Iraqi Informant Admits New York Subway Threat Was A Hoax

It gets worse and worse for the Bush Administration’s terror alert capabilities. The terror alert against New York’s subway system, which was given to New York mayor Bloomberg over the first weekend this month and then held at the request of the federal government until last Thursday, was a hoax.

Both the FBI and the DHS thought the threat was questionable, even though it was the CIA and the Pentagon that gathered the information from the Iraqi informant in the first place. A local TV news station had the information on Tuesday, the 4th, but held it at the request of federal officials until Thursday. I’d like to think that the federal officials wanted the story held until they could check it out, but with the sorry track record of this administration in manipulating terror threats for political advantage, who knows why the threat was held until after a string of bad political news came out last week? Bloomberg, in the middle of a reelection campaign, went with the information.

There are a number of ways to look at this. First, it could be Al Qaeda toying with us once again, just to see how they can make us jump. Second, what kind of credibility does military intelligence and the CIA have left after this, especially since the military had deemed this informant to be reliable? Third, props to Michael Chertoff’s Department of Homeland Security folks and the FBI who never signed on to this from the start. And don’t all of these guys report to John Negroponte, when it comes to intelligence? And if so, what the hell has this major reorganization of our Intel efforts got us if we can still be had by a con man in Iraq?

I guess we should ask Chalabi and "Curveball" that last question.

Update: Interesting. The story has been pulled off CNN's website now.

Update #2: Now CNN, as John says, has it back on their site.