Aug. 14, 2006 – Page 2216
Airliner cockpit doors have been reinforced. High-technology bomb-detection equipment has been installed at airports. In the United States, the screening workforce has been federalized and expanded. Congress and the Bush administration even established the Transportation Security Administration, an agency that spends all but a tiny percentage of its funds on defending airlines — more than $20 billion to date.
No potential terror target has been fortified as heavily as air travel since the Sept. 11 attacks. Yet the revelation last week that alleged terrorists were plotting to use liquid explosives to blow as many as 10 airplanes owned by U.S. carriers out of the sky over the Atlantic Ocean indicated that aviation is still viewed as a terror target of choice.
In this case, the official details of the capture suggest a resounding success — a lesson on how relentless intelligence gathering and law enforcement, and international cooperation in both, can save hundreds, even thousands, of lives.
Yet in the United States and the United Kingdom as well, the foiled plot led to the imposition of new airport security measures, such as the ban on liquids and gels in carry-on bags, that had not been in place before, raising the question of whether there is yet more to do in aviation security.
That, say homeland security experts, may be one of the most revealing aspects of this latest episode. No matter how much security a country imposes, a determined enemy will exploit any weakness it can find in its target of choice. In fact, many experts say, that is an important part of the terror: The message that nothing is safe.
“The terrorist groups that we’re most concerned with, i.e., al Qaeda and its more closely affiliated groups, have had a longtime interest in passenger aviation,” said Bill Johnstone, a former staff member on the Sept. 11 commission who focused on transportation security. “There has been no indication that they have diminished their interest.”
Most experts on terror tactics and homeland security share the view that terror groups continue to target commercial airliners for a combination of reasons that include their experience — it is what they know and have handed down to successive generations — as well as the potentially spectacular impact of such attacks. Downed jetliners achieve a trifecta of terror: high death tolls, residual economic ripples and mass media attention.
Terrorists have gone after planes since the late 1960s, when the Palestinian terrorists began hijacking them to call attention to their cause. Al Qaeda’s fixation with the method probably started during the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan, said Evan Kohlmann, an international terrorism consultant. The Soviets were supposed to overwhelm the mujahideen with air superiority. Instead, guerrilla troops shot down their jets.
“It was such a symbol of the technologically deficient over the technologically superior,” said Kohlmann, who has testified as an expert witness in several terror prosecution cases.
That message is one that al Qaeda has enjoyed sending ever since. Insurgents in Iraq relish attacks in the “green zone” for similar reasons. “There would be a certain sense of perverse joy if they could outwit American security and carry out an attack,” Kohlmann said. “It’s about showing that nobody is safe.”
Certainly, other prospective targets are protected by fewer security regulations that offer a potential for devastating consequences, such as chemical plants, ports and mass transit, to name a few. There are, for example, thousands of chemical plants in the United States. And, in fact, critics of the emphasis on aviation security have said that it has left other targets more vulnerable.
Tactically, even though airliners are better protected, they are exceedingly vulnerable to attack. Brian Jackson, associate director of the homeland security program at the Rand Corp., a Washington think tank, said a pressurized environment, high in the sky, where a small explosive reaps a high death yield, equates to a potentially greater effect than a ground attack.
“When you attack commercial aviation, you achieve probably the heaviest financial blow against the United States,” said Charles Slepian, an aviation security expert who is CEO of the Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center.
The vulnerability of airplanes underscores the need for a layered defense, experts say. The defeat of the plot in England demonstrates how effective intelligence gathering can be the key to homeland security, while also revealing weaknesses in aviation defenses.
“I think that it further underscores that the investigatory, law enforcement piece is part of the homeland security mission,” said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. “They can’t be treated separately. The first mission should always be to get there before the bomb goes off. I’m not sure countermeasures would have been successful in foiling this.”
The threat of attacks to the U.S. aviation sector has not escaped the imagination of U.S. homeland security planners, who have repeatedly given the Transportation Security Administration one of the largest budgets in the Homeland Security Department.
In fiscal year 2006, Congress gave TSA $4.6 billion just for aviation security. But of that total, only $439 million — less than 10 percent — went to explosives detection systems. Much of the remainder went to checkpoint screening and the TSA’s federalized screening force, which was established after the 9/11 attacks.
Now, some are wondering if threats within aviation security have shifted, from hijacking to possible explosions. To a large extent, experts say that more robust checkpoint security — including a greater presence of federal air marshals, hardened cockpit doors and more rigorous passenger screening — has neutralized the hijacking threat.
“You can’t hijack a plane anymore,” said Slepian. “It’s as simple as that. If the pilot keeps the door closed, end of story. The terrorists know that.”
Some aviation security experts, such as former El Al security chief Isaac Yeffet, have advocated that the United States embrace passenger profiling, which they contend would allow screeners to discern common indication of terrorist intent through individual questioning. That would open up a defense against a range of possible vulnerabilities, rather than isolating particular explosives or weapons.
Still, terrorists’ interest in liquid explosives, which would provide a dramatic, spectacular outcome, has a history that extends beyond last week’s events.
As recently as last year, a top TSA official in testimony before Congress professed little knowledge of the history of al Qaeda’s use of liquid explosives. In 1995, convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef planned to use liquid explosives to explode commercial airliners.
Even with improved technology, the problem of defending against attacks to aviation remains a resources problem. Prioritizing potential threats based on risk, which
Adm. James M. Loy, the first administrator of the Transportation Security Administration and former Deputy Secretary of the Homeland Security Department, said he spent a “lot of sleepless nights” thinking about how to prioritize threats at the department.
“This notion of prioritizing the multiple-dimension threat world that we’re in is a task that we have to take on as adroitly as possible,” said Loy, now a senior counselor at the Washington-based Cohen Group. “Given what happened on 9/11 and given our national instinct to preclude that very event from happening again, I’ve got to believe that the aviation sector has always got to stay high on our list.”
But last week’s events could cause Congress and the Homeland Security Department to rethink the 9/11 paradigm. While the department may adjust its thinking to place more emphasis on preventing would-be terrorists from carrying liquid explosives on board, any reprioritizing comes with a risk.
“You can’t fixate on a specific tactic, that’s the mistake,” said James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “Even though this is similar to what was tried in 1995, I’m sure you’ll find a number of refinements, things that they fixed to make it better.”
Kathryn A. Wolfe contributed to this story.
Homeland Security Department, CQ Weekly, p.
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