Newsweek published this story just a few weeks after the election last year.

The Real Target?
Updated: 10:16 a.m. ET Nov. 22, 2004

The latest analysis of evidence that led to last summer's Code Orange alert suggests that Al Qaeda operatives were plotting a "big bomb" attack against a major landmark in Britain--but had no active plans for strikes in the United States,, U.S. intelligence sources tell NEWSWEEK...

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge first announced the financial-buildings alert on Sunday, Aug. 1, just three days after Sen. John Kerry gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic Party convention in Boston. Ridge's references to what he called "very specific" and "alarming" intelligence about Al Qaeda surveillance of such buildings as the World Bank in Washington and the New York Stock Exchange set off a new wave of fears about a possibly imminent terrorist attack and, in the view of some, had the effect of substantially suppressing Kerry's "bounce" in the polls...

Some U.S. law-enforcement officers based in London, NEWSWEEK has learned, have become extremely concerned about evidence regarding possible active Al Qaeda plots to attack targets in Britain. According to a U.S. government official, fears of terror attacks have prompted FBI agents based in the U.S. Embassy in London to avoid traveling on London's popular underground railway (or tube) system, which is used daily by millions of commuters. While embassy-based officers of the U.S. Secret Service, Immigration and Customs bureaus and the CIA still are believed to use the underground to go about their business, FBI agents have been known to turn up late to crosstown meetings because they insist on using taxis in London's traffic-choked business center.

Full story from November is here.

And there's more here.

It gets worse.

Recall, if you will, that in August the White House leaked intelligence about the capture of al Qaeda operative to justify the Orange Alert.

That leak may have disrupted a sting being conducted by British and Pakistani officials.

U.S. leak 'harms al Qaeda sting'
Monday, August 9, 2004 Posted: 6:24 AM EDT (1024 GMT)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The effort by U.S. officials to justify raising the terror alert level last week may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests, Pakistani intelligence sources have said.

Until U.S. officials leaked the arrest of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan to reporters, Pakistan had been using him in a sting operation to track down al Qaeda operatives around the world, the sources said.

In background briefings with journalists last week, unnamed U.S. government officials said it was the capture of Khan that provided the information that led Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to announce a higher terror alert level...

"The Pakistani interior minister, Faisal Hayat, as well as the British home secretary, David Blunkett, have expressed displeasure in fairly severe terms that Khan's name was released, because they were trying to track down other contacts of his," [Senator Charles] Schumer told CNN.

Politics above all.

That tragic abuse of power and risking of lives as a political CYA is what finally pushed me over the edge to start blogging about this White House, back in August (follow the link and scroll all the way down).

I was angry then.

Beyond angry.

Now I'm just numb.


UPDATE: In the wake of the stupid, stupid conspiracy theories going around regarding the recent terrorist attacks on London, I feel compelled to clarify my intensions with this post.

The point is not to give credence to anything that suggests that British and U.S. officials willfully allowed the London bombings to happen (or worse yet, were behind it).

It's to point out how the United States specifically used a REAL counter-terrorism effort for their own political purposes last summer, putting that counter-terrorism effort in jeopardy.

The very people seeking our vote because they claimed they would make us safer in fact sold out our safety and security the first chance they got.

Gross incompetence, yes. Negligence, yes. Abuse of power, yes.

Conspiracy, no.

Look, we've got enough on the unethical dealings of this administration without having to make up stuff about how they're purposefully killing their own citizens to justify past stupidity.

We don't need to legitimize dumb rumors.

The facts are bad enough.

Here endeth the update.

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