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Terrorism and PreventionBy Hank Chase Are the London bombings Al Qaeda or not? Al Qaeda has morphed into a loose confederation of like-minded souls and local organizations. Perhaps there is central leadership, with at least rhetorical leadership and inspiration from Bin Laden and his lieutenants. And it now seems there is a traveling cadre of trainers who exhort and instruct, i.e., in bomb-making, a far-flung network of Islamic jihadists. Regrettably if al Qaeda is becoming a franchise, it is growing quickly and the lack of central authority makes the threat much more difficult.How hard is it to protect commuter rail systems? VERY difficult. These systems are very diffuse with multiple passenger loading/unloading points, multiple trains operating on the same tracks in both directions, typically very crowded with lots of movement and noise and passengers with bags and suitcases and backpacks, and maybe, worst of all, thousands of miles of unguarded and otherwise unprotected track, bridges and tunnels. Plus the very nature & purpose of commuter rail – moving as many people as quickly and conveniently as possible to and from work with minimal impediments – works against anything other than minimal security. What are the major challenges? Screening passengers and checking their baggage would so gravely slow down the system that commuter rail would be abandoned by most users. “Hardening” or making inaccessible all the miles of commuter rail lines is prohibitively expensive. Video surveillance in its current technological state is not enough (obviously, London’s Underground had many, many security cameras). What should be done to address security risks for commuter rail? Two fronts – one old fashioned, one modern. Old fashioned: deploy many more (we have been delinquent in this, especially post Madrid’s 3-11) sworn peace officers, armed and trained in terrorist identification and other – dirty word, sorry – profiling techniques, with explosive-smelling dogs (!), in the blocks around the rail stations, in the station, among the passengers (walk the platforms, walk the waiting rooms, walk the trains, lay eyes on people and let Fido smell everyone up close)… randomly inspect bags, and the like. Modern: devote more money in advancing the ability of video surveillance to detect and draw attention to suspicious behavior or unusual dress or posture (e.g., when one is wearing a vest bomb). There are some great advances being made in this regard. Speed up the deployment of back-scatter X-ray and similar devices that can see under one’s clothing (deal better with the privacy issues that have slowed down deployment concurrently). Perhaps most importantly, better fund the development and deployment of sensors and sniffers that can “smell” explosives from some remote distance. And deploy this technology at some distance from the rail station. If we detect a bomber once they are on the platform or train car, it is too late. Are they coming to America and can we do anything about it? The recent bombings, all in places with vigorous security, London especially, underscore how very difficult it is to protect public venues, and maintain any real sense of openness and freedom of association. When we talk about risk we are really talking about the intersection of 3 things: abstract vulnerability (and we see in London and Egypt and in the American public square that we are hugely vulnerable… it is beyond our means and will to make everything and every place into a fortress); criticality of a target or consequences of outcome of an attack (and we do have the wherewithal to harden places like military bases, the Pentagon, and events like the Inauguration and the Super bowl…but regrettably they constitute a grave minority of all possible targets in the US); and threat (what our intelligence tells us the bad guys are up to). Even if DHS could effectively rank or otherwise deal with criticality of targets in the United States (and they have foundered in this regard) and especially given the near impossibility of broadly dealing with vulnerability in an open society that allows freedom of movement and assembly… really the only way to lick the terror scourge is by dealing with threat as well as possible, which means greater investment in and oversight of our intelligence apparatti. We must interrupt and disrupt the enemy’s planning and that means reliance on measures like the Patriot Act, as distasteful as that may be in some quarters. If the bad guys are here and outfitted and have a plan… it is too late. Americans will die. Additional comments after the second bombing: Was this a cock-sure stick-in-the-eye reminder to London authorities that al Qaeda can strike when and where they want in the UK, even in the face of significantly raised security and alertness on the part of English authorities? If it was, and it is too early to tell of course, it bodes very ill for UK authorities under the present British security philosophy being able to stop al Qaeda. We already know the high-tech Tube video surveillance system, though very useful to the Brits in their post-event forensics work, failed to prevent the deadly attack two weeks ago. Moreover the intelligence apparatti in the UK – one of the west’s finest – had very little specific idea the attacks were planned and no idea whatsoever who the bombers were… before they struck. The lack of lethality – thank goodness – of today’s bombing raises the hope that this was a rather poorly planned, shoddily executed copy-cat attack by perhaps other non-al Qaeda domestic UK-haters or some not-connected-to-al Qaeda amateurish Jihadists. Let’s hope so. If not, and if it was a quick “machismo” follow up by al Qaeda or their allies… we are in serious trouble. For it means, that under the present security environment, both in the UK and in the United States, where security is balanced with privacy and civil liberties, and where the battle is being raged largely within existing government budgets (no real increase in police numbers, no real rush to develop better technology, etc.)… that we cannot stop ‘em. Two weeks after the worst terror attack in UK history, with significantly raised security and alertness… we still cannot stop ‘em. And America almost certainly is next on the terrorists’ agenda. About the author: Hank Chase is the Director of the Homeland Security practice at Smart and Associates LLP (a 500 person management consulting company). He is a retired active duty Navy Commander who was the inaugural lead for Critical Infrastructure Protection for all Navy and Marine Corps. bases worldwide. He is also a former Policy Officer to the President of the American Red Cross and before military retirement was the Navy's Y2K Ashore Program Officer responsible for Y2K-related infrastructure security and mission continuity at all Navy installations worldwide. He has led or conducted over 1,000 infrastructure vulnerability assessments or audits and has significant explosives/ blasting experience. He holds a BS in Civil Engineering from the Virginia Military Institute and an MS in Civil Engineering from Stanford University and is a registered Professional Engineer. He advises or has advised the Department of Homeland Security; US Air Force; US Navy; Department of Commerce; several Defense Agencies; and several state governments on Critical Infrastructure Protection strategy. hchase@smartllp.com
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