Historians asserted after World War II that we learned from the catastrophe not to fight the last war and to nip growing threats in the bud before they nipped us. For that reason, the United States must eschew a reactive national security policy. We have to stop thinking about how terrible it was that airlines were vulnerable before 9/11 and start thinking about other weak spots in American security, such as bio-attack unpreparedness, chemical plants and nuclear facilities.
We have to remember that Al-Qaeda and other terrorists will always have the last move, so it is backwards logic to assume that just because we've secured cockpit doors, a jihadist can't ram a semi into a nuclear waste truck in the middle of a metropolitan city like Las Vegas (through which nuclear waste transports frequently pass).
How can the U.S. intelligence community tackle Al-Qaeda without knowing what play quarterback Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or offensive coordinator Osama Bin-Laden will call? Let's start by assessing vulnerabilities, both soft, or unfortified, and hard, or secure, targets. We must also examine whether we can stop such attacks and whether national policy will confront such threats before they materialize.
Many of our nation's weaknesses to terrorism have been examined both within and outside the government, and since our exposure to chemical, biological and many other types of attacks is evident, it appears that what lacks is not awareness of an Achilles Heel but rather a lack of translation into real policy changes.
Case in point, 9/11. As Paul Pillar, the top national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, demonstrated in his June 2004 Times editorial, the intelligence community did not fail to highlight the "catastrophic threat" Al-Qaeda posed, rather the airlines and the federal government failed to act on those warnings.
The CIA's 1995 national intelligence estimate on foreign terrorist threats in the United States not only warned that former Mujahadeem had infiltrated the United States, but also underscored civil aviation as a vulnerable and attractive target.
Furthermore, in a collaboration that would shock sensationalist journalists if they knew that it happened, the FBI and CIA jointly confronted the aviation industry during the mid-90s about the weak points in airline security, but the costs were just too high -- for airline execs, at least.
Moreover, evidence linking terrorist attacks to their perpetrators often is not as clear as liberals or conservatives would like you to think. For example, despite an incredibly thorough analysis of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, investigators were unable to conclude that Osama Bin Laden had organized it.
The fact that neither the government nor the aviation industry responded to intelligence alerts demonstrates that the agencies did have an idea about what was to come, but their warnings were simply unheeded.
As 9/11 illustrates, observations of security weaknesses are often insightful but are heeded as much as the mythological Cassandra's prophesies. A "60 Minutes" investigation last fall demonstrated such a case in a look at the susceptibility of our nation's nuclear weapons and research facilities, which hold over 10,000 nuclear weapons and thousands of tons of weapons-grade fissile material.
During mock terrorist attacks, in which U.S. special forces used simulated weapons to "penetrate the facilities, steal imitation nuclear material and then escape," the terrorist success rate was an astonishing 50 percent. Yet, Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), found such a state of affairs to be "perfectly acceptable." I don't need to describe how unacceptable a 10 megaton thermonuclear bomb explosion would be for any large city. Forget the Twin Towers; surviving Manhattan residents could try and find another place to live for the next few decades.
Now, one would hope that the whistle blowers for such a disaster waiting to happen would be rewarded for their patriotism, but most of them faced demotion, castigation or even termination of employment. It's possible to bolster security, but not when the guards get caught up in politics or distracted by the Super Bowl, as one test showed (note to terrorists -- please do not get past our nuclear facility guards by successfully posing as a pizza delivery person).
Such imprudence begs to ask if there is any hope to safeguard our nation against terrorism if those who make our security policy can't swallow their pride. Unfortunately, in the case of toxic chemicals, the federal government has not exercised its authority to regulate the transportation of such substances, with only one minor exception since 9/11.
As columnist Richard A. Falkenrath recently demonstrated, while President Bush has called on Congress to expand the Department of Homeland Security's authority to regulate security within chemical facilities, no resolution seems in sight. Also, as with aviation in the years before 9/11, the chemical industry has taken only small steps voluntarily to secure its facilities.
With federal bureaucracy and business leaders unable or unwilling to act in the previous two cases, one must wonder if there is any terrorist threat for which our ingenious color-coded security system can help us. In the case of a biological attack, we, the people, play one of the most pivotal roles.
A recent computer simulation of an urban smallpox outbreak carried out by expert medical and IT researchers demonstrates that the two most vital factors in the event of a biological attack are the response times of both the infected-exposed population and authorities. The simulation concludes that, contrary to the theories of many politicians, mass vaccines and city shutdowns not only are not the most effective actions but could also cost billions of dollars.
Voluntary retreat into homes (possibly communicated by the same systems we use for Amber Alerts) and quick, targeted treatment of the infected and their contacts is just as effective and a whole lot cheaper. Although many cities have yet to successfully prepare Homeland Security emergency plans or even spend all the money they were given to do so, we're much more prepared for a bio-chemical attack than four years ago.
If we take a fraction of what we expect from terrorists in the future and apply it in a sweeping security reform the likes of which have never been seen before in history, we will be fine. If private entities decide to go beyond changing the batteries in their smoke detectors, we might just prevent 9/11 from becoming the other terrorist attack we think about to comfort ourselves.
Yet, as Paul Pillar asserts, "Experience has shown that major policy changes tend to come only from actual disasters." Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are startling reminders of this truism, and let's hope Captain Bush will be warned before we wake up again at 8:45 am EDT to fasten our seatbelts.