by TONY BEST

A WEEK AFTER United States officials leveled allegations of a "chilling" terror plot hatched by some Caribbean extremists, experts
are raising key questions about the scheme's credibility.

And while they insist law enforcement officials in New York and Trinidad and Tobago acted wisely in going after the accused Caribbean perpetrators of the plan to blow up oil facilities at John F. Kennedy International Airport, independent experts worry that too much was made of a plan that wasn't anywhere near being implemented nor could eventually have been launched.

"There is a super-sensitivity, with good reason, on the part of the United States and other law enforcement agencies coming out of 9/11.

But the jury is still out on the ability of the alleged plotters to deliver on the plot as we are hearing about it," said Dr Ivelaw Griffith, a leading Caribbean and Latin American security expert in the United States.

"I think the jury is still out. The evidence so far, is that the plot as designed and as we have been told it was designed didn't have much of a chance of being implemented, even if the funding and the capability were there."

Indeed, Michael Bloomberg, New York City's Mayor told reporters that New Yorkers had a much greater chance of being hit by a bolt of lighting than from being victimised by terrorists, including the accused Guyanese and Trinidadians.

"We need to temper our concerns with the reality that the jury is out on the plot," he added.

The expert who advises Western Hemisphere and Caribbean institutions on security issues worries that the Caribbean could suffer irreparable damage to its image as a tourism destination and a safe place for foreign direct investment if the "sensational" media coverage continued.

"It can cause the Caribbean region serious harm," he said.

Experts who have examined information provided so far by United States authorities about the alleged plot cite several factors
for the growing skepticism about its credibility.

For instance, the four alleged terrorists – Russell Defreitas, Abdel Nur and Abdul Kadir, all of Guyana, and Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad and Tobago – didn't have the money to carry out the plan.

Secondly, they lacked the skill to put it into effect. Thirdly, the accused ringleader, Defreitas, hardly had any visible means of support and was often homeless in New York. Next was Nur, a known drug addict who was deported to his native Guyana. Finally, the United States has admitted that some key evidence against the men was collected by a repeat convicted drug dealer
who may have been paid by the Federal Bureau of Investigations to gather information on the plotters in exchange for a lenient prison sentence for a drug trafficking conviction.

The experts are particularly concerned about statements made by Roslynn Mauskopf, United States Attorney for the southern district of New York who described the scheme as "one of the most chilling plots imaginable" and which could have caused "unthinkable" damage to property and loss of life.

"I think her comments were over the top," said Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland. "It was a totally overstated characterisation that doesn't comport with the facts."

Like Griffith, Greenberger said United States authorities were right to go after the alleged plotters but worried about the language used to describe what was being hatched.

"I think they were correct to take this seriously," he told a New York reporter. "But there's a pattern here of Justice Department attorneys overstating what they have. I think they feel under tremendous pressure to vindicate the elaborate counter-terrorism structure they have created since 9/11, including the Patriot Act."

Other experts in and out of law enforcement complained that the United States Attorney must have known that the plot as conceived by the accused was never operational. Secondly, the public was not at risk. Just as important, one law enforcement official who requested anonymity said, blowing up JFK by exploding a fuel tank was a "technical impossibility".

Steven Simon, a terrorism expert at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, was quoted as saying that the excessive language used by United States officials in this and other cases wasn't helpful.

"It creates the public impression that the adversary is just a bunch of losers who do not have to be feared,"Simon said. "Second, the fact that these hapless people are angry enough to seek to attack the United States raises the issue of other more competent,
well-organised groups that might be escaping police detection."

Griffith said that if the sensational coverage continued, countries in the region could suffer damage from what has happened.

One of the accused plotters, Defreitas is being held at the United States Federal House of Detention in Brooklyn while the others are in jails in Trinidad.