TERROR IN LAX

The FBI's response to Thursday's terror attack on the El Al ticket counter in LAX has led to some of the least credible statements uttered by public officials in the past year. An Egyptian national, armed with two guns and a knife, storms into the ticket counter of the Israeli national airline aiming to kill as many people as possible - and the FBI has the chutzpah to tell us that 1) there was no indication that it was an act of terror; and 2) the attacker's motive was unclear. There are only two possible reasons why the FBI would try to foist such nonsense on the public - either they 1) spectactularly incompetent or 2) purposely sending out confusing signals to downplay the incident. It's quite obvious that the answer is the second. First and foremost, the FBI was seeking to prevent a mass panic that might have resulted had headlines blared "Terror on the 4th." Secondly, however, the Bush Administration is playing semantics with the definition of "terror attack" to avoid the blunt reality that however small, the U.S. has suffered its first post 9/11 attack. The problem with this approach is that it will eventually chip away at the credibility of the FBI in particular and the Bush Administration in general. At this very moment there are other Hadayets, plotting to commit attacks of a far greater scale on targets in this country. The most important question for the Bush Administration to answer is, therefore - are we any closer to finding these people than we were nine months ago? And if not - why not? Semantics can only go so far to eliminate terror on American soil.