MovieChat Forums > The Siege (1998) Discussion > Why didn't the government focus it's eff...

Why didn't the government focus it's efforts more precisely?

posted 14 years ago by RynoII
5 replies | jump to latest

The military rounded up all arabs instead of the ones who were from the same country as the leader they captured. It's more likely that the ones from the same country would know who this leader is and would be on his side. But they round up arabs from all over the world. That doesn't get real close to the truth and is really just sloppy.

If it were terrorists from say, Bosnia who were attacking America, and there was martial law, the military would round up people from Bosnia. Would they round up people from every country in Europe? Probably not. Or if it were say North Koreans. Would they round up every person from every Oriental country? Probably not. So why capture people from every arab country in the world, when they can focus there efforts much more tight on people from the particular places, that they would have come from in order to commit these acts?

[–] tbeller80 14 years ago

Deveraux told the reporters they had narrowed it down to military-aged Arab men who'd only been in the country for the last 6 months. That's a pretty narrow group of people to look for. As far as only looking for men from the Sheik's home country, in real life Al Qaeda members are from dozens of different countries. The Army got a little out of hand and broadened their search to anyone Middle Eastern (taking the FBI agent's son). Deveraux did warn Congress that the Army was "a broadsword, not a scalpel." They were hampered in the search by the CIA woman's actions. She was hiding the one guy they actually needed to find, and all the previous bombers received visas through her and the last bomber so simply looking for men from the Sheik's country might not have helped. For all we know men fitting that description were at the start of the Army's list and they expanded it from there.

[–] RynoII 14 years ago

Oh yeah. But did they ever ascertain which country this terrorist group operates from or which international organization they are from?

[–] tbeller80 14 years ago

I don't think they specifically said where the cleric was from. They said at least some of the bombers were from Iraq, and probably a couple from the Palestinian territories. They did say what country the bus bomber that they specifically identified was from, but I can't remember. If you have the movie in front of you, I'm curious to find out.

[–] RynoII 14 years ago

K I just watched the movie again and they only had a vague discription of the guy they were looking for. Since one or more of the terrorists before was from Iraq and Samir was from West Bank, why couldn't the army focus their backgrounds on citizens from either of those places, as opposed to capturing arabs from all over the world?

[–] toky-world 14 years ago

They did the best they could.

Their intel (army's) was limited and do not have an investigating body as big (and as good) as FBI's.

They just wanted the attacks to stop and they did, it was the moron of Sharon who kept the threat alive by "stashing" Samir somewhere safe.