Good Bush Speech Leads to a Question

President Bush, spoke at the National Endowment for Democracy today. The Washington Post has a transcript. It's a good speech, not much new but it really is well articulated. That might be a first for this President.

I want to mention one thing. Bush said:

"we've killed or captured nearly all of those directly responsible for the September the 11th attacks, as well as some of bin Laden's most senior deputies, Al Qaida managers and operatives in more than 24 countries: the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing who was chief of Al Qaida operations in the Persian Gulf, the mastermind of the Jakarta and the first Bali bombings, a senior Zarqawi terrorist planner who was planning attacks in Turkey, and many of Al Qaida's senior leaders in Saudi Arabia. Overall, the United States and our partners have disrupted at least 10 serious Al Qaida terrorist plots since September the 11th, including three Al Qaida plots to attack inside the United States. We've stopped at least five more Al Qaida efforts to case targets in the United States or infiltrate operatives into our country."

So where are the trials? Why don't we know what these 10 serious plots were? I'd find him much more believable if his administrationi wasn't so secretive and didn't lie so much. How do I know we really did stop 10 plots? And what is serious?

Well leave it to Think Progress to do some fact checking. Scott McClellan was asked about these and he cited "Jose Padilla and Iyman Faris...And then there are other incidents that are still classified." Think Progress sums it up as: "One three-year old arrest in a case where no charges have been filed, one two-year old arrest related to a plot that was already abandoned and eight 'incidents' the administration won’t tell us anything about."