Views from the Top of WTC
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Posted by Mr Bagel at Sunday, September 30, 2007 0 comments
Here is the excerpt released by CBS:
Mr. Pelley: Mr. President, do you intend to press your request to visit the World Trade Center site?
Mr. Ahmadinejad: Well, it was included in my program. If we have the time and the conditions are conducive, I will try to do that.
Mr. Pelley: But the New York Police Department and others do not appear to want you there. Do you intend to go there anyway?
Mr. Ahmadinejad: Well, over there, local officials need to make the necessary coordinations. If they can’t do that, I won’t insist.
Mr. Pelley: Sir, what were you thinking? The World Trade Center site is the most sensitive place in the American heart, and you must have known that visiting there would be insulting to many, many Americans.
Mr. Ahmadinejad: Why should it be insulting?
Mr. Pelley: But the American people, sir, believe that your country is a terrorist nation, exporting terrorism in the world. You must have known that visiting the World Trade Center site would infuriate many Americans.
Mr. Ahmadinejad: Well, I’m amazed. How can you speak for the whole of the American nation?
Mr. Pelley: Well, the American nation–
Mr. Ahmadinejad: You are representing a media and you’re a reporter. The American nation is made up of 300 million people. There are different points of view over there.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said today that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would not be permitted to visit ground zero on Monday, even as questions remained over whether the city had the legal authority or practical ability to prevent Mr. Ahmadinejad from going to the publicly accessible areas around the World Trade Center site.
At a news conference, Mr. Kelly responded to the uproar that emerged after he disclosed on Wednesday that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s aides had discussed the possibility of a visit by the Iranian leader to ground zero.
“Our position is that President Ahmadinejad will not be permitted to go to ground zero,” Mr. Kelly said. “This has been communicated to the Iranian Mission.”
But the city has evidently been defining “ground zero” narrowly, as the World Trade Center site itself, which is not open to the public because of the construction under way. When asked how the Police Department would respond if Mr. Ahmadinejad went to the public areas around ground zero, which are open to tourists and the general public, Mr. Kelly responded: “I don’t want to get into the hypothetical situations, you know. That’s our position. We’ve communicated that position.”
The police commissioner said that a visit to ground zero by Mr. Ahmadinejad would “adversely impact” public safety.
“We are concerned about President Ahmadinejad’s safety and the safety of others who may be attracted down there, maybe issues that arise from his visit, that would cause significant public safety concerns,” he said, adding that the police had not received any specific threat directed at Mr. Ahmadinejad.
As the head of his country’s delegation to the United Nations, Mr. Ahmadinejad would ordinarily have the right to move fairly freely within Manhattan. The United States broke off relations with Iran in 1980 during the hostage crisis, and Iranian diplomats at the United Nations are permitted under diplomatic protocols to travel within 25 miles of Columbus Circle. Lower Manhattan is less than 5 miles from Midtown.
Mr. Kelly seemed to acknowledge the sensitivity and strong emotions associated with the situation, at one point referring to his department’s decision as a “direction” and at another point as a “recommendation.” He said he believed the Iranians would comply with his department’s wishes. “We’ve given that information to the Iranian mission and we believe they’re
going to adhere to that recommendation,” he said.
Even leaving aside the issue of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s movements, the police have been bracing for the United Nations General Assembly meeting next week. Streets around the world body’s headquarters complex on the East Side of Manhattan will be closed, including parts of First Avenue and 44th Street. The city is also preparing for a concentration of protests at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza.
“New Yorkers have seen this before,” Mr. Kelly said. “That is what happens as a result of the U.N. General Assembly coming here every year.Posted by Mr Bagel at Friday, September 21, 2007 0 comments
Author and insider Emily Benedek was recently approached by a former top official in the Israeli Defense Forces asking if she would be interested in documenting specific insider secrets regarding the perilous state of international security. After Benedek agreed to several closed-door meetings, she concluded that there was no way
to reveal the sensitive information imparted to her in a work of nonfiction;
her source, still active in the security world, had to maintain anonymity.
Benedek’s confidential meetings dealing with the frightening holes in our
national security infrastructure were the genesis of her timely and
thrilling new novel RED SEA.
Emily Benedek’s writing has appeared in Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. She spent a year following an FBI special agent and SWAT team operator and wrote about an American F15-C fighter pilot who flew in Operation Shock and Awe. Red Sea is her first novel.
Four airliners are blown out of the sky---a devastating string of attacks taking hundreds of lives and striking fear into people and governments around the globe. Marie Peterssen, an ambitious young aviation reporter, has a hunch about the crashes, and her suspicions are confirmed when she’s approached by Julian Granot, an Israeli airline security expert and former Special Forces commando who has noticed her work.Julian offers Marie a rare lead, one that will send her to London and later into the devastation of war-torn Iraq. With the help of a maverick FBI agent, Morgan Ensley, Marie stumbles onto the makings of a terrorist plot well beyond the destruction of airliners: the detonation of a rogue nuclear device in New York Harbor. The terrorists know that America’s most vulnerable spot is its transportation system, and they mean to exploit it. Time is short.
But Marie is in the grip of circumstances beyond her control. Julian’s intentions are unclear: Is he helping a journalist uncover answers the world craves, or is he setting up the girl to flush out an Islamic terrorist who killed Julian’s partner twenty years earlier?
Julian holds the key, but Marie’s role in the frantic race to unravel the plot grows when she learns that she may be tied to the terrorist leader in a more personal way.
Posted by Mr Bagel at Tuesday, September 18, 2007 0 comments
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