The passengers were taken by bus to a terminal, where Transportation Safety Administration agents searched luggage and personal belongings by hand before allowing passengers to leave, the spokesman said.

Amanda Tobin Bielawski, a spokeswoman for Alaska Airlines, said there were 129 passengers and six crew members on Flight 281, a Boeing 737-400.

The crew found the suspicious item shortly before its scheduled landing in Los Angeles. The spokeswoman said she had no information on where the item was found.

No other flights were affected.

British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and other airlines criticized BAA for needing until around dawn Tuesday to communicate and implement fully the relaxed measures at Heathrow and Gatwick.

The carriers earlier criticized BAA's instruction for airlines at Heathrow to cut flights to ease congestion.

Under new government guidelines, passengers could Monday take aboard one small bag or case that held books, magazines, a laptop, mobile phones and other electrical devices, but were still denied non-essential liquids and gels.

Since the government announced Thursday it had foiled a plot to blow up US-bound airliners, passengers could take aboard only essential items like money, tickets, keys, medicine and eyeglasses in see-through plastic bags.

BAA said the five other British airports it operates -- Stansted, Southampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen -- had put the new measures into effect by noon (1100 GMT) Monday.

At airports throughout Europe, the backlog created by Thursday's arrests, and the subsequent stringent baggage restrictions, eased somewhat, with Air France passengers on flights to the United States facing much shorter delays on Monday compared with three-hour waits at a Paris airport during the weekend.

The new measures in Britain were announced after the government downgraded the alert level early Monday to "severe," the fourth highest of five levels, from an unprecedented "critical," where it had stood since Thursday.

Britain's Home Secretary John Reid said that the threat of attack was no longer imminent as police "believe that the main suspects in the alleged plot were arrested last week."

British authorities on Thursday arrested 24 people suspected of plotting to smuggle volatile chemicals on to several passenger jets headed for the United States with intent to set off explosions in mid-flight.

One was released on Friday. The remaining 23 suspects, including one who had a court hearing Monday, can now be detained until Wednesday, London's Metropolitan Police said.

Reid nonetheless warned that an attack remained "highly likely" as police investigated other suspected plots.

Following the British decision, the US Department of
Homeland Security announced it was downgrading the threat level for inbound flights from Britain to "code orange" from "code red," its highest security risk alert.

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) now allows airline travelers to take in their carry-on luggage limited amounts of baby milk, personal prescription medicine and personal insulin.

Four ounces of non-prescription medicine will be allowed as well.

However, all passengers in the United States will now be required to remove their shoes for X-ray inspection alongside their carry-on bags at airport checkpoints.

US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff echoed Reid's warning. "Let me be clear: this does not mean the threat is over," he said.

Chertoff also told Fox News on Sunday that British and US investigators were still digging to see whether or not the plot broken up on Thursday was directed by Al-Qaeda.

Reid on Sunday told BBC television that Britain had thwarted "at least four major plots" since the July 7, 2005 bombings in London that left 56 people dead, and indicated that up to a dozen were under investigation.

Meanwhile, the global investigation into the alleged plot is turning increasingly to Pakistan and the Al-Qaeda network, amid media suggestions that worse plans could be afoot.

Photographs of British Al-Qaeda suspect Rashid Rauf also appeared in newspapers after Pakistani authorities claimed he was a "key person" in the plot.

In Pakistan, two senior officials told AFP that Britain's intelligence services had asked their Pakistani counterparts to trail Rauf after he entered the country. He was arrested on August 4 in the eastern city of Bahawalpur.

One of the officials said that British police carried out Thursday's raids after Rauf told Pakistani interrogators of the plot to blow up airplanes, which was apparently not yet known to British or US authorities.

But he made clear the Government was preparing to return to the issue, which suggests it could be included in new anti-terror powers in the Queen's Speech in the autumn.

The Home Secretary argued that the "awful, terrible consequences" of knowing something might be about to happen and being unable to detain suspects long enough "now should be apparent to everyone".

He said: "When we come back to that, I hope we all remember that the police and security services say they need up to 90 days."

David Winnick, the Labour MP who came up with the 28-day formula, said it was obvious ministers would use the terror alert to argue again for a longer limit. He said: "Under no circumstances should they be allowed to raise [it]."

David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "The argument hasn't changed. We are not aware of suspects being held more than 14 days, let alone the full 28."

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said it would be unacceptable to reopen the subject simply because there was a political opportunity to do so.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said the measure was equivalent to internment and would be as counterproductive as it was when first rejected.

John Reid has provoked anger by signalling he is likely to make a fresh attempt to push through 90-day detention without charge for terrorist suspects in the wake of the alleged transatlantic bomb plot.

Last November the Government was forced to settle for a limit of 28 days in the face of opposition from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and a sizeable minority of Labour MPs.

The Home Secretary was warned last night that any new attempt would also be doomed because of massive opposition.

The measure was championed by Tony Blair and senior ministers after they were lobbied by police chiefs who said the complexity of international terrorism meant they needed more time to prepare cases.

Mr Reid told BBC1 yesterday he was concentrating entirely on the anti-terror operation and said: "In the heat of something like this, it's not always a good idea ... to start talking about introducing measures."

But he made clear the Government was preparing to return to the issue, which suggests it could be included in new anti-terror powers in the Queen's Speech in the autumn.

The Home Secretary argued that the "awful, terrible consequences" of knowing something might be about to happen and being unable to detain suspects long enough "now should be apparent to everyone".

He said: "When we come back to that, I hope we all remember that the police and security services say they need up to 90 days."

David Winnick, the Labour MP who came up with the 28-day formula, said it was obvious ministers would use the terror alert to argue again for a longer limit. He said: "Under no circumstances should they be allowed to raise [it]."

David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "The argument hasn't changed. We are not aware of suspects being held more than 14 days, let alone the full 28."

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said it would be unacceptable to reopen the subject simply because there was a political opportunity to do so.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said the measure was equivalent to internment and would be as counterproductive as it was when first rejected.

As CPD members moved from administration to administration regardless of party affiliation, the Cold War policy of "containment militarism" ran strong through the late 1960s. In the wake of the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam, according to Richard Falk, a split between foreign policy elites emerged: Imperialists, who sought to remilitarize the US for global conquest still using the fear-inciting Soviet "communist threat," and managers (Trilateralists), who attempted to rally the corporate spheres of Europe, East Asia and the US to adopt a new era of interdependent international trade.

In 1976, this split led to the first CPD-free administration in the office of President Carter, though CPD quickly regrouped to kill détente, oust Carter, and reestablish itself in the Reagan administration, using "Soviet-backed international terrorism" as the new fear factor.

Around June of 1979, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The United States launched a covert operation to bolster anticommunist guerrillas in Afghanistan at least six months before the 1979 Soviet invasion of that country. We did not push the Russians into invading, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would."

The US had actively recruited Afghan warlords to form terrorist groups along the northern border, forcing the USSR to conduct a full-scale invasion in December 1979 to counter the US destabilization program. Among the methods used by the US in this program was the production and distribution of textbooks to schools (madrassas), promoting the war-values of murder and fanaticism, and fostering a generation steeped in violence.

Upon taking office in January 1981, Reagan outlined his new foreign policy in a speech by Alexander Haig, which boiled down to: "International terrorism will take the place of human rights in our concern." Thus, the 1979 US destabilization program using terrorist groups to lure the Soviets into Afghanistan was used by the US to call the Soviet invasion "terrorism" and to point to that invasion as a model for the newly invented phenomenon of "Soviet-backed terrorism" around the world.

This cemented the CPD's original hegemonic goal of a fear-based structure. Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and its "communist threat," this structure still prevails, requiring new external threats to maintain today's US-global trade supremacy. Absent the old communist threat, the degree of deceit necessary to sway public opinion increasingly grew, ultimately employing first strikes against Western assets both to satisfy this demand for public acceptance and acquiescence, and to serve as pretexts for the placement of US forces in geostrategic regions. The US currently has 750,000 troops in 135 countries.

What we are left with is simply "international terrorism," a perpetual "threat" straight out of the plotline of the film V for Vendetta, and one that satisfies most corporate executives and serves to cover such inconvenient truths as climate change - imperialism's product and archenemy - the raging and disproportionate conflict in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and the criminal invasion of Iraq (not to mention that this particular "thwarted 9-11" is a timely boost for the pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman).

Immediately after 9-11, Vladimir Putin promised support for George Bush's "war on terror," with the caveat that NATO cease its eastward push. Bush agreed, and just as immediately set about pushing NATO eastward. Professor Stephen Cohen of New York University points out that with the US today openly stating that Georgia and Ukraine are to become NATO partners - and with Putin having drawn the line with Ukraine, as Russia subsidizes much of Ukraine's economy - a new and very real tension has risen between the two largest possessors of nuclear arms. In fact, a US warship and 200 Marines were recently chased out of the Russian province of Crimea by a group of protesters.

The heightened illusion of what Bush calls a "global war against Islamic fascists" also serves to back Putin into a corner, as Putin must be perceived as even-handed toward the 25 million Muslims in Russia.

Most people would find all of this easy to digest had they the time to read two excellent books on US post-World War II and post-Cold War imperialism respectively: Peddlers of Crisis, by Jerry Sanders, and The War on Truth, by Nafeez Ahmed. Unfortunately, few will take the time to do so, and thus the rush of fear derived from such an event as just occurred means a near total success for maintaining the Conflict Incorporated status quo.

In other words, in the last 25 years the US created the threat and, through the resultant fear, the worldwide authoritarian means to pretend to deal with it while exercising the full scope of its imperial ambitions, with friends and puppets tagging along. Moreover, that the US (and apparently now the UK) knowingly harbored al-Qaeda cells throughout the 1990s and up to and beyond 9-11 lends a new perspective to President Bush's post-9-11 promise to "make no distinction between those who committed these terrible acts and those who harbor them."

Who gained? The ruling elite (the minority). Who lost? The majority, everywhere. Who were the "terrorists"? Patsies. The need for a new and real (fully allowed to unfold) 9-11 has been forestalled for the moment as one waits for the other shoe to drop: the linking of Syria and Iran and whomever else to the current "investigation."

Funny how Bush administration officials denied any foreknowledge that planes could be used as weapons after 9-11, particularly when the same officials are now saying that they recognized this plot because of its similarities to one carried out by Ramsey Yousef in 1995. What a fine spin.

Already, US news outlets are calling the 24 suspects "Pakistanis," failing to mention that most if not all are British citizens, born and raised.

"If ever there was a verification that there is a war on terror, this was it," said one reporter - and that is precisely what it was intended to be. And so much for the so-called "national threat level," which apparently stays low during months of intensely high threat levels and rises after a threat is "thwarted."

The state of global affairs from the US perspective can be summed up in one statement from a lengthy essay, Constant Conflict, by Major Ralph Peters: "There will be no peace. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy, and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing."

Where once they shouted "Hear! Hear!" toward progress in public chambers, one can almost catch the resonant echoes of some Western leaders happily whispering in private "Fear! Fear!" while their profits soar and their people tremble. Somebody should be checking market "put options" right about now.

A human rights activist for 45 years, Brian Bogart is the first graduate student in Peace Studies from the University of Oregon. He can be reached at bdbogart@gmail.com.

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UK made arrests on Washington pressure: Plane attack was not imminent: official



By Our Correspondent


WASHINGTON, Aug 13: The Bush administration pressured the British authorities to arrest the suspects of a London terror plot at least a week before they had planned to do so, a US television channel reported on Sunday.

NBC News reported that US and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.

A British official said the uk police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.

The source did say, however, that police believe one UK-based suspect was ready to conduct a 'dry run'. British authorities had wanted to let him go forward with part of the plan, but the Americans balked.

An aide to President George Bush denied the account.

"There was unprecedented cooperation and coordination between the US, the UK and Pakistani officials throughout the case," said Frances Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, "and we worked together to protect our citizens from harm while ensuring that we gathered as much info as possible to bring the plotters to justice. There was no disagreement between US and UK officials."

The British official said the Americans also argued over the timing of the arrest of suspected ringleader Rashid Rauf in Pakistan, warning that if he was not taken into custody immediately, the US would 'render' him or pressure the Pakistani government to arrest him.

British security was concerned that Mr Rauf be taken into custody "in circumstances where there was due process," according to the official, so that he could be tried in British courts. Ultimately, the official says, Mr Rauf was arrested over the objections of the British.

The official said that some suspects were known to the security services even before the London subway bombings last year.

Monitoring of Mr Rauf, in particular, apparently played a critical role, revealing that the plotters had tested the explosive liquid mixture they planned to use at a location outside Britain.

NBC News had previously reported that the explosive mixture was tested in Pakistan.

In the Michigan case, authorities had increased patrols on the 5-mile-long Mackinac Bridge after local prosecutors said investigators believed the men were targeting the span.

Local authorities didn't say what they believed the men intended to do with the phones, most of which were prepaid TracFones, but Caro's police chief noted that cell phones can be untraceable and used as detonators.

The FBI issued a news release Monday saying there is no imminent threat to the bridge linking Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas.

The release also said the FBI had no information indicating that the men, Palestinian-Americans living in Texas, had any direct links to any known terrorist groups or to the alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic jetliners that was announced in London last week.

William Kowalski, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Detroit field office, said authorities believe concern about the bridge was connected to images of the Mackinac Bridge found on a digital camera belonging to the men.

Kowalski said there was nothing illegal about buying cell phones in bulk, but that profits from that kind of activity can be suspicious.

Adham Abdelhamid Othman, 21, of Dallas, and Maruan Awad Muhareb, 18, and Louai Abdelhamied Othman, 23, both of Mesquite, Texas, were stopped by police Friday outside a Wal-Mart store in Caro, about 80 miles north of Detroit after employees became suspicious when they purchased about 80 cell phones.

Local prosecutors charged them with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes.

The men told a magistrate Saturday that they were buying the phones for resale.

Louai Othman's wife, Lina Odeh, told The Associated Press on Saturday that she thought her husband and relatives were targeted because of their Arab descent. She said the men's families come from Jerusalem.

Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark E. Reene said Monday that representatives of his office and Caro police had met with Sunday with officials from the FBI, the Department of
Homeland Security and the U.S. attorney's office. He said all the agencies were working together on the investigation.

Messages seeking further comment from Reene were not immediately returned.

In Ohio, prosecutor James Schneider said he didn't have enough evidence to present felony terrorism charges for Ali Houssaiky and Osama Abulhassan, both of Dearborn, Mich., to a grand jury.

The two men face a misdemeanor count of falsification accusing them of lying about why they bought the phones, Schneider said.

"We're grateful the Washington County Prosecutor's Office has been willing to keep an open mind and look at all the evidence and make their decisions based on the evidence," said William Swor, who is representing Houssaiky.

The FBI is reviewing the Ohio case and staying in touch with local authorities. No federal charges are pending, said special agent Mike Brooks of the FBI.

Authorities stopped the men on a traffic violation in Marietta, Ohio, on Aug. 8 and said they found airplane passenger lists and information on airport security checkpoints, along with $11,000 cash and 12 phones, in their car.

Abulhassan and Houssaiky admitted buying about 600 phones in recent months at stores in southeast Ohio and selling them to someone in Dearborn.

Defense attorneys said the government had no evidence the phones were being used illegally and the men planned to resell the phones simply to make money. They also said the airport and airplane information were old papers left in the car by a relative who worked at an airport.

Despite the downgrading, the Transport Department warned in a statement: "This (still) means that a terrorist attack is still highly likely."

The United States said it had also scaled back the threat level for flights from Britain but would remain vigilant.

British Airways said the captain of the airliner had decided to return to London as a precautionary measure.

"A mobile phone was located on board the aircraft which none of the passengers appeared to own," it said in a statement.

Mobile phones were banned from flights departing from British airports under new tough security measures introduced after the disclosure of the alleged plot to smuggle bombs on to aircraft disguised as drinks.

Police said on Thursday they had foiled an attempt by would-be suicide bombers to blow up simultaneously up to 10 airlines flying to the United States. Twenty-four people were arrested