HOMELAND SECURITY AFTER UMAR THE TERRORIST: WHOSE FAULT AND WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
Colleagues,
The reality is that we dodged a very BIG bullet when the Al-Qaeda trained Nigerian terrorist failed in his clumsy attempt to blow up a Northwest Airliner on Christmas Day as it approached the Detroit airport. The bungled attack was the result of sheer luck, an incompetent perpetrator, and quick reaction by passengers on board. The foiled explosion was by no means the result of expert investigatory and security work on the part of our government intelligence and homeland security agencies—in fact, once again we are treated to the spectacle of a failure of the responsible authorities to share and act on information that was readily available.
Let’s see now: Umar the would be Islamic Jihadist, trained in Yemen by Al Qaeda, turned in to the U.S. State Department by his own father for his terrorist beliefs and training, boards a plane as a last minute passenger paying in cash, and who brought no luggage. Many have wondered how a grandmother from Des Moines can be frisked and subject to interrogation, but an Islamic jihadist on the government’s terrorist watch list can carry a bomb on a plane and all they want to know, one observer caustically points out, “is whether he would like the chicken or the vegetable dinner”. The multi-billion dollar, highly intrusive and economically debilitating system we have in place to protect the flying public did not work.
The major failure occurred within the intelligence community and the State department. Clearly the consolidation of the Intelligence Community has not led to sharing terrorist data in a timely fashion—the CIA had been watching Umar since November, but guess what? They didn’t tell the Department of Homeland Security! The State Department was contacted by Umar’s father regarding his terrorist leanings, but he still possessed multiple-entry visas to the U.S. More than faulting the DHS, blame should be laid at the feet of the CIA, the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department. And, by the way, at the Senate, which has been sitting on the nomination of a talented new director of the TSA for months.
This by no means excuses the DHS or its director, Janet Napolitano. Her initial statement that the failed attempt demonstrated that “the system worked” was preposterous, another debit in the list of charges that have led many to question her competence and leadership. President Obama, who had to be whisked off the golf course to make a hasty statement after Napolitano’s gaffe, reiterated his “full support” for the Secretary—which is tantamount to saying she will be walking the plank soon.
In fairness, DHS does not get the major blame here. The terrorist was subjected to screening in Amsterdam, Homeland Security did not have the information they needed, and there is no indication that this incident is the result of some policy change that weakened our security measures. George Bush’s Director of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, said on NPR yesterday that this would have likely occurred under his administration as much as it did under Napolitano’s.
So where do we go now? Do we begin “profiling” passengers? Institute more invasive security procedures? Redraw the Intel community wiring diagram? We will probably do all three and the net result will probably be no better security measures, but onerous, economically draining procedures implemented by a bureaucracy that doesn’t know what else to do so it dreams up asinine restrictions designed to show that “they are responding seriously” to the threat.
Before I get to profiling, a few words on our “system” of security procedures. After 9/11, Al Qaeda secured a major victory, not only by the actual attack on the twin towers, but by forcing Western democracies to institute mechanisms that probably provide little additional security but impose enormous economic penalties and create time-wasting procedures. On many flights after this incident passengers were not able to have anything—no newspapers, no child’s bottle, no pillows—on their laps for the last hour of the flights, nor could they even get up. Now how in the hell does this do any good, except to persuade would be terrorists to go to the bathroom and ignite themselves an hour and half earlier?
On this I would agree with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, that noted today that “The Islamic terrorists seek to cripple America’s economy. The current absurd, counterproductive….”airport screening” regime accomplishes just that for the enemy”, while failing to offer any real protection. Overstated, maybe, but still a pertinent observation. I fear, along with the LVRJ, that the new measures I anticipate will be implemented will be even more oppressive, intrusive and equally ineffective. For example, the full body scan is now the hot new tool to defeat the terrorists, but how would that scan show the PETN explosive attached (surgically?) to the man’s penis?
We need to have a courageous task force convened to decide what measures should be taken to insure passenger safety and what are simply bureaucratic responses that pretend to do something. Maybe we even have to assume some risk here. That is, we certainly want to prevent highjacking airliners and flying them into buildings—but what is the price for trying (ineffectively) to prevent every and any incident that could affect just 200-300 passengers? After all, we know that lowering the national speed limit to 55 mph would save thousands of lives annually, but there we have accepted a certain degree of risk.
What about “profiling”? It is a technique used extensively by the Israelis, who have not had an air incident in over 30 years. Profiling can be racial, psychological or personality based, and the Israelis use all three in clearing passengers for El Al flights. Israeli airport security begins before passengers enter the security area, monitoring individuals in the terminal waiting area for suspicious behavior, for example. Race is certainly a factor, but not the only screening indicator, and it does include ethnic and religious background. Almost all airline-related terrorist incidents have been caused by Arab males between the ages of 19 and 39, and most have lived in countries of concern (Somalia, Yemen) who have embraced extreme interpretations of Islam. While this regime would offend some foreign visitors, we need to realize that we simply can’t make ourselves totally inoffensive to militant Islamists.
I am aware that some, including Secretary Chertoff, oppose profiling. Chertoff feels that it violates civil rights and simply doesn’t work. I am not sympathetic to his view on the first issue, but knowing that implementation of profiling would be in the hands of ordinary people like you and me in the TSA (“Thousands Standing Around”, the LVRJ says), I am dubious that we can replicate the skills and competence the Israelis demonstrate. Nor do I wish to declare war on the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims, most of whom are moderate and pose no threat to the U.S. But if we are not training our security personnel in profiling, if we are not looking more closely at specific groups and nationalities, then we are foregoing one of the most effective security measures at our disposal.
I hear a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking now, especially in Congress as our representatives madly search for a scapegoat. There is a lot of justifiable criticism for those in the loop failing to share the data available that had been amassed, but remember that it is always easier to connect the dots when “you know what the answer is”, as Newsweek notes. But it just may be that stopping dedicated terrorists is really hard and we may not always succeed. As one observer noted, “We need to be lucky every time….the bad guys need only to be lucky once”. Al Qaeda and its allies are no doubt analyzing our response to this incident—indeed, I suspect that Umar was a “useful idiot” trained for such a penetration/testing mission—and are preparing other, “asymmetric” tactics to foil our cumbersome security efforts.
In the meantime, take Jay Leno’s advice, who noted after 9/11, “If your first name is Mohammed and your last night is not Ali, you’d better get to the airport early”. Guess we all will now as well.
– Ty