[promethius9594]

1) weapons inspectors: what they say now is irrelevant, what they were saying up to the beginning of the war was that iraq had shown no evidence of dismantling its WMD arsenal. this means that according to UN Intelligence there was WMD there. I suspect that there was, but that it moved in that three days and continued to do so until the end of the war.

2) The website for the homeland defense has all sorts of useful information on terrorism and impending danger. i dont know how specific or regional the information is, but im sure you can find them via a google search.

3) Announcing the plan: Bin Laden did announce he planned to attack america prior to 9/11. thats part of why the commision has gone so awry. The goal of terrorism is to enact political change. Bin Laden is trying to drive a wedge between america and europe through threats. if he makes the world believe he will use a nuke on america, that makes smaller countries like our european allies less likely to support us for fear of nuclear attack on them. in fact, it MIGHT make us bend our policy to meet SOME of his demands to prevent the attack. Thats what terrorism is about: bending the will of people through threat of force. if bin laden didnt threaten with ultimatums, he wouldnt get his objective done.