Media

August 29, 2006

News Release

Contact:
Mary Whitlow
703-525-0770
mwhitlow@potomacinstitute.org
/www.PotomacInstitute.org

Mr. Bowman began by explaining that terrorists in the world today try and attack when the opportunity presents itself, and are giving less and less regard for who or what the target actually is. The problem then that the U.S. faces is that the potential targets for terrorism to exploit or attack are no longer specific U.S. interests but essentially anywhere the United States is vulnerable. As he explained, the sheer number of cargo containers and passengers that we need to monitor is physically overwhelming if we are to truly secure our methods of transportation.

Mr. Zumwalt was the next speaker and focused on our need to be able to “determine the intent of passengers” boarding our airlines. While he acknowledged that there are numerous ways to carry out an attack, we should find the “weakest link” in the terrorist chain, which, he explained, would always be the terrorist himself. Mr. Zumwalt went on to describe how the U.S. and Israeli methods of deterring terror on airlines differ. “The United States looks to find the tools of the terrorist (via “sniffers,” metal detectors, ban on liquids), while the Israelis look to find the terrorist (via pre-flight interviews and passenger psychological analysis).”

Col. Badolato emphasized the potential for U.S. maritime trade to provide terrorists with ample targets in addition to methods for gaining access to the U.S. mainland. He began with a somber dose of reality noting that even before terrorists took center stage, drug cartels and illegal alien smuggling into the United States via the waterways, had not slowed down. Cargo security still has an abysmally poor track record. “The rate of [cargo] theft has increased by one-third in the last five years at a cost of twelve to fifteen billion U.S. dollars.” As if the situation at sea wasn’t bad enough, the terrorists are currently developing their own mariner and port operational skills as seen in the attacks on the USS Cole and the French oil tanker Limburg. Col. Badolato gave an ominous warning as to the devastating effects should a terrorist organization successfully attack a major port. “What would happen to the world economy in the event of successful port attacks in Hong Kong, Rotterdam, and Singapore?” He also explained how the economy of the world could be brought to its knees if key maritime trade choke points such as the Straits of Hormuz, Malaca, Bab Al-Mandab, the Panama Canal, or the Suez Canal were struck individually or simultaneously with terrorist attacks. In addition to the possibility of a maritime terrorist attack crippling the world economy, a terrorist attack against certain chemical container ships could lead to a catastrophic ecological disaster. After summarizing how vulnerable America and the rest of the world is to a potential maritime terrorist attack, Col. Badolato reiterated the phrase, “The [terrorists] only have to be right once. We have to be right every time.”

Mr. Clarkson, with the TSA, described an interesting rubric in which all terrorism can be classified. Picture a 2x2 square with frequency of attack on a side and intensity of attack on the top of it. He explained that when frequency and intensity are low there is essentially nothing to worry about, and when frequency and intensity are both high you have a “self-correcting” situation because a civilization can’t survive under constant catastrophic attacks without taking preventative action. The terrorism that we face today fits into the other two boxes where the intensity is high but the frequency is low (the 9/11 attack) or the intensity is low and the frequency is high (bus bombings in Israel). From there he went on to explain how there should be international standards that would apply to all airports to maintain the defensive posture and while some airports would enforce additional security measures seemingly at random, the point of this is to prevent the terrorists from being able to go ahead with a plan without a large measure of uncertainty themselves.

The final speaker at the panel was Mr. Fainberg who, as former Director of the FAA's Office of Policy and Planning for Aviation Security, offered a professional summary on mass transit and airline security. He reminded us that attacks on civil aviation are nothing new and that terrorists have been evolving and refining methods of attack all along. As airline security specialists recently found out with the uncovered plot to blow up U.S. passenger jets over the Atlantic, the conventional idea of a bomb being smuggled onboard is being complimented with the terrorists’ ability to carry on binary explosives, which ingredients individually are completely innocuous. On a final note before the question and answer session, Mr. Fainberg noted that the Transportation Safety Administration and the Department of Homeland Security are both very new agencies whose size and characteristics will need to be further refined before the process of protecting U.S. mass transit, airways, and waterways can be completely streamlined.

The International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies were
co-sponsors of this event.

The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is an independent, 501(c)(3), not-for-profit public policy research institute. The Institute identifies and aggressively shepherds discussion on key science and technology issues facing our society. From these discussions and forums, we develop meaningful science and technology policy options and ensure their implementation at the intersection of business and government.

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