Terror arrest not all it's cracked up to be?

Yesterday, news broke that a British man had been arrested in a potential terrorism plot involving the smuggling of a shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile into the United States. A missile of that nature could be used to try and shoot down aircraft - including passenger jets.

At the time, I'd said that it sounded like this was a sting operation, and that it might be good to keep an eye on it. My concern was that people who take the news of this arrest - and the presumed thwarting of a possible plot - as an indication that the new law enforcement powers are working, and possibly increase support for expanding such powers in the future. Well, today, ABC News (the same place I found the original story) reports that the arrest was, indeed, part of a sting operation, and that there's much less to the possible "plot" than initially thought.

According to law enforcement officials, administration officials are leaving out details and making the alleged plot - and subsequently the arrest of Hemant Lakhani - sound far more significant than it really was.

Lakhani had no contacts in Russia to buy the missiles before the sting and had no known criminal record for arms dealing, officials told ABCNEWS.

[...]

Court documents show much of the case is based on the government's key cooperating witness, an informant seeking lenient treatment on federal drug charges, officials told ABCNEWS. He was the first person who led the government to Lakhani.

The missile shipped into the New York area last month was not a real missile — just a mockup — also arranged entirely by the government. The government also arranged the meetings at a New Jersey hotel and elsewhere, where Lakhani allegedly told undercover agents posing as al Qaeda terrorists about his support of bin Laden.

[...]

Government officials said the case will show that Lakhani went along with the scheme willingly and was not entrapped. But the question remains whether any of this would have happened if the government had not set it up.

I hate to sound cynical, but when I saw that the law enforcement officials were say that the administration was trying to minimize some details and exaggerate the importance of the arrest itself, I wasn't the least bit surprised. It's only exactly what I've come to expect from the Bush administration. ::sigh::

Posted by thorswitch at August 13, 2003 08:59 PM | TrackBack