A Message in an Arrest
The arrest of the man, Jose Padilla, raised the possibility that some dispersed and hidden terrorist command is still actively trying to strike the United States, and that it was focused as recently as last month on some of the most fear-inspiring weapons, like radiological bombs — literally, bundles of dynamite or other explosives strapped to containers of radioactive material.

For the president, the drama of the dirty-bomb threat and its successful interdiction also sent a clear warning to those Congressional leaders who are preparing to focus a long political season on how the nation's intelligence-gathering system broke down during Mr. Bush's watch.

It seems all but certain that the inevitable collision of war and politics will be at the forefront in Washington for some time. Since Congress began its inquiry into intelligence lapses, the White House has pursued a more muscular strategy to demonstrate it is moving aggressively to deal with the continuing threats.

There was Mr. Bush's abrupt decision last week to create a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security, an idea he had previously resisted. And there were White House leaks showcasing new investigative leads and new connections between the terrorists who plotted the unsuccessful 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and those who finished the job so ruthlessly last September.

The president's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said no political considerations were involved in timing today's announcement of the dirty bomb plot. But to underscore its importance, the disclosure by Attorney General John Ashcroft was broadcast from Moscow, where he was visiting on unrelated business.

Politics aside, today marked the latest — and perhaps most frightening — episode in a sequence of terrorist acts or threats.

First, there was the alleged Dec. 22 attempt by a suspect, Richard C. Reid, to detonate explosives loaded into the soles of his shoes while flying on a commercial flight from Paris to Miami. On April 11, a truck bomb in Tunisia killed 19 people — 14 of them German tourists — in an attack that French and German intelligence officials believe was directed by Al Qaeda. Then, on May 8, a bomb in Karachi, Pakistan, killed 11 French naval engineers, a blast also believed to be the work of Al Qaeda.

James R. Schlesinger, the former secretary of defense who also served as director of central intelligence during the Nixon administration, said the prospect that Mr. Padilla was likely to build a dirty bomb was "not realistic."

"He would have to be a lot smarter than the average Al Qaeda member to build a radiological weapon," Mr. Schlesinger said.

Even so, Mr. Schlesinger considered the administration's effort to billboard its success to be proper. Not only would it disarm critics, he noted, but, more important, it could deter future bombers.

In a season of security jitters, where the failure to apprehend Osama bin Laden now competes with new concerns about nuclear war between India and Pakistan, Mr. Schlesinger said the administration was "quite right" to sound the alarm.

Yet there was little escape from the sense that a daunting array of threats remain.

"This is going to be around for a long time," Mr. Schlesinger said. "It is not like Grenada."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/11/national/11ASSE.html