WASHINGTON, United States (Reuters):
UNITED STATES President George W. Bush yesterday disclosed new details of a thwarted al-Qaida plot to use shoe bombs to hijack a plane and fly it into a Los Angeles building, as he sought to justify his tactics in Washington's war on terrorism.
With critics questioning the legality of his authorisation of a domestic spying programme, Bush used newly declassified details of a previously disclosed plot to show that the threat of terrorism has not abated.
Bush said that in early 2002 the United States and its allies thwarted a plot to use bombs hidden in shoes to breach the cockpit door of an aeroplane and fly it into the the tallest building in Los Angeles.
LIBRARY TOWER THE TARGET
But he named the wrong building. "We believe the intended target was Liberty Tower in Los Angeles, California," Bush said. White House aides later said he meant Library Tower.
Library Tower is now known as U.S. Bank Tower, but locally it is still mostly called by the former name because of its proximity to the city's central library. At 1,017 feet (310 metres) tall, it is the tallest building in the United States west of the Mississippi River.
