How confident are you in your prediction about Iran? The United States is sending Patriot missles and groups of aircraft carriers to the Gulf, attacked the Iranian consulate in Iraq -enough to cause an international incident in itself - abducted their people and took their property. Bush makes threats to the Iranians and Syrians out of the blue in his "way forward" speech and has been blaming them for arming the militias, even though the military has said it's seen little evidence of that. We and Israel are practicing bombing runs over Iran. It's obvious to the whole world that the US is trying to provoke a reaction from them. The Administration won't go to Congress before responding. Snow and Rice made that clear in their non-answers to that question today. The Joint Chiefs are against an attack, and, except for the air force, so are the military chiefs. Some have threatened to resign but they'll probably accept the inevitable as they have in Iraq. They've refused so far to go along with the Administration's desire to use a tactical nuclear weapon. All the plans have been made and are ready to go. I had hoped that Sy Hersh and Scott Ritter were wrong, too. Who could possibly predict the consequences of an attack on Iran? The same neocons who promoted the Iraq fiasco are ,I'm sure, predicting the same outcome - Iranian citizens cheering us and welcoming us with flowers.

(2007 USA) = (1937 Germany)

I pretty much agree with you Arkin. I see little change in our foreign policy as long as Bush remains in office because all decisionmaking revolves around his own personal narcissism. And a good part of that narcissism is explained in Joe Biden's comments yesterday.

Bush, Cheney and others in that cynical circle of advisors and staff know that the war is already lost. They know it was a stupendous error. They know now that the only possible salvation for them is to devise a strategy that guarantees the predictable disaster that is to come happens when Bush is safely out of office and all can be blamed on the next President--preferably a democrat in their eyes.

Only in that way can Bush's army of propagandizing sycophants on talk radio and in certain selective outlests in the mainstream media begin the inevitable historical rewrite of this era and the rehabilitation of George W. Bush with the concomitant demonizing of the future President who will be stuck cleaning up after Bush.

One only has to look at how Ronald Reagan gets 100% of the credit for the fall of the Soviet Union, ignoring the contributions of previous Presidents, the Pope, Margaret Thatcher and most importantly of the rebellious leaders in the Soviet sattelites who brought on movments like Solidarity. The right in this country never really makes any history. But they are very good at reinventing it.

Isuspect that they will have their own "alternate" view of the history of this era just as they put out their alternate versions of the news.

Arkin's predictions seem reasonable to me, with the possible exception of the assassination scenario. The capacity to successfully perform that operation is not apparent.

Mr Arkin-Why not stories on Michael Chertoff's incompetence as New Orleans rots and FEMA giving money away to imposters galore to the tune of at least one billion dollars. Mobile homes rotting on a lot unused costing hundreds of millions in no bid contracts. Get on your walking shoes and hit the road for the Gulf Coast and see for yourself.

It is too bad that Sen Joseph Biden is all talk and no action. Hearings galore will proceed from his mouth with no fruit. A barren tree devoid of substance and he wants to be President along with most of his incompetent colleagues. US devoid of competent leaders so the druggie alcoholic captain of the team took the ball and is still running with it. Someone please,tackle him before he runs over the cliff.

Zathras is an ass.

pegm does not know how to read.

PJ Casey is a retard.

che is a loon

The Rev is a fruit

It really is time that Arkin and Post editors policed this board. Just look at all the off-topic and spam posts here. What a mess.

I prefer analysis to predictions -- one doesn't prove anything by guessing right -- and along that line observe that for Congress to perform effective oversight the relevant committees will have to be quickly staffed with able and experienced people. Representatives and Senators can direct oversight and interpret its results to the public, but the actual work of determining what questions to ask and when they have been adequately answered is mostly done by staff.

Some committees -- Senate Armed Services, for example -- may be better equipped to begin effective oversight than others. The intelligence committees in House and Senate, in particular, appear to be weak links in the chain of oversight, and it will be interesting to see whether either or both attempt to make up some ground by recruiting disgruntled former intelligence officials to assist them.

Arkan,

You need to take a closer look at Afghanistan and what is happening (and not happening) there. That fight is so seriously under resourced that it cannot succeed in the long run, and we CANNOT afford to fail there and retreat. We have some real challenges in Afghanistan, but also some advantages that we dont have in Iraq. We can leave Afghanistan a better place, but its all going to fail if we dont put more people into preparing the Afghan govt., army and police.

Also, a good look at senior military leadership is in order. There is real awareness at the O-6 and below ranks of the mess we've made in Iraq, its our General officers who have failed us. Where is a Marshall or Pershing when you need one? Someone to take a hard stand and push the right and not politically desired course of action.

COOP

"Fools rush in where angels dare," should more than serve as the warning on Iraq. I mean, an expert in the historical, tribal, political, ethnic, religious, and other dynamic relationships would have trouble negotiating anything with Iraq...much less a new fangled democracy imposed from above!

Just the fact that religious leaders in Iraq can command armed militias should give anybody more than enough to pause and reconsider. Heck, just the fact of all the competing - and armed-to-the-teeth - interests in Iraq should make anybody think!

The Iraq people themselves have had generations of trouble dealing with all the dynamics...what in the world ever made Bush and Company think Iraq was ready for a clean sweep?

Arkin,

My turn:
I think you're giving the new Congress little impact. I predict the Congressional investigations will start quickly, begin uncovering embarassing deeds of this administration and Bush/Cheney will go into damage control and criminal coverup. I expect indictments by the end of the year for low, then high level administration officials. I expect Cheney to resign for "health" issues and Bush will pick Jim Baker to succeed him, not because he is right for the job but because Bush likes to give such positions to his friends as rewards, and he knows Baker would pardon him if needed.

As for Iraq, you give Sadr way too much influence and Iran too little. I predict a smoking gun will be uncovered pointing to Iran placing its fighters and military personnel inside Iraq not only to fight Americans but kill Sunnis in the sectarian violence which we consider an Iraqi only struggle. The US will call it an act of war. Expect the UN to quickly sanction Iran for its actions, the US to capture and kill some of these Iranians and the US/Iran tension to get very hot before Iran backs down. The Sunnis will exploit the opening and begin to gain powers in the government as complicit Shiite Iraqi government officials are removed for their association with Iran. This will either lead to peace or more violence, or more of the same, but the Shiites will have lost some power and Iran will have effectively been kicked out of Iraq. Sadr will continue, alive and well, to play a role though no greater than he currently does but his organization will begin to crumble as a post-Maliki government becomes stronger in future years.

Gates will lead the Pentagon with a lot of independence as Bush is despirate for any good news and is hunkered down by congressional investigations. Bush has already signaled that he will work against this congress which I believe will take the gloves off. A president who feels he can willfully break the law and open your mail is bound to get slapped hard by congress and republicans are not likely to rush to his side. Bush intends to go down with his neocon ship and his associates will be jumping (and talking). Gates, in this environment will ignore the meddling of Cheney and begin proper and timely reforms of the Pentagon and deployments in Iraq. Expect the casulty rate to drop as Americans are pulled off the streets to get them out of the way of the civil violence. The "surge" will not happen. As Americans become less involved in the fighting Iraqis who really care about their country's future will begin to step forward. 2007 will be the turning point for Iraq with Iran's influence thwarted, Sunnis gaining an acceptable level of power and Americans staying more in their barracks than standing on the streets like ducks in a shooting gallary. We will look back at 2007 as a turning point and Bush will take all the credit and begin bringing them home in 2008.

Mr. Arkin,

Are you saying that the United States will have Moqtada al-Sadr assassinated, or what? Your way of putting it was a little too coy.

Hal

America is the engine that drives the world, some say....

Although spoken in terms of the world-wide economy, the phrase applies to more than just commerce and trade; there is even more at stake than just mammon.

If world conditions are to change at all in 2007, then America will have to change first. If America is to change at all, its people must change and in turn force America's leaders to change and to become responsive to the wishes of 'the altered people'.

Your realistic assessments of the likelihood of change, although pessimistic, are right on from where I stand. What we need in America is a healthy dose of realism. Our nation is still awash with pseudo-patriotic apologists, who in spite of their good but naive intentions help to keep this country in stasis.

And all that does is to prevent this country and its leaders from making a realistic assessment of America, in order to be cured by admitting to the negative influences that America has on the world, and doing something to change it. Why? Because the world, many of the nations that you mentioned, are also 'reacting' to American misbehavior.

Some dyed-in the wool American apologists will only speak of the purported good that America does (never without cost); while ignoring the negative impacts that the 'engine' is having and has had on the rest of the world. Most of the world derides American comity, particularly when America and some Americans will say that all that America has in mind is doing what is best for you (not to mention look at all of the good that we have done for the world, while overlooking all of the bad)!

I have been bemused myself by some of what I have read and heard by some Americans. The fact is that nothing changes because some Americans have become proponents for partial truth, the same can never tell the whole truth. The group of Americans who joined the realistic Americans lately, who say stop the war did not experience a change of heart for any altruistic reasons. Some based their change of mind on practical reasons, and others because they felt that the war in Iraq has had a negative impact on their pocketbooks!

America expects the rest of the world to change but to at the same time remain the same, just as America is doing in one strategic area. In other 'row' improve, but remain in lock-step and submit to the desultory mandates of the United States of the World, every nation even the United Nations.

But the world is conveying another message to the U.S.A., the world-wide protagonists. The world is saying that we are dynamic as well, and we will not be contained and live our lives according to the mandates of the United States of America just because you have bigger guns.

Folks, if we believed in autonomy and freedom as some purport (something that has never been fully practiced in the USA), then we would, if anything, help each nation to find its own way, and we would respect their choices. Instead the term 'democracy', and the intentions of the U.S.A. to spread democracy, is nothing more than the employing of a euphemism, in order to hide American totalitarian practices.

In other words, aside from the euphemism, America, has decided that its way is right and is simply still trying to force its designs on the world while maintaining its place at the top of the world order!

I know, you disagree. And you will all argue that America stopped Hitler and the III Reich. I will remind that America was the last to join the fight, and I am sure that it was last to join the fight, because America was doing much of the same itself, as Hitler was doing, discriminating against its own citizens, and spreading its expansionist ideals.

We never did that you say? Ask the Native Americans, blacks, the natives of Hawaii, peoples of the Americas`...shall I go on?

America, THE WORLD WILL NO LONGER BE CONTAINED BY US!

My prediction is that these predictions aren't worth the electrons it took to transmit them ;->

Mr Arkin--Your last sentence seems to make no sense grammatically, and I'm not quite sure what you meant to say. Typing error perhaps?

The world is a mess. One prediction you didn't mention was that Jesus could return - thats waht I'm hoping for...

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http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/485561p-408789c.html

W pushes envelope on U.S. spying
New postal law lets Bush peek through your mail

Daily News Exclusive

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

President Bush added a "signing statement" in recently passed postal reform bill that may give him new powers to pry into your mail - without a warrant.
WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.

"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.

Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.

"The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.

"The danger is they're reading Americans' mail," she said.

"You have to be concerned," agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."

A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised, "It's something we're going to look into."

Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.

Yet in his statement Bush said he will "construe" an exception, "which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent ... with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."

Bush cited as examples the need to "protect human life and safety against hazardous materials and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection."

White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore denied Bush was claiming any new authority.

"In certain circumstances - such as with the proverbial 'ticking bomb' - the Constitution does not require warrants for reasonable searches," she said.

Bush, however, cited "exigent circumstances" which could refer to an imminent danger or a longstanding state of emergency.

Critics point out the administration could quickly get a warrant from a criminal court or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to search targeted mail, and the Postal Service could block delivery in the meantime.

But the Bush White House appears to be taking no chances on a judge saying no while a terror attack is looming, national security experts agreed.

Martin said that Bush is "using the same legal reasoning to justify warrantless opening of domestic mail" as he did with warrantless eavesdropping.

To get our people out of Iraq, we would have to impeach Bush and Cheney. I saw on CNN that the American Enterprise Institute is pushing the "surge" as policy. These are the people who gave the Netanyahu government the "Clean Break" policy in 96, that became the "Axis of Evil" for the Bush Administration. The Neoconservatives still reign in the Bush Administration.
I don't see al-Sadr as a central figure for Iranian influence in Iraq. He is too impulsive, emotional, and needs a course in anger management in order to survive in politics or war. I don't think Iran would concentrate on one organization in Iraq.
I don't trust the intelligence that gives Iran credit for training insurgents. The Iraqis are perfectly capable of directing their own military operations. Iraq is awash in weapons, munitions, and money to support insurgent activities. This sounds like an update on the "WMD" nonsense that got us into Iraq.
I only wish the Democrats had enough guts and patriotism to impeach these idiots. People are going to die because of their incompetence.

All of this is to say that the new Democratic Congress and the political process will do nothing to force a different outcome or a timetable for withdrawal (see more below).

Yes Mr. Arkin, but they should.

The war was based upon a fraudulent contract enacted by the present Administration, and sold to the American people.

Congress should understand that fraud negates a contract. Congress should stop any further funding of the war, and if anything sit aside funds to begin the future rebuilding of Iraq.

Congress could also designate funds to go to a legitimate group of people that will go in and repairn the America mess in Iraq. Any new funding should be spent, only after being presented with a new plan to build Iraq.

And in the future Congress should not give the President authority to enter into any future excursions without full disclosure!

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http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1599.shtml

Missing votes in Ohio call races into question

By Bob Fitrakis

While Democratic Party supporters celebrate their success in Ohio, where their statewide candidates won four out of five executive offices and they now control both the U.S. House and Senate, they are ignoring massive and verifiable irregularities in the 2006 election. Similar irregularities -- including missing votes, undervotes and overvotes -- may come back to haunt the Democrats in the 2008 general election.

The only statewide partisan loss for the Democrats was also the closest contest. Republican Mary Taylor defeated Democrat Barbara Sykes for State Auditor by an official vote of 50.64 percent to 49.36 percent. Taylor prevailed by 48,826 votes. The Columbus Dispatch's final poll, usually the most accurate in the state for candidate races, predicted Sykes would win by 10 percent.

An analysis by the Free Press documents massive discrepancies between the unofficial turnout reported by Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell immediately following the election and the official general election turnout numbers reported in December 2006. These discrepancies may help explain Sykes' unexpected loss.

In Cuyahoga County, which contains the Democratic stronghold of Cleveland, immediately following the election 562,498 votes were reported cast with 30,791 listed as absentee or provisional ballots. The official results show 468,056 counted in Cuyahoga. This means that 94,442 ballots cast in the unofficial total disappeared in the official tallies. This represents a shocking 16.8 percent of all the votes cast in Cuyahoga.

Sykes won 62 percent of the vote in Cuyahoga County.

Cuyahoga County uses the controversial Diebold touchscreen voting machines. These machines suffered a notorious meltdown in the 2006 primary where many machines malfunctioned and an Election Science Institute (ESI) report documented significant differences between votes actually cast on the machines as opposed to counted.

Similarly in Lucas County, another Democratic stronghold, 17,351 votes disappeared (10.6 percent of the total vote) between the unofficial and official turnout numbers. An analysis by Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips indicates that Taylor, a first-time statewide office seeker, ran significantly ahead of Republican incumbent candidates Mike Dewine and Betty Montgomery, in the Senate and attorney general races respectively.

Other counties with significant and unexplained loss of votes include: Auglaize (15.7 percent), Coshocton (14.1 percent), Jackson (11.3 percent), Licking (14.1 percent), Morrow (17.4 percent), and Tuscarawas (11.7 percent). In these less populated counties, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland won in five out of six and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod won in four out of the six.

Normally, the official total vote tally increases as provisional ballots are added to the unofficial total. For example, Franklin County had 342,958 votes unofficially with 46,458 provisionals and a few late overseas absentee ballots. The official Franklin County result was 385,863 votes cast, a pickup of 42,905 ballots once the provisionals were counted. Eleven of Ohio's 88 counties reported this anomaly of fewer votes in the official total than the unofficial total.

Other election anomalies that bear further investigation are six counties with improbable undervote percentages in the U.S. Senate race. On average in Ohio, 3.9 percent of the ballots contained an "undervote," meaning no vote was cast in the Senate race. But, in the Senate race there were significant undervote totals: Adams County had 14.1 percent; Darke County had 13.5 percent; Highland had 13.8 percent; Mercer had 11.2 percent; Montgomery had 13.8 percent; and Perry had 16.3 percent. The city of Dayton is in Montgomery County where more than 30,000 ballots recorded no vote for Senate, Brown won 53 percent of the vote in Montgomery County.

In comparison with the undervote in the well-known District 13 race in Sarasota, Florida, the undervote was 18,382.

In the Sykes race, the undervote for auditor in Cuyahoga County was 10.7 percent. Undervotes were 8.3 percent of the total vote in Lucas County. Skyes' undervote total in these Democratic havens should have been examined along with the bizarre unofficial vs. official vote totals in these counties.

The state auditor's office in Ohio has enormous power to investigate and root out official corruption involving public funds. Many critics of Republican Party scandals in Ohio have pointed to the GOP's control of the state auditor's office as the key to delaying and minimizing public scrutiny.

Franklin County and the Squire challenge

Although the election numbers are stranger in Cuyahoga and Lucas counties for the Democrats, an election contest complaint filed in the Franklin County Court of Appeals by Judge Carol Squire documents in great detail the problem with electronic voting machines based on the results of her 2006 race. Incumbent Squire filed the action on December 22 after losing by 13,064 votes to Chris Geer for a seat on the County Court of Common Pleas.

The action seeks to "declare invalid and set aside" Squire's loss. The complaint requests a full evidentiary hearing.

Squire hired Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, president and chief technical officer of Notable Software, Inc. as an expert witness and investigator. The former Bryn Mawr computer science professor holds a Ph.D. in computer and informational science from the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Mercuri's sworn affidavit contains detailed criticisms of the Franklin County Board of Elections (BOE) and its conduct of the 2006 election. Her sworn statements include the following:

* Thirty-five precincts were unable to close "due to problems with printers, machine malfunctions, infrared readers, PEBs [personal electronic ballots]. . . ." Squire paid for a recount of these 35 precincts but the BOE used the real time audit log (RTAL) paper tapes to recount only two of the 35 precincts. The RTALs are the only way to accurately assess how people really voted on the Election Day.

* In the BOE warehouse "hundreds of RTAL paper rolls were sitting out on various tables . . . It had been my understanding that sealed containers holding the rolls would be open only in the presence of observers, but this apparently had already been done, and the rolls extracted, prior to the observers' arrival."

* "Many of the rolls" lacked "tamper-proof" tape, which seals the RTALs at the end of Election Day in case of a recount. Instead, they had stickers which could be easily tampered with.

* "Some of the [RTAL] rolls did not have a sticker" leaving them open for tampering or accidental destruction.

* " . . . Others [RTALs] had a sticker with handwritten initials on it" indicating that the roll "was replaced by a service person during the Election Day." This raises questions concerning chain of custody of the rolls, the functionality of the machines, and identity and background of the technicians who initialed the stickers.

* " . . . A considerable number of the rolls were incomplete, possibly because the paper roll had run out or been changed, although for some, it was evident that the end of the paper roll had been damaged or ripped."

* " . . . between five and ten percent of the machines had either not printed an end tally," or "it was missing."

* In one case, when Mercuri requested the information at the beginning of the RTAL roll be read aloud during the recount, the phrases "password override" and "PEB failure" were read from the audit log. Mercuri concludes that " . . . this might have indicated a pre-election breach of security or protocol for that equipment."

* "It was observed that some of the equipment problem report pages had been previously removed from the pollbooks."

* "The warehouse facility appeared to be shared by other agencies,
as there was a large SWAT team truck behind some of the rows of voting machines. . . ."

Mercuri's 16-page affidavit concludes that Squire was denied "an appropriate recount" from a voter-verified paper trail using the RTAL rolls and also points out that the "voting system was inappropriately configured and improperly used during the election." The Franklin County BOE used different versions of hardware that were not certified prior to the election.

"The use of mismatched components violates certification requirements and also runs the risk of exposure to programming errors (bugs) or security vulnerabilities that could compromise the integrity of the election and result in the loss or mistabulation of votes," Mercuri states.

In late November the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), one of the federal government's premier research centers, condemned electronic voting machines noting that as presently configured, they "cannot be made secure."

In an audit of 25 percent of Franklin County's precinct pollbooks and signature books, Squire's elections investigator Rady Ananda found massive problems with over reporting of votes. Only 29 out of 216 precincts matched the number of signatures to the number of votes cast. Eight precincts reported more than 100 more votes cast than signatures in the pollbooks.

A similar problem of fewer votes being recorded than voter signatures also occurred with one precinct having 100 fewer votes on the machine than signatures. In all, 136 precincts fell into this category. Columbus Ward 66 Precinct G was missing 123 votes. An audit of Miami County by a Free Press investigation team following the 2004 presidential election found a similar problem of optiscan precinct totals not matching signature books. In the spring 2006 primary election, the ESI audit of Cuyahoga County found similar problems.

Cuyahoga's problems reappeared in the 2006 general election. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that, "Nearly 12,000 people in Cuyahoga County cast votes illegally on Election Day without signing the election books, or likely, showing identification as required by a new state law."

"An analysis showed that 533 of the 570 Cuyhoga County voting precincts reported more votes than voters signed in." The Plain Dealer found that: "With some polling places, the numbers were off by more than 100."

Beverly Campbell, a 2006 Democratic candidate for the Ohio Statehouse, lost by 368 votes in Franklin County. She told the Columbus Dispatch that "her campaign has questions similar to Squire's about vote and signature totals." In a meeting with the Free Press, she supplied a worksheet from her own investigation of 98 precincts where there were problems in 88 of them, either with more votes cast than signatures or more signatures than votes cast. In all, she found 483 more votes than signatures and 300 missing votes.

Squire's complaint also asserts that "over 2,500 provisional ballots were discarded with no opportunity for observers to obtain the basis or justification for rejection."

The voting irregularities in the 2006 election appear to be greater than in 2004, but many Ohio Democrats have chosen to ignore that reality. But one who hasn't taken that position is newly-elected Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, who has pledged a complete review of the electronic voting machines. The facts remain that not every vote is counted or accounted for in the Buckeye State and this could be the key factor in deciding the next president of the United States.
Bob Fitrakis is the co-author of "What Happened in Ohio: A documentary record of theft and fraud in the 2004 election" published by the New Press.

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http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

anuary 3, 2007 -- No sooner had WMR reported yesterday on the mob-connected activities of Rudolph Giuliani in connection with New York mobster Gideon Chern, among other dubious players, the New York Daily News obtained a 140-page confidential dossier on the pitfalls foreseen by the Giuliani camp in the 2008 presidential campaign. In the dossier, prepared in October last year, Giuliani contends that his campaign would have to deal with the following issues:

His association with disgraced former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik, the breakup with ex-wife Donna Hanover and his marriage to Judith Nathan, and his business interests and views on "social issues."

It is Giuliani's business interests with companies that clearly profited from the 9/11 attacks that should have him the most worried.