Our Hazy Anti-Terror Plan

The test of homeland defense is its ability to detect and prevent terrorist attacks from any quarter and in any form. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is flunking. Though Thomas J. Ridge’s Office of Homeland Security has asked for $27billion and produced a blizzard of disjointed initiatives, it lacks a strategy for safeguarding the country from further attacks. The administration needs to focus on protecting vital infrastructure such as roads, bridges, key buildings and power plants.

The foundation of homeland security is good intelligence. Until the government can determine how its intelligence system failed to prevent Sept. 11, it will have trouble figuring out how to prevent large-scale terrorism in the future.

Yet FBI Director Robert Mueller, in an April 19 speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, offered an extended rationalization of those failures. Mueller noted that the hijackers left no paper trail, avoided big cash transactions and may have been planning their attacks for up to five years. But it remains that two of the hijackers entered the U.S. despite being on an FBI watch list and that suspected “20th hijacker” Zacarias Moussaoui was detained well before Sept. 11 when he acted suspiciously at a flight school.

Congress’ efforts to investigate were jolted by the resignation last week of former CIA official L. Britt Snider, who was leading the congressional inquiry into the failure of the spy agencies. Snider’s replacement must, unlike Snider, be willing to question the records of all the intelligence agencies aggressively. The Bush administration also should pressure the CIA and FBI to cooperate fully with congressional investigators instead of hiding behind national security to protect their turf.

If better intelligence is the key to blocking terrorism, a major new study by the Brookings Institution also points out that the Bush administration needs to stop “fighting the last war.” Terrorists are not likely to commandeer an airplane again. What we should fear are the new methods they might be planning.

We obsess over weapons of mass destruction--nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological--but conventional hazardous materials such as dynamite need at least as much attention. To begin with, hazardous materials should be transported in trucks that have anti-tampering features. The Homeland Security Office should pay more attention to the nation’s electricity grid, water and food supplies and the Postal Service. Start with more security personnel, better fencing and monitoring devices. In addition, the nation’s 500 or so skyscrapers should be outfitted with better filter and sensor systems that would detect and clean up contaminants released into air intake systems.

Finally, the Brookings report recommends establishing a federal border agency enfolding the Coast Guard, the Customs Service and the new Transportation Security Agency.

Ridge needs far more clout to effectively carry out these measures. President Bush should recognize that Ridge’s office needs Cabinet rank, and its chief should be subject to Senate confirmation. Until then, domestic security will be as weak as Ridge himself.