US made the call to go after terrorists - not the British. -- TIME

[kentuck]

As KO noted on his show, the US picked up the chatter and made the decision to crack down on the plot today. Yeah, they picked up the chatter...
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http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1225453,00.html

<snip>
Exclusive: U.S. picked up the suspects' chatter and shared it with British authorities; new federal alert warns that peroxide-based explosives could also be employed in future attacks in the U.S.

<snip>
Britain's MI-5 intelligence service and Scotland Yard had been tracking the plot for several months, but only in the past two weeks had the plotters' planning begun to crystallize, senior U.S. officials tell TIME. In the two or three days before the arrests, the cell was going operational, and authorities were pressed into action. MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications. Most of the suspects are second or third generation British citizens of Pakistani descent whose families hailed from war-torn Kashmir. U.S. officials believe the 29 members were divided into multiple cells and planned to break into small groups to board the nine planes.

During the past few months the plotters' attack plans had changed, > said Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security Michael Jackson. "There were different data sets about their interests over time that evolved," he said. It was only in recent days, said Jackson, that the plans began to focus on British-U.S. flights. The plot was "very near execution" but not imminent, Jackson said. "We didn't pull people off of airplanes."

So as not to derail the British round-up, Chertoff had to wait until the early hours of Thursday morning after all the London arrests were made before notifying U.S. airports of the threat, say senior DHS officals. When it became clear the arrests would be wrapped up around 1 a.m Washington time, Chertoff got on a conference call with his Homeland Security Advisory Committee to approve changing the threat level. Then calls when out to the airlines, airline security companies and labor unions affected by the changes, as well as to members of Congress.

[ananda]

1. Huh?

I fail to see how the info in this article shows that the USA made the call to go after the terrorists, not the Brits.

anyone?

[kentuck]

3. Perhaps KO and myself were reading between the lines?

But he mentioned that we had picked up the chatter and decided to bust the plot when we did. I guess we had information that the British "infiltrator" did not have??

[C_U_L8R]

2. what was the point of US airports going on alert ??

Mitt Romney made quite a grandstand bringing out
the National Giuard to fight back the heathen invaders.
Is he drunk or just running for president?

[Olney Blue]

4. Running for president for sure. Drunk? Yes, if shrub is his role model.

[qwertyMike]

5. No way

Did you see the press conference this morning?
The USA obviously didn't have a clue.
They would have blown the whole operation with multi-coloured alerts everywhere.

No way Brit. Intellignce would have shared any info with the USA (or Tony Blair, who is on vacation)

US 'Intelligence' can't be trusted.
See 9/11

Brits aren't that stupid

[kentuck]

6. Read the article?

We were not in the dark...

[qwertyMike]

7. If you weren't in the dark

then Bush wouldn't have been in Smallsvile USA this morning.
He'd a-been swaggering around the white house lawn with his dog.

Honestly you Americans are so Americo-centric.

Lieberman? Gimme a break


Time Ragazine ain't the Bible

[jimshoes]

8. If the Brits arrested the supposed perps

before they were able to pull off the deed, why did they go through all the motions of banning liquids and such after the fact? Seems to me they never had to let the perps methods become public knowledge.