-Qaeda operational capabilities.
Might have led to successful court cases
against a whole range of operatives
in London and elsewhere.
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