|
¡@
After all
this time, the US can¡¦t get its security act together
¡@
By Jonathan D.
Salant and Angela Greiling Keane
BLOOMBERG
Friday, Jan 01, 2010, Page 9
¡¥The TSA is without a top administrator because ... a South Carolina
Republican ... is blocking the Senate from confirming Obama nominee Erroll
Southers.¡¦
US President Barack Obama is being urged to strengthen anti-terrorism efforts as
he awaits initial results of an investigation into the Dec. 25 attempted bombing
of a US airliner.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein asked the president in
a letter yesterday to change a 2008 policy limiting the government¡¦s ability to
place people on a watch list that requires extra screening or bans them from
flying.
¡§The US government should watch-list, and deny visas to, anyone who is
reasonably believed to be affiliated with, part of, or acting on behalf of a
terrorist organization,¡¨ Feinstein, a California Democrat, said in the letter.
Obama has requested the criteria used for placing people on watch lists as part
of his examination of anti-terror policies.
Obama, on vacation in Hawaii, is to receive preliminary results today from a
probe of what he called the ¡§systemic failure¡¨ that let Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab carry explosives onto a US airliner leaving Amsterdam on Dec. 25.
Abdulmutallab was on a list of potential terrorists, but he wasn¡¦t subject to
special screening at the airport. He is charged with trying to blow up the
Northwest Airlines flight as it prepared to land in Detroit.
The Netherlands and Nigeria said yesterday that they would start using full-body
scanners to detect explosives carried by passengers.
Airline security and intelligence were overhauled after the Sept. 11 attacks,
including creation of the Department of Homeland Security to improve
intelligence-gathering and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to
take over passenger screening at airports.
Eight years later, ¡§the same kind of failures that were there in 9/11 were
present in this one,¡¨ former New Jersey governor Tom Kean, a Republican who was
chairman of the commission that examined the Sept. 11 attacks, said in an
interview yesterday. ¡§No one is connecting the dots. It¡¦s the same thing all
over again, and that¡¦s what is frustrating.¡¨
Obama said on Tuesday that US intelligence agencies missed ¡§red flags¡¨ that
could have put Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, on a watch list.
Conventional metal detectors cannot detect the explosives Abdulmutallab was
carrying.
Three congressional committees plan to hold hearings next month on the incident.
¡§We have to fully investigate this incident to find accountability for the
breakdown in security procedures,¡¨ said Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, a member
of the Senate Commerce Committee.
Representative John Mica of Florida, the top Republican on the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said more was needed.
¡§Unfortunately, it¡¦s turned into sort of a reactionary system and not enough
initiatives to handle situations like we¡¦ve got,¡¨ Mica said.
The TSA ¡§has been sort of floundering¡¨ in the past year, he said.
The TSA is without a top administrator because Senator Jim DeMint, a South
Carolina Republican, is blocking the Senate from confirming Obama nominee Erroll
Southers, an anti-terrorism expert. DeMint opposes efforts to allow TSA
employees to form a union; public employee unions have given Democrats 91
percent of their US$4.5 million in campaign donations since Jan. 1.
Abdulmutallab and would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid boarded US airlines
overseas, and that¡¦s where security officials need to target, Mica said.
¡§There¡¦s no reason you can¡¦t adopt an Israeli model and do a better examination
of the passengers before they depart¡¨ from overseas airports to deny people with
suspected terrorist connections from entering the US, Mica said.
The TSA will take the lead on increasing security in response to the attempted
bombing, said Hasbrouck Miller, a vice president of London-based Smiths Group
Plc¡¦s Smiths Detection unit, which makes explosive-detection equipment.
¡§TSA is given a lot of latitude to shift around where they see needs and
requirements,¡¨ Miller said in an interview.
The agency is responding with such things as bomb-sniffing dogs and additional
screening, spokesman Greg Soule said.
¡§TSA has a layered approach to security that allows us to surge resources as
needed on a daily basis,¡¨ Soule said.
A number of government commissions since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
over Lockerbie, Scotland, have called for increased passenger screening for
explosives.
Two decades later, machines that detect explosives under passengers¡¦ clothes are
used at 19 US airports, most of the time only as a secondary check on selected
passengers, according to the TSA. In 2007, the Government Accountability Office
said its investigators smuggled liquid explosives and detonators past airport
security screeners.
¡§It¡¦s just incredible that this is still going on,¡¨ said Kathleen Flynn of
Montville, New Jersey, who lost a son in the Pan Am 103 bombing. She was a
member of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety during president Bill
Clinton¡¦s administration. ¡§With our technology and our wherewithal, we should be
able to conquer this,¡¨ she said.
|
