Can Biden be trusted with Classified information?

**5711-Marine** · November 1st, 2008, 04:31 PM

This is troubling if it is accurate. One must wonder where that bizarre warning came from in the midst of the campaign...

Barack Obama warned that terror attacks could soon test mettle
Barack Obama has been warned by intelligence officials that terrorists will attack US targets or a friendly state such as Britain or Israel to test his mettle if elected.

By Philip Sherwell in New York and Tim Shipman in Chicago
Last Updated: 7:33PM GMT 01 Nov 2008

The briefings given to the Obama campaign about possible attacks were based on specific intelligence picked up monitoring terrorist networks and informers, according to a senior military source aware of the contents of the reports.

Indeed, when Mr Obama's running mate Joe Biden raised the prospect of such an attack during what he believed was a private fundraising dinner, he is thought to have let slip the conclusions of those highly-classified briefings.

Fred Burton, a former senior US counter-terrorism agent, separately told The Sunday Telegraph that Britain could be targeted by al-Qaeda if the organisation was unable to mount an attack on US soil early in the new administration - as they did soon after the election of George W Bush in 2001 and Bill Clinton in 1993.

"It is unlikely that al Qaeda would have the capability to conduct such an operation in the US now, but the UK is a different story," said Mr Burton, head of counter-terrorism at Stratfor, a leading international intelligence and analysis company.

"MI5 and Scotland Yard are going to have their hands full as there is a much greater probability of a major attack in Britain than America. Would it suffice for al-Qaeda to attack a close friendly nation instead of the US? Almost certainly yes."

The world's jittery financial community, already rocked by the recent banking meltdown and economic slump, is meanwhile factoring in the risk of assassination of America's first black president as one of the greatest international crises that could threaten markets.

Mr Obama requested and received a Secret Service security detail long before he had won the Democratic nomination, the earliest that a candidate with no previous experience in government has been granted official protection.

On Saturday, his home in the Hyde Park area of Chicago was surrounded by police manning concrete blocks designed to prevent vehicle-born suicide bomb attacks.

Domestically, it is feared that Mr Obama could be targeted by white racists. But political risk consultancies have also warned clients that attempting to kill a politician viewed optimistically in much of the world as a change from the George W Bush era would appeal to the nihilistic agenda of Islamic radicals.

The US intelligence briefings to the Obama campaign have focused on international threats rather than his personal safety. They cover three main dangers: major strikes against US allies - Israel would be the likely top target - that might lead to a dangerous world crisis; attacks on US forces or targets such as embassies; co-operation between unnamed enemy states and terrorist groups to mount the attacks.

Mr Biden embarrassed his own campaign when an audio tape of his comments to the fundraiser in Seattle were made public. John McCain has regularly referred to the remarks to bolster his argument that Americans should elect him president rather than his inexperienced rival.

"Mark my words," Mr Biden said. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate."

The military source told The Sunday Telegraph: "Biden had received those briefings and dropped a real clanger when he revealed the conclusions."

The Sunday Telegraph reported in September that US Special Forces in Afghanistan were intensifying their cross-border raids into Pakistan because they feared a major al-Qaeda outrage before the election or to test the next president. The Pentagon also ordered increased missile attacks from Predator drones on suspected terrorists to disrupt such plots.

Mr Burton said intelligence agencies for America's closest Western and Middle Eastern allies - most notably Britain, Canada, Australia, Israel and Jordan - have been asked by Washington to maintain heightened alert for plots connected with the inauguration of the next president on Jan 20.

Terror attacks were staged in America during the first year of the last two presidents. In 1993, a truck bomb was exploded at New York's World Trade Centre a month after Bill Clinton took office, while the atrocities of Sept 11, 2001 were committed in the year George W Bush took office.

**Morel42** · November 1st, 2008, 05:36 PM

Originally Posted by 5711-Marine

This is troubling if it is accurate. One must wonder where that bizarre warning came from in the midst of the campaign...

Regardless of how you feel about him in General, the possibility of the USA having a popular, diplomatic, and eloquent president has to scare the living crap out of some organizations that rely on hatred of the US to swell their ranks.

Not to mention that the cracks that have appeared in NATO in the recent years that Russia has been able to taken advantage of..