Is An Apology Forthcoming?

I doubt it. What would an apology from those who claimed that the Bush Administration was hyping some ancient threats against the Prudential Building in Newark, New Jersey, the Citicorp Center and New York Stock Exchange in New York City, or the World Bank and IMF buildings in Washington, DC right before the election for political gain actually mean?

Absolutely nothing. They've moved on to their next attack. The New York Times claimed the information used in the heightened alert was years old and openly available, so that it wasn't worth increasing the alert levels. It should be remembered that the information came from a captured computer in possession of a Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was captured in Pakistan. The Times claimed that this material was not sufficient to warrant an increase in the alert level at the buildings warned of a possible attack plan.

Meanwhile, there was always solid information about those threats, as indicated in unsealed indictments against three men who were casing those sites for intel and potential bombing.

The indictment includes information about what kind of information they sought, what they may have already obtained, and suggests that the terrorists had been planning an attack on those sites for years. It was only in August 2004 that the plot was uncovered in England, where the three men, and five others, were arrested.

The three men, Dhiran Barot, Nadeem Tarmohammed, and Qaisar Shaffi, are awaiting extradition to the US. There will be a fight on this as the UK frowns on the fact that the US still has the death penalty and would not extradite to a country who might put the individuals to death for their crimes.

Of the three, "...officials claim that Barot is a senior al Qaeda figure, known variously as Abu Eisa al-Hindi, Abu Musa al-Hindi and Issa al-Britani, who scouted prominent U.S. financial targets at the behest of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden."

More information about the capture of al-Hindi and his co-conspirators from 2004. They had looked into using helicopters and limos to attack the targets.