‘You’re Too Late To Stop Us,’ Plotters Told U.S. Authorities

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The New York Sun

Mayor Bloomberg yesterday downplayed reports that a recent threat against the subway system was a hoax, saying a suspect in the plot told American authorities upon his capture last week, “You’re too late to stop us.”


The mayor’s comments followed news reports yesterday that an informant had admitted to investigators that he had misled authorities about a threat to New York. Mr. Bloomberg defended his administration’s response to what he called a specific and credible threat.


“What I do know is that we can’t wait until a threat materializes to act,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters in Harlem yesterday. “We have to protect this city, and you can’t just sit around with your fingers crossed. You have to make decisions and show leadership, and so that’s exactly what we have done.”


Mr. Bloomberg ordered heightened security throughout the city’s transit system last week based on intelligence out of Iraq that terrorists planned an attack on the subway, most likely either Friday or Sunday.


The police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, disputed reports that the threat was a hoax, saying the informant in question was not in custody. He said there was no disagreement between local and federal officials about announcing the threat last week. Still, Mr. Kelly said intelligence communications between New York and Washington need to improve.


“I think it’s an area of concern, and I hope the intelligence community in Washington makes note of this, and I think there are some congressional committees that are looking at this as well,” Mr. Kelly said. “We need a more coherent, streamlined means of getting information to local authorities.”


In explaining the decision to alert the public last Thursday, the mayor described what happened after an informant initially told authorities that three people were coming to America to attack the subway system.


“The person that made that allegation passed his lie detector test,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “And then an operation was mounted in Iraq to grab the other three. As they grabbed them, one of them screamed, ‘You’re too late to stop us.'”


Two of the three people captured in Iraq denied a terror plot, Mr. Bloomberg said, and they also passed lie detector tests.


“If given the same situation, we would do exactly the same thing,” he said.


Mr. Bloomberg’s latest remarks came a day after his Democratic challenger, Fernando Ferrer, called for the mayor to explain fully what led him to act the way he did in response to the threat.


“I’m not sure why anybody wants to politicize this,” Mr. Bloomberg said, when asked about Mr. Ferrer’s statement. “The implication that Ray Kelly or I would try to scare people for some sort of petty political game is pretty cynical, and I’m not sure what the FBI’s motivation would be under that theory anyway.”


A spokesman for the Ferrer campaign, Christy Setzer, said Mr. Ferrer did not think the mayor’s actions were politically motivated and had never suggested they were.


A group that has endorsed Mr. Ferrer, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, gathered in front of City Hall yesterday to call for an explanation of the mayor’s timing in making the announcement on Thursday.


Ms. Setzer said Mr. Ferrer believes every threat should be taken seriously. “It’s more critical than ever that we make the transit system more secure,” she said, citing the nominee’s various proposals to do so.


The New York Sun

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