Thread: Five years after 9/11, question is: Could it happen again?

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0906/090106nj1.htm

September 1, 2006

Five years after 9/11, question is: Could it happen again?
By Shane Harris, National Journal


On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists thwarted every layer of aviation security designed to prevent a hijacking. Then they turned four fully fueled jetliners into the only weapons of mass destruction ever effectively used in the United States. They faced little opposition from the U.S. government, which was -- at least nominally -- responsible for defeating them. In fact, the terrorists succeeded in killing nearly 3,000 people because almost every obstacle put in place to stop them failed, was foiled, or was utterly unsuited to the threat. In some instances, authorities simply had no countermeasure to halt the terrorists' advance. The only effective resistance that the hijackers encountered that day came at the hands of their airborne victims, all of whom died with them.


The most obvious, the most basic question as the sun set on 9/11 was, "How did this happen?" To find out, Congress created the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which will forever be known by a simpler title, the 9/11 commission. In the summer of 2004, the commission released what is, without question, the most exhaustive and authoritative account of the assault. The minute-by-minute narrative of the deadly chaos is gripping in its detail and precise in its timing, and it ultimately leaves the reader asking one important question: "Could it happen again?"

The instinctive answer is probably "Of course not." Passengers would never allow four or five lightly armed hijackers to take over an airplane. Not after 9/11. They would beat them to within an inch of their lives -- maybe closer. And besides, the terrorists would never dare to try the same attack twice.

But the recent news that British intelligence thwarted a plan to blow up civilian jetliners using liquid explosives, unbeknownst to the passengers, tells us otherwise. That tactic was first conceived in 1995, by the man who tried to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993, and his uncle, the mastermind of 9/11. Terrorists don't abandon methods. They repeat them.

The 9/11 commission's report is not just the most damning account of how the terrorists succeeded. It is an unprecedented analysis of the myriad structures, processes, and people responsible for protecting the nation. Its most painful lesson is that the United States is too big, its bureaucracy too clumsy, its society too open to seal up every hole the terrorists slipped through that day. That didn't stop the commission from issuing 41 recommendations for making the nation safer -- not just from terrorism, and not just in the air. But five years later, the commission says that the Bush administration, Congress, and the private sector have failed to act meaningfully on almost half of those recommendations.

Does this failure mean that, today, 19 terrorists could board four airplanes, subdue their passengers, and fly the planes right over the heads of the nation's leaders, right past the ferocious firepower of the U.S. military, just as they did five years ago?

To get at the answer, National Journal went back to the 9/11 commission's report. What follows is a narrative of the attacks, taken almost entirely from the report itself and sometimes using its wording, for the sake of precision. This is accompanied by an update on the vulnerabilities exposed by the report. Have they been fixed? Have they even been addressed? Did remedies for existing weaknesses create new ones? The answers to those questions bring us closer to knowing whether another 9/11 is in our future.


Entering The United States


Then: Months before he piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center, Mohamed Atta had come to the attention of U.S. authorities. In January 2001, he persuaded an inspector with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to let him into the country so that he could continue pilot training at a U.S. school, even though he presented no student visa.

Now: After 9/11, the INS, widely viewed as dysfunctional, was disbanded. Today, stricter regulations for issuing student visas are in place. Any foreigner entering the United States on a student visa must be registered in a government computer system. However, the schools themselves have generally been responsible for entering the data, and have borne the burden of alerting federal officials when students don't show up for classes. In that case, federal officials are supposed to track them down. In August, several Egyptian students who were granted visas to attend a summer program in Montana never showed up at their assigned school, and the FBI launched a nationwide manhunt to apprehend them.

Then: The hijackers who boarded United Airlines Fight 175, which struck the south tower, had also talked their way into the United States to take flight training without student visas. Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, who boarded American Airlines Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon, had visitor visas. The Central Intelligence Agency knew this, but officials there didn't inform the State Department and other authorities when the two men -- who had been under agency surveillance as suspected terrorists -- boarded a United Airlines plane in Bangkok and came to Los Angeles on January 15.

Now: Laws and regulations have been changed to encourage, and in some cases require, intelligence agencies to share terrorism information with law enforcement agencies. Officials credit the interagency Terrorist Threat Integration Center with bringing together streams of intelligence that historically were kept separate, and with alerting the Transportation Security Administration, now in charge of aviation security, and military officials to threats against airplanes and airports.

Then: Had officials at the National Security Agency been alerted, they might have found records of al-Hazmi in their databases.

Now: The NSA is known to have shared information about suspected Al Qaeda operatives with law enforcement agencies immediately after the attacks. It has since increased monitoring of communications involving suspected Qaeda operatives both inside and outside the United States, some of it under the controversial "terrorist surveillance program."

Then: And had officials at State been told of the men's identities and suspected ties, they would have discovered that al-Hazmi and al-Midhar had been issued U.S. visas in the same city -- Jidda, Saudi Arabia -- within days of each other.

Now: The State Department determines who gets U.S. visas, but the Homeland Security Department controls U.S. ports of entry. The latter department has undertaken a multibillion-dollar effort -- the US-VISIT program -- to log the entry and exit of every visitor; the system, however, is not yet fully deployed nor fully integrated with other tracking systems, such as the one that monitors foreign students. And visitors from many nations, mostly in Europe, can enter the United States without a visa -- just as Americans can enter those countries without a visa.

Then: On 9/11, all but one of the hijackers were here on visitor visas, which allowed them to stay in the country for six months. That gave them time to finalize the plot and to obtain state-issued identification cards needed to board the airplanes. Although one hijacker didn't have a state ID, he was allowed on the plane anyway.

Now: Anyone entering the United States through an airport, seaport, or border crossing that has the US-VISIT entry-exit system must submit a biometric identifier -- fingerprints and a photograph -- if the visitor hasn't already done so at the U.S. consular office that issued the visa. The visa's expiration data is logged into VISIT, and if the holder has not left the United States by that date, his visa is voided and immigration enforcement can detain him. The VISIT program is far from perfect, according to analysts, and will take some time to deploy at every U.S. port of entry.

Then: Once in the country, some of the hijackers aroused suspicion, particularly among flight instructors who noticed that although the men wanted to pilot commercial jetliners, they had little interest in learning how to land them. Reports of Middle Eastern men at flight schools also attracted the attention of FBI officials in at least two field offices, but superiors rejected their requests for more intense surveillance.

Now: In the half-decade since 9/11, the FBI has tried to improve its intelligence-gathering and information-sharing capabilities. The bureau has created a national security division that is responsible for assessing terrorist threats. But the CIA has become the de facto leader in the "global war on terror," and the FBI still struggles to establish a modern computer system capable of analyzing the vast amount of potentially useful information that field agents acquire.


Boarding The Planes


Then: Early on the morning of September 11, Mohamed Atta and a fellow hijacker flew from Portland, Maine, to Boston's Logan Airport, where the two men were to board American Airlines Flight 11 bound for Los Angeles. When Atta checked in at Portland, the government's Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System flagged him for additional inspection, which consisted of holding Atta's checked bags off the aircraft until it was confirmed that he was aboard. CAPPS also flagged three hijackers on Atta's team when they checked in at Logan, but again the flag affected only how the airlines handled their checked bags. CAPPS had been implemented a few years earlier to prevent terrorists from putting explosives in baggage, and then not boarding the aircraft themselves.

Now: CAPPS has undergone at least three iterations. The Transportation Security Administration is trying to launch the Secure Flight System to screen airline passengers. But deployment has been beset by delays, management problems, and unresolved concerns about how the system would protect passenger privacy. The current screening system, which relies on antiquated technologies, has kept some suspicious passengers off planes, officials say, but not all of them. The system has also flagged individuals who were clearly not terrorists, calling into question its efficacy.

Then: As Atta's team boarded Flight 11, another team of five was checking in at Logan for United Airlines Flight 175. Two of the Flight 175 hijackers had trouble understanding standard security questions, such as whether they were carrying any items given to them by unknown persons. The United ticket agent had to repeat the questions slowly until the men answered properly. The hijackers then proceeded to the security checkpoint.

Now: Ticket agents today may flag passengers for further screening, but they're not a first line of defense, and they are no longer required to ask passengers security-related questions.

Then: The Flight 11 and Flight 175 hijackers passed through security checkpoints operated by companies under contract to the airlines.

Now: The federal TSA handles all airport security. Some airports use private contractors to check passengers' identification before they enter the checkpoint.

Then: All of them walked through metal detectors set up to react to items with at least the metallic content of a .22-caliber handgun.

Now: Metal detectors have been recalibrated to react to smaller metal objects.

Then: If any one of them had set off the detector, he would have been screened by hand using a more sensitive, metal-detecting wand.

Now: Passengers who trip the metal detectors are patted down by a TSA screener.

Then: Also, the hijackers' bags were run through an X-ray machine to examine their contents; nothing suspicious was found.

Now: TSA screeners have color monitors that help them distinguish objects of different density, which can help the screeners find explosives. But the machines do not detect explosives. Screeners can search for trace explosives using separate equipment.

Then: Meanwhile, at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, every member of the team preparing to hijack American Airlines Flight 77 faced additional screening. CAPPS flagged three of the hijackers, and the remaining two, brothers Nawaf and Salem al-Hazmi, raised the suspicions of an American Airlines customer-service representative at the check-in counter. One of the brothers lacked photo identification and couldn't understand English, but ultimately both were allowed to board.

Now: Passengers must present a valid photo ID to enter the security checkpoint. However, TSA officials have discretion to allow individuals without ID to go through screening and enter the terminal. Some security experts say that the only way to ensure that people don't use false IDs is to require a nationally standardized card, or to require all travelers, regardless of their destination, to present a passport.

Then: The final team of hijackers that day, those boarding United Airlines Flight 93, passed through security checkpoints almost without incident. One member was flagged by CAPPS; his checked baggage was screened for explosives and then put aboard the plane. All of the hijackers cleared the metal detectors.


The Hijackings


Then: Once the four planes were aloft and at or very near their assigned cruising altitudes, the hijackers struck. As part of their pilot training, some had learned how to make it harder for controllers on the ground to track the plane.

Now: U.S. flight schools must report their rosters to the TSA. Also, to get a license from the Federal Aviation Administration, pilots must undergo a basic background check and must be fingerprinted. Pilots who train outside the United States, however, don't need FAA clearance.

Then: Using violence, intimidation, and subterfuge, the hijackers took over the planes' controls and subdued most of the passengers. Every member of the crew -- the pilots and the flight attendants -- had been trained not to resist hijackers.

Now: Pilots and flight attendants are trained not to open the cockpit door during a hijacking under any circumstances. Although many of the protocols for how crews should behave in a hijacking or other crisis are classified, security experts say that pilots are instructed to land the plane as quickly as possible at the nearest airport.

Then: Nevertheless, the crew and passengers quickly assessed their situation and did their best to disrupt the attacks, by relaying important information to officials on the ground and, ultimately, by fighting back.


American 11


Then: The 9/11 commission did not determine how the hijackers got into the cockpit of Flight 11, but regulations at the time required that cockpit doors remain closed and locked during flight. One of the flight attendants, Betty Ong, who contacted American Airlines' Southeast Reservations Office in Cary, N.C., using an onboard pay phone, said that the hijackers had "jammed their way in."

Now: Cockpit doors have been reinforced, but they are not impervious to explosives.

Then: Ong's contact with authorities on the ground and others like it are examples of how flight attendants deviated from their training, which instructed them to communicate only with the cockpit crew in the event of a hijacking. The details they relayed helped alert the country to the hijackings.

To force passengers and flight attendants out of the first-class cabin and toward the rear of the plane, the hijackers used Mace, pepper spray, or some other type of irritant.

Now: All of these substances were banned before 9/11. Screeners who found them were supposed to call a supervisor, who would alert airport hazardous-materials teams to dispose of the chemicals. These procedures haven't changed.

Then: After Ong's call, the airline dispatcher responsible for Flight 11 tried unsuccessfully to contact the cockpit.

Now: Today, if a pilot doesn't respond to airline or government controllers, the Air Force deploys fighter planes to intercept the aircraft. According to Air Force guidelines, the military pilot uses commonly recognized signals to instruct the aircraft to follow the fighter to an alternative landing site. If the signals fail, the military pilot can deploy flares to get the airline pilot's attention. Most fighters are equipped with UHF and VHF radios, through which they can hail the cockpit. If all of those steps fail, existing command-and-control systems allow military officials to obtain the necessary authority to engage the aircraft and, if need be, to shoot it down.

Then: Officials at Boston Logan, however, were already aware of a problem aboard Flight 11. Another flight attendant, Amy Sweeney, had contacted American's Flight Services Office in Boston and informed officials of the hijacking. At approximately 8:44 a.m., less than an hour after Flight 11 left Boston, Sweeney reported, "Something is wrong. We are in a rapid descent.... We are all over the place." An official asked Sweeney to look out the window to determine the plane's location. Sweeney replied, "We are flying low.... Oh, my God, we are way too low." Flight 11 then crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower.


United 175


Then: Seconds later, United Airlines Flight 175 changed beacon codes twice within a minute. Beacon codes identify the flight for controllers.

Now: Since 9/11, technical glitches have caused some aircraft to emit the incorrect beacon signal. When this happens, regardless of whether it was accidental, air traffic controllers demand an explanation for the code change. Fighter planes can be dispatched to assess the aircraft's status, and the FAA is supposed to monitor the flight constantly on radar.

Then: With the hijackers in control of the plane, a passenger, Peter Hanson, called his father in Connecticut, told him what was happening, and asked him to call United Airlines. Hanson gave him the flight number and said the plane was traveling from Boston to Los Angeles. Hanson's father called his local police department and told the dispatcher what his son had said.

Now: Officials say that some calls to police departments on 9/11 were dismissed as pranks. It is difficult to imagine that any police force would casually dismiss such a call today. Local law enforcement officials are encouraged, and in some cases trained, to contact state and federal authorities when they get such a report.

Then: It appears that, without knowing that hijackers had already flown one plane into the World Trade Center, some passengers aboard Flight 175 realized that their plane might be turned into a weapon and began planning to retake the aircraft. One passenger, Brian David Sweeney, called his mother and said that some passengers were thinking about storming the cockpit. In a second call to his father, Hanson said, "I think we are going down -- I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building."

Hanson tried to reassure his father. "Don't worry, Dad -- if it happens, it'll be very fast -- my God, my God." The call ended abruptly. Hanson's father turned on a television and watched as Flight 175 slammed into the south tower.


American 77


Then: Seconds before Hanson made the first call to his father, the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77 pulled out knives and began taking over the aircraft.

Minutes later, Flight 77 turned south, deviating from its assigned course. The hijackers turned off the transponder, which relays the plane's location and identifying information.

Now: Pilots can still turn off a plane's transponder, but they must explain to controllers why they did so. After 9/11, pilots of smaller aircraft that fly without instruments or flight plans objected to requirements that all planes use transponders. Any aircraft that deviates from a preset flight plan immediately raises suspicion, officials say.

Then: Air traffic controllers and American Airlines dispatchers attempted to contact the aircraft. Six minutes later, American Airlines Executive Vice President Gerard Arpey ordered all American flights in the northeastern United States that had not taken off to remain on the ground.

Now: Airlines still have the authority to ground their own planes.

Then: As on the other flights, passengers called their loved ones and asked them to alert the airline. Barbara Olson called her husband, then-Solicitor General Ted Olson, and reported that the hijackers had knives and box cutters. She also indicated that the hijackers didn't know she was using her cellphone.

Now: The 9/11 commission speculated that the hijackers may not have tried to stop passengers' calls because they presumed that word of the attacks was already spreading on the ground. Considering how much information and warning the passengers relayed, it is doubtful that terrorists would allow phone calls in a future attack.

Then: A few minutes later, the hijackers disengaged the plane's autopilot.

Now: With newer systems onboard some aircraft and in some control facilities, ground controllers can override an attempt to disengage the plane's autopilot. Aviation engineers and flight planners look forward to a day when planes will actually take off, fly, and land themselves, particularly during an emergency when a human pilot cannot react quickly enough.

Then: Flight 77 was approximately 38 miles east of the Pentagon, traveling at an altitude of 7,000 feet. As the plane approached its target, it made a 330-degree turn, descended 2,200 feet, and headed toward the building. The hijacker at the controls pushed the throttles to maximum and went into a dive. Flight 77 hit the Pentagon traveling at 530 miles per hour.


United 93


Then: Almost an hour earlier, United Airlines Flight 93 had departed Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey for San Francisco. The flight crew was unaware that Flight 11 had been hijacked. By 9:03 a.m., when Flight 93 had been airborne for more than 20 minutes, officials at the FAA, American, and United realized that multiple planes had been hijacked, and they were watching a second plane hit the World Trade Center. But crisis managers at the FAA and the airlines hadn't warned other aircraft.

Now: The Transportation Security Administration manages aviation crises such as hijackings. Its aircraft warning procedures are classified.

Then: At 9:07, four minutes after United Flight 175 struck the south tower, FAA controllers in Boston, who were tracking the first two hijacked planes, requested that the FAA's Herndon Command Center outside Washington "get messages to airborne aircraft to increase security for the cockpit." The 9/11 commission found "no evidence that Herndon took such action."

United Airlines did notify some airborne planes to take defensive action at 9:19, when flight dispatcher Ed Ballinger, on his own initiative, transmitted warnings to 16 transcontinental flights: "Beware any cockpit intrusion -- Two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center." Flight 93 received Ballinger's alert, but it wasn't transmitted until 9:23, because Ballinger was still covering other flights, including Flight 175. The pilot of Flight 93, Jason Dahl, replied, "Ed, confirm latest mssg plz -- Jason." The hijackers attacked less than two minutes later.

Now: Controllers have text-based messaging systems to alert aircraft that are similar to the ones in use on 9/11. Security experts believe that controllers would use the systems more quickly and would alert more planes with detailed warnings if a hijacking were to occur today.

Then: After learning through phone calls that other planes had been hijacked and flown into buildings, Flight 93's passengers quickly grasped the gravity of their situation. They attempted to storm the cockpit, presumably to retake control of the aircraft. The 9/11 commission reported no evidence that they succeeded. But the hijackers, perhaps sensing that they were about to be overwhelmed, apparently put the plane into a dive. It crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa., at 580 mph. The 9/11 commission concluded that the hijackers were "defeated by the alerted, unarmed passengers of United 93."

Now: Only a few months after 9/11, passengers on a trans-Atlantic flight subdued shoe bomber Richard Reid, and suspicious passengers on other flights likewise have been attacked by fellow fliers, sometimes at the direction of the flight crew. Following the example of Flight 93, it's almost certain that passengers would resist any attempt to seize an airplane. Indeed, they are probably the best line of defense currently available in civil aviation.


The Government's Response: The FAA and NORAD


Then: The official response to the hijackings and suicide attacks was carried out by the FAA, which on September 11 was required by law to regulate aviation safety and security, and by NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which was established in 1958 to defend North American airspace and the continent. The FAA had no protocols for handling suicide hijackers.

Now: The FAA still manages air traffic, but the TSA handles aviation security and responds to hijackings in coordination with the military. Many of the onboard security protocols for airline crews are classified.

Then: NORAD had prepared almost entirely for an external attack, most likely from the Soviet Union or some other military force.

Now: After 9/11, the U.S. Northern Command was created and was given broad authority to provide command-and-control for the Defense Department's homeland-defense efforts, and to coordinate military assistance with civilian agencies and authorities. The commander of NORTHCOM also runs NORAD.

Then: Both the FAA and NORAD were virtually powerless to stop the 9/11 hijackers. "They struggled, under difficult circumstances, to improvise a homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge they had never before encountered and had never trained to meet," the 9/11 commission concluded.

On September 11, the four hijacked planes were monitored mainly by four different FAA centers -- in Boston, New York, Cleveland, and Indianapolis. As a result, each center had only a partial picture of what was unfolding across the entire system.

Now: The FAA is upgrading its technology to make controllers more aware of all traffic in the system. But crisis operations are handled primarily by the TSA.

Then: Before 9/11, pilots were trained to notify a ground controller of a hijacking by radio, or by "squawking" 7500 -- the universal transponder code for a hijack in progress.

Now: The hijack code hasn't changed, and if a pilot squawks 7500, fighter planes are supposed to be dispatched immediately.

Then: The pilots that day apparently never had the chance. Some passengers reported that the hijackers killed the pilots, and in instances where the pilots were left alive, they were apparently removed from the cockpit so quickly or forcefully that they couldn't alert ground controllers.

After a pilot's hijacking alert, controllers were to notify their supervisors, who then would inform others up through several links of the management chain at the FAA, and ultimately to headquarters. There, a hijack coordinator was to ask the Pentagon's National Military Command Center for a fighter to follow the flight and report anything unusual.

There was no protocol for the FAA control centers to contact the military directly to request assistance with a hijacked airliner. Indeed, as the 9/11 commission reported, "For the FAA to obtain military assistance from NORAD required multiple levels of notification and approval at the highest levels of government."

On September 11, the FAA's planned response began between 8:25 a.m. and 8:32 a.m., when Boston Center managers notified their chain of command that hijackers had seized American Flight 11. Officials in Washington did not contact the Pentagon to request a fighter. Perhaps sensing the same urgency that gripped some of the flight attendants, controllers at Boston Center broke with protocol and tried to contact the military directly.

Now: Current procedures allow the FAA to notify Homeland Security and NORAD directly; those entities handle the aircraft interception.

Then: At NORAD's Northeastern Air Defense Sector (NEADS), Battle Commander Robert Marr sought authorization to scramble fighters. Marr called his superior, who later recalled giving the order to scramble, saying that "we'll get authorities later."


Two F-15 fighters at Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts were scrambled at 8:46, but NEADS didn't know where to send them; the hijackers had turned off Flight 11's transponder. While NEADS was looking for the plane's primary radar return, Flight 11 flew into the north tower. The fighters weren't airborne until 8:53. With no target, they were vectored toward military-controlled airspace off Long Island, where they were held to avoid civilian air traffic in the New York area.

Pentagon planners presumed that any attack would emanate from outside the country, allowing time to identify the threat and scramble fighters to intercept it. On September 11, only seven alert sites in the United States could send interceptors quickly, and each of those sites had two fighter aircraft on standby.

Now: The total number of alert sites today is closely guarded, but has been variously estimated at 24 to 30. During congressional testimony in July 2005, an Air Force general said that the number of alert sites depends on the national threat level, which dictates the Air Force's "alert posture." Maj. Gen. Marvin Mayes, commander of the 1st Air Force, which provides air defense and surveillance of the continental United States for NORAD, said, "Typically, at any given alert site, there are ... two aircraft on alert with a spare." Mayes also said that alert aircraft can be dispatched if a commercial plane deviates from its flight path or if the TSA determines that a passenger aboard is on the government's "no-fly" list.

Then: Two minutes after the fighters were airborne, a controller in New York Center told her manager that she believed that United Flight 175 had also been hijacked. The manager tried to notify his regional superiors but was told that they were discussing a hijacked aircraft, presumably Flight 11, and that they refused to be disturbed.

Now: Given that Al Qaeda's trademark tactic -- conducting multiple, simultaneous attacks -- is well known among security agencies, it's difficult to imagine officials dismissing a report of a second hijacking because they were too busy discussing the first one.

Then: At Indianapolis Center, Flight 77 disappeared from radar after the hijackers turned off the transponder. Controllers thought it might have crashed. Managers at the center did not instruct other controllers to assist those personnel already searching for Flight 77, nor did they or officials at FAA headquarters put out an alert to the surrounding centers to search for the flight's primary radar return. As a result, Flight 77 headed due east toward Washington, undetected for 36 minutes.

Now: Seven principal agencies are still involved in responding to air threats, and government auditors have found marked improvement in the ability to locate and intercept airborne threats.

Then: By the time controllers at Dulles spotted Flight 77, the plane was less than six minutes from the Pentagon. Controllers at Reagan Washington National Airport had directed an unarmed National Guard aircraft, which was en route to Minnesota, to follow it. The pilot moved into position, identified the plane as a Boeing 757, and then watched as it hit the Pentagon.

Confusion also gripped controllers at the FAA's Cleveland Center who were tracking United Flight 93. They understood that the plane had been hijacked, and asked the Herndon Command Center whether anyone had requested military fighters. Cleveland officials reported that they were ready to make that request to a nearby military base, but the command center informed them that higher-ranking FAA personnel were the only ones authorized to do so, and were working on it. After the command center learned that a plane had hit the Pentagon, the FAA took the unprecedented step of ordering all aircraft to land at the nearest airport. Flight 93 crashed at 10:03.

Now: The Government Accountability Office has found improved coordination among those agencies responsible for air security, particularly the FAA, the TSA, and NORAD. The FAA can report that an aircraft is in restricted airspace based on its own radar tracking. It can choose to monitor the aircraft and try to contact the pilot if it determines that the plane is not heading toward a "protected asset," such as the White House. If NORAD and the FAA believe that the aircraft is a threat to a protected asset, NORAD or the Homeland Security Department can dispatch fighters to intercept it. The FAA would continue to try to raise the pilot. If the aircraft doesn't respond, the Defense secretary or the president can order the fighters to engage it.

Testifying in July 2005, Paul McHale, assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense, said, "Carefully defined rules of engagement and a clear chain of command have been established to defeat terrorist air threats. The president has delegated to the secretary of Defense the authority to take immediate effective action in response to a terrorist air threat."

Epilogue


So, could 9/11 happen again? Surely, would-be terrorists could enter the country legally, and presumably they have done so. When actually boarding flights, however, they would face increased scrutiny. But terrorist watch lists clearly aren't functioning optimally, and official investigations have shown that passengers still smuggle banned items, including knives, onto airplanes.

Any attempted hijacking would be met with potentially lethal resistance from passengers. This may be the single best insurance that another 9/11 couldn't happen -- at least, not the same way. It's conceivable, even likely, some experts say, that hijackers could incapacitate the passengers, perhaps by anesthetizing them or using more-powerful offensive weapons. At that point, the plane's fate would lie with the pilots, who would attempt to land immediately under fighter escort. Since 9/11, the military has dispatched fighters many times to intercept civilian airliners. Once intercepted, the hijackers would be finished, because even if they breached the cockpit and took control of the aircraft, they would be shot out of the sky. Of course, terrorists could avoid detection almost entirely by infiltrating the ranks of commercial airline pilots, a strategy that security experts don't dismiss.

Airplanes can also be destroyed without being crashed into buildings. Airline cargo still isn't screened for explosives. Airports don't have the equipment to detect bombs in carry-on luggage. And terrorists could fire a missile at an airplane from the ground -- something they have tried abroad. Simply put, where there's a will, there's a way. Terrorists have watched the government's and the public's response to 9/11, and just as they learned how to exploit weaknesses once, they could do it again.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/15399574.htm

Posted on Fri, Sep. 01, 2006

Five years later, we're still not safe

By GREG GORDON, MARISA TAYLOR and RON HUTCHESON
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — In the five years since terrorists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Americans have accepted inconvenience, sacrificed personal liberties and paid billions of dollars for a security clampdown that touches virtually every aspect of their lives.

And we're still not safe.

A close examination of the federal government's homeland security effort shows that there have been major accomplishments since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. But it also reveals how vulnerable the nation remains to catastrophe.

Federal officials and security experts directly involved in the cat-and-mouse game with terrorists have realized that the nation faces more threats than the government can ever combat. The result is a deadly guessing game on a global scale, with security officials often one step behind the terrorists.

"We can't cover every conceivable target against every conceivable attack at every waking moment," said Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University professor in security studies. "You strengthen one set of targets, they'll shift to another."

Protect against box cutters, and the terrorists try shoe bombs. Protect against shoe bombs, and the terrorists try liquid explosives. Protect airliners, and the terrorists blow up buses and trains. The list of possibilities is endless, but the government's resources aren't.

The nation has spent more than $280 billion on the domestic side of the war on terrorism over the past five years to hire thousands more FBI and Border Patrol agents and buy high-tech devices to secure the nation's planes, trains, ports, nuclear reactors and other potential targets. U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $400-plus billion more.

It's a commitment that far exceeds the post-World War II Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe, but it's not nearly enough to close off every possible line of attack. Some experts say part of the money has been wasted on efforts to combat nonexistent or highly unlikely threats, while other, more pressing risks, were ignored.

In the frenzied attempt to patch holes in the nation's defenses, government agencies seemed to buy a device for everything: from computerized fingerprinting systems to trace explosives detectors to full body scanners to sensors that pick up deadly germs and radiation. Some of it works as advertised; some of it doesn't.

"The problem with much of this technology is that it's valuable only if you guess the plot," said Bruce Schneier, author of "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World." "We could sit here and come up with millions of identifiable risks. If we had infinite money we could address everything. But we have finite money and we should pick and choose carefully."

Independent security experts say the government should sharpen its priorities and adopt a long-term strategy that reflects a deeper understanding of the enemy.

Federal officials take pride in the fact that the United States has avoided a major terrorist attack since Sept. 11, but they're under no illusions that it couldn't happen again.

"I don't think there's any agency that exists that's going to be able to stop every single plan every single time," Assistant FBI Director John Miller said.

Americans are safer than they were five years ago. But any accounting of the government's performance shows missteps and gaps along with the successes.

AVERTING ARMAGEDDON

Some counterterrorism experts think it's only a matter of time before terrorists unleash weapons of mass destruction on an American city.

With so much radioactive material available worldwide, some of it is bound to fall into terrorists' hands, said retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, the former commander of U.S. nuclear forces and the former head of nuclear security at the Energy Department.

Gaps in port security could allow terrorists to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the country. Or they could assemble a "dirty bomb" by using a conventional explosive to spew radioactive material.

The government has done little to prepare for the possibility of a radioactive event.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has spent billions of dollars stockpiling medicines to treat anthrax, smallpox and nerve-gas victims, it's failed to buy experimental drugs that could help hundreds of thousands of potential victims of acute radiation exposure.

The Homeland Security Department is working on a contract for anti-radiation drugs, but only for enough medicine to treat 100,000 people.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge harbors deeper worries: that terrorists will genetically engineer a germ "that is communicable for which we have no antidote and nothing to diagnose."

Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the Sept. 11 commission, agreed that "several highly talented scientists with reasonable access to sophisticated (laboratory) equipment could bring down a city or a large swath of America."

Some experts advocate funding state-of-the-art laboratories that could seek antidotes to new germs within days of their appearance. For now, though, most of the government's efforts are focused on known threats.

Detectors scattered around New York, Washington, Chicago, Minneapolis and dozens of other cities sample the air for anthrax, smallpox and other deadly germs invisible to the naked eye. Biological and radiation detectors are also deployed during the Super Bowl and other major public events.

The Homeland Security Department is spending at least $1.1 billion on a new generation of radiation detectors that are scheduled to be in the nation's ports by year's end. Secretary Michael Chertoff said they would be used to inspect nearly 90 percent of the cargo entering the country by sea.

Terrorists, however, have other ways to wreak havoc, including using low-tech methods to defeat high-tech detectors. Rather than trying to smuggle germs past sniffers, for example, terrorists could smuggle infected people into crowded arenas or mass transit systems as a new form of suicide bombers.

Working with state officials, Homeland Security has developed a list of 77,000 potential terrorist targets, including 1,100 nuclear-power facilities, chemical plants, national monuments and other vulnerable sites.

But a recent internal audit said the agency had failed to conduct risk assessments on many of the 77,000 sites. The result is a security patchwork. Some sites are far more secure than they were five years ago; others remain open to attack.

CLOSING SECURITY GAPS

Gun-toting National Guard troops no longer patrol the nation's airports, but other changes have greatly reduced the risk of a replay of the Sept. 11 attacks. Still, the alleged London bomb plot, which called for using liquid explosives to blow up U.S.-bound jetliners, suggests that Islamic terrorists remain determined to seize or destroy commercial planes.

"They will adapt to try to get around whatever systems we have in place," said Kip Hawley, the head of the Transportation Security Administration.

While Hawley said airline security is "geometrically better than it was five years ago," progress has come in fits and starts - and at a big price.

Annual spending on air safety has nearly quadrupled since 2001, to about $6 billion, in part because the government now deploys a 43,000-member federal force to screen passengers.

But critics say the aviation-security system tends to fixate on the last terrorist plot while overlooking other potential terrorist tactics.

"We're still struggling to keep up with the terrorists," Georgetown's Hoffman said. "It's not just the spending of the money. It's how it's spent and the effect, and how good we are in anticipating and blocking terrorist threats."

U.S. officials have known for years that terrorists could mix easy-to-obtain liquids into an explosive cocktail on an aircraft. Hamilton called the U.S. government's lack of urgency to do anything about it until British authorities uncovered the London plot "extremely disturbing."

On the other hand, some measures adopted in haste were soon rendered inadequate by technological advances. Luggage-screening systems that were installed at major airports across the country after Sept. 11 are already being replaced by new, more efficient equipment.

Some security experts say the government isn't doing enough to guard against the possible use of shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles against passenger jets.

At least two dozen terrorist groups are known to possess shoulder-fired missiles, and a government report this summer concluded that it would take at least 20 years to develop and install laser-based electronic countermeasures on passenger aircraft.

"Obviously, there've been improvements in security," Hoffman said. "But the question is, are they enough?"

Efforts to improve border security have been equally challenging, partly because 1.2 million people enter and leave the country each day. The government hired 2,263 more Border Patrol agents, nearly tripled the number of agents on the northern border and deployed video surveillance cameras and other electronic equipment to monitor remote areas. The equipment has limitations, however, and illegal immigrants can still find their way around agents.

Investigators from the Government Accountability Office were able to cross both the northern and southern borders repeatedly with fake documents and radioactive materials. At one border checkpoint, the investigators posed as employees of a fictitious company and entered the United States with enough radioactive material in the trunks of their vehicles to make two dirty bombs.

"If you want to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the country, just wrap it in a bale of marijuana," Frank Cilluffo, former special assistant to President Bush on domestic security matters, said half-jokingly. "The truth is, we still have a very porous border."

Federal officials say they have to be careful not to impose measures that might not be effective - or even worse could hurt the economies of border states.

"There are a lot of zealots out there who want us to go ahead and basically close our borders to ensure 100 percent security," said Jayson Ahern, who oversees the nation's 322 ports for Customs and Border Patrol. "We have to make sure as we implement security measures that we're not stifling legitimate travel and trade."

Other security gaps increase the risk that terrorists could slip into the country legally, then overstay their visas.

The Homeland Security Department spent more than $900 million on a database tracking system that electronically records the arrival of about 1.5 million airline passengers and other foreign guests each month.

At least 1,300 criminals and one suspected terrorist have been denied entry. But only a small fraction of foreign visitors have to check out through the system when they leave the country, so the government doesn't know how many have illegally overstayed their visas.

CATCHING AND PROSECUTING TERRORIST SUSPECTS

The FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies have made pursuing terrorists their top priority since Sept. 11, and they've had some notable successes as well as some embarrassing mistakes.

Federal officials say they've disrupted at least 10 terrorist plots since Sept. 11 and played a role in the recent arrests in London.

"We know a lot about a lot of people here in the United States and overseas," said John Pistole, the FBI's No. 2 official. "Our concern, of course, is in those gaps in intelligence."

More than 260 defendants have been convicted of terrorism-related charges in the United States, and trials are pending for 150 more.

Charges have been dismissed against eight defendants, and four defendants were deported after charges were dropped, according to Justice Department estimates released in June. The Justice Department didn't report how many defendants were acquitted.

But critics contend that the domestic law enforcement agencies' record is marred by inflated claims, mistaken arrests and botched prosecutions.

"What they've been able to find is people who are loosely talking about doing damage to the United States and, self-evidently, neither have the resources nor the intelligence nor the money to carry these plots out," said Michael Greenberger, a former Clinton administration counterterrorism official.

Others say prosecutors have risked losing out on key evidence by swooping in too early and have snared too many innocent people.

In Detroit, the government dropped charges against members of an alleged "sleeper cell" after discovering that a prosecutor failed to reveal evidence that might have proved their innocence.

In Oregon, FBI agents held lawyer Brandon Mayfield for almost three weeks in 2004, then admitted that a faulty fingerprint analysis had fed their mistaken suspicions that he was linked to the Madrid train bombings.

In Idaho, a federal jury acquitted computer science graduate student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen of charges that he aided terrorists by helping design a Web site for an Islamic nonprofit organization.

When terrorism-related charges couldn't be supported, prosecutors aggressively pursued other criminal charges against suspects, such as for immigration and identity theft violations.

Pistole said the FBI now uses "whatever lawful tools we have" to disrupt a suspected terror plot - whether the charges appear minor or not. "As long as we have disrupted whatever the plot may be."

The Treasury Department, for instance, says it has blocked more than 1,600 terrorist-related bank accounts and transactions, and prevented more than 40 charities with alleged al-Qaida ties to gain access to America's financial system.

Gathering good intelligence from close-knit terrorist cells remains a major challenge, but government officials say the CIA is doing a much better job of penetrating terrorist operations overseas.

Frances Fragos Townsend, the top White House counterterrorism adviser, said she's been "incredibly impressed with both the quality and depth" of the CIA's human intelligence, especially in the last year.

The FBI has more than doubled both its number of intelligence analysts, to 2,161, and the number of special agents devoted to counterterrorism and intelligence gathering, to 4,634.

The bureau also has improved its computer capability, despite a major setback when technical problems led to the scuttling of a new $170 million virtual case file system, said Pistole. The bureau has compiled more than 650 million records into a database known as the Investigative Data Warehouse, which cross-indexes information with the databases of a dozen or more federal agencies.

"There would be a much greater probability that somebody would say, `Wait a minute - some Middle Eastern males wanting to take flight lessons? That fits into this other side of the equation,"" Pistole said. "That's simply something that we didn't have prior to 9-11."

But while the government has killed or captured many top al-Qaida terrorists overseas, experts say intelligence agencies still fail to provide enough information to law enforcement officials.

"There's still this arrogance that exists within all intelligence agencies that it's going to come from the top down," Cilluffo said. "On the flip side, state and local officials still have this inaccurate perception that there's someone behind a locked door with all the information."

The administration has struggled to balance its efforts to improve intelligence with adhering to the Constitution.

The government has appealed an Aug. 17 federal court ruling that struck down an eavesdropping program that targets communications between suspected terrorists overseas and their associates in this country without using warrants. Federal officials say the program has helped disrupt terrorist plots, but they haven't provided any details to support the claim.

Other programs have been scuttled because of civil liberties concerns. Facing complaints from both liberals and conservatives, the government abandoned Operation TIPS, a program that asked citizens to report suspicious activity.

It also scrapped the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, which aimed to compile a massive database of public and private records. Yet components of the Total Information Awareness project live on, according to former senior U.S. government officials. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said some of the program's research was quietly transferred to a unit of the eavesdropping National Security Agency under a program code-named "Basketball."

Attempts to cultivate sources within the Muslim community have been hampered by lingering ill will from heavy-handed tactics in the months after Sept. 11, including voluntary interviews that came off as interrogations, critics said. The FBI also continues to face problems in hiring translators and experts who might make inroads into the Muslim-American community.

"To run an effective counterintelligence organization you have to have intimate knowledge of the people you're trying to penetrate," said Christopher Hamilton, a former FBI counterterrorism analyst who worked on the Sept. 11 investigation.

STRATEGIES FOR THE FUTURE

Experts agree much more needs to be done, but they don't all agree on the priorities and solutions.

"If you look at the first year after the terror attacks, more was accomplished in that one year to stand up programs that made us safer than probably any other year in the history of government," said Dennis Murphy, a former senior homeland security official. "There was the political will to do it."

That bipartisan will has dissipated amid election-year politics, legal setbacks and a torrent of criticism over delays and lapses in nearly every homeland security program. Ridge blamed some of the problems on Congress, which he said sent the Homeland Security Department mixed messages.

"If you keep changing the priorities ... I think that's pretty difficult for anybody," Ridge said.

Hamilton, the former Sept. 11 commission chairman and a former head of the House Intelligence Committee, said the government should set priorities rather than try to guard against every conceivable threat. The recent flap over proposed security-funding reductions for some cities, including New York and Washington, shows how difficult those choices can be.

Security experts agree that, while the nation must bolster security against catastrophic attacks, protecting the homeland should be the last line of defense. The only real solution is to find a way to blunt the appeal of Islamic extremism.

Brian Jenkins, a RAND Corp. counterterrorism expert and the author of "Unconquerable Nation," a new book about the terrorist threat, said the United States needs to become more effective at political warfare "aimed at blunting messages, impeding recruiting and stopping the flow of angry young men into the jihadist circle."

"Unless we can do that," he said, "then we are condemned to a strategy that is equivalent to stepping on cockroaches one at a time."

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?pag ... le&id=2514

Terrorists Use Back Door Into U.S.
Friday, September 1, 2006



While post-September 11 screening in airports has made it more difficult for terrorists to enter the country by air, it seems jihadists have turned to a more traditional means: hopping the fence.

In placing an overwhelming emphasis on protecting its aerial entry points, it seems the United States is neglecting its backyard. The ease in which illegals cross the border is uncanny. Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata County, Texas, told the Fox network’s Hannity & Colmes show August 23, “[T]he border is wide open; it’s porous, vulnerable. It’s open to anybody.” Anybody, in this case, is a scary word.

Recent discoveries at border crossings with Mexico have alerted local authorities of the certainty that Islamic peoples are entering the United States illegally. Sheriff Gonzalez told Cybercast News Service that “Iranian currency, military badges in Arabic, jackets and other clothing are among the items that have been discovered along the banks of the Rio Grande River” (August 21). One particular military patch showed an “airplane flying over a building heading toward a tower. Translators with [the Department of Homeland Security] have said some of the various phrases and slogans on the items could mean ‘martyr,’ ‘way to eternal life’ or ‘way to immortality.’”

The Islamists that cross the border go to tremendous lengths to ensure their mission is a “success.” “Carlos Espinosa, a press spokesman for [Rep. Tom] Tancredo, said his office is aware of a training camp in Brazil that actually teaches people from outside of Latin America how they can assimilate into the Mexican culture” (ibid.).

Along with being educated in the Spanish language to remain incognito upon entering the U.S., the extremists are willing to pay up to $50,000 for smugglers to give them an armed escort across the border (Fox News, op. cit.). With this much money involved, it is safe to assume they are not immigrating for job opportunities. These instances have led local law enforcement to raise the red flag.

The Texas Border Sheriffs’ Coalition has been making an all-out effort to arouse the federal government to stem the tide of these potential terrorists. But even if help arrives, the damage may already be done. “We feel that terrorists are already here and continue to enter our country on a daily basis,” said Gonzalez.

A recent internal audit of the Department of Homeland Security gives the figures to back that up. In the 4½-year period between the beginning of 2001 and mid-2005, the U.S. arrested and then released over 45,000 illegal immigrants from nations that are either known for their anti-American sentiment or are considered “hotbeds of Islamic fundamentalism”—countries such as Iran, North Korea, Syria and Cuba.

That means more than 45,000 people from countries known for their hatred toward the U.S. have already assimilated into the American population.

While the majority of these probably don’t intend to become “martyrs,” how many jihadists does it take to cause severe carnage and destruction? Just 19 pulled off 9/11.

The potential outcome of this ongoing breach of the southern border is chilling—but it shouldn’t be surprising. Biblical prophecy (spelled out in our free book Ezekiel: The End-Time Prophet) strongly indicates the likelihood of terrorist violence creating a high death toll in the United States in the time just ahead—far in excess of anything we have so far witnessed.

These extremists who enter the U.S. illegally could very well initiate a greater and far-reaching terrorist plot as part of the fulfillment of this prophecy.