Imagine hundreds of passengers enduring waves of heat outside Terminal 1 on a busy summer day at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). They stand in lines that weave down the sidewalk as a minivan approaches the curb, then erupts in an explosion that rips through the crowd and the terminal. An eerie cloud settles over the area. Authorities arrive and determine that the vehicle-borne IED, or improvised explosive device, was packed with cesium-137.
At the same moment, another bomb detonates in New York's Times Square. This time, the device is filled with the radioactive substance americium.
The material used in both "dirty bombs" was easily obtained. Cesium helps to treat cancer. Americium is found in smoke detectors. What's more, cesium causes cell damage. It reduces the ability to flex muscles because of its chemical similarity to potassium. Americium particles lodge in the bones. Long-term cancers may result.
Sadly, such a scenario is not just the stuff of Hollywood movies.
Designing a security strategy to prevent attacks like these is a huge challenge, one which the next president may inherit. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was expected to develop an effective strategy against major threats. But six years after Sept. 11, ongoing, high-profile failures do not inspire confidence. Border security technology is full of bugs, and Katrina victims continue to suffer in formaldehyde-soaked trailers.
It is doubtful that the Bush administration will leave a comprehensive strategy for homeland security. So, the next president will need to provide one, which should include the following elements:
• Take the offensive against potential threats. Part of this equation is better intelligence -- understanding the motivations and capabilities of our enemies, and using that information to anticipate and prevent attacks. For all its tough talk on terrorism, the Bush administration has done a particularly poor job on this front.
• Secure dangerous materials. The ingredients for a dirty bomb can be found in thousands of facilities across the United States -- from hospitals to laboratories to water treatment plants -- which often have extremely lax security.
Cesium and americium bind chemically to concrete and asphalt and become lodged in cracks on the surface of sidewalks, streets and buildings. Clean-up is nearly impossible. In some cases, demolition is the only practical solution.
• Enhance international relationships and cultivate new ones. Our allies are an extended defensive barrier, and there is much we can learn. Our solid relationship with the British enabled us to disrupt a terror plot to smuggle liquid explosives onto airplanes bound for the United States in 2006.
• Make state and local law enforcement a truly integral part of a homeland security strategy. Federal communication with these partners must improve. Law enforcement stands on America's front lines and can offer valuable perspectives that inform the national intelligence cycle. They know their communities best. Programs established through the recently enacted 9/11 act will help facilitate information-sharing and avert needless panic caused by ambiguous "gut feelings." DHS's continued unwillingness to include local first responders meaningfully in preparing intelligence products borders on the irresponsible.
Threats to our nation will not cease anytime soon, and the next president will not have the luxury of time to develop a strategy after taking office. Passengers at LAX, tourists in Times Square and Americans everywhere deserve one now.
Originally published in the San Jose Mercury News.
REP. JANE HARMAN, D-El Segundo, is chair of the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee. She wrote this article for the Mercury News.
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Why are we so worried about Foreign Terrorists?
I am far more likely to be shot down at my local college or university or McDonalds by some deranged fool with enough guns and ammunition to make Osama Bin Ladin envious.
The likely hood of a foreign terrorist striking in my neighborhood is say hmmmm about impossible to none.
But yesterday some fool shot a handgun into the ceiling of the local Dennys.
We don't need foreign terrorists. Tell Osama Bin Ladin and his crew to stay home. We are fully capable of terrorizing ourselves. Thank You Very Much!
The first thing the US should do to combat terrorism is to stop our unconditioned support for Israel.
But Harmon is part of the problem in that regard.
Well, jane, Bush and his madman antics have taken us so far over the edge of the cliff, that we'll be lucky if a new president can make American matter in the future. We're getting close to being a third world country with the ultra rich and the poor who pull lattes for them at Starbucks. We're now a country that tortures, rapes and murders with the president's blessing and apparently McCain will follow suit. If the dems keep knifing each other we'll have McCain to salute soon.
You mean "Ready! Fire! Aim!" isn't a strategy?
Know one seems to be talking about another way the terrorists are attacking - financially. They attacked the World Trade Centre - why? Because it's the financial district. And now, the country is going deeper and deeper in debt and the economy is collapsing - Bush's war and his poor plans are helping the terrorists win.
Got to get the financial house in order.
YOU MEAN THE NEXT PRESIDENT CAN'T GO ON PAYING BLACK MAIL TO THESE TERRORIST MILITIA'S LIKE BUSH IS DOING TO STOP ATTACKS??????
Rep. Harman--During an interview re: the Bush warrantless wiretapping/waterboarding, you noted that when you had been briefed about the topic something to the effect that "it was a lot for a grandmother to take in". I realize I'm slighlty misquoting you but it's to make the following point.
- The system is full of gamesmanship, where the three letter agencies, know that they can flood you and other members of congress with information or scenarios that normal people don't process.
I think that the way to get to a good security strategy is to take a holistic view, to ensure the governrment doesn't get too far away from its people, and that the security services are a reflection of the people and general populace. To that end, establishing a draft or civil service alternative, giving people in security no rights beyond other citizens when it comes to actions within the system, but also don't take away their rights. People in these agencies actually have to suffer the sort of surveillance they are discussing using on terrorists, which probably drives young people away, once they realize the rest of their lives is going to be like this.
Your Honor, I do apologize ... I do, in fact, agree with you completely on your latter points. But to throw-up the specter of a dirty-bomb, and your first point, is, I believe, inappropriate. Crime does not usually seek to be glamorous. It also does not "need to know" whatever defenses may now or in the future be deployed against it.
Your Honor, I flatly do not agree with you on a single point. If you're actually listening, then "hear me out." I'll be brief.
"The messiest scenario," say a bomb at LAX "filled with radioactive cesium," is a worst-case scenario and therefore quite compelling. It engages one's thoughts, at the exclusion not only of "other threats," but also "other interpretations of 'national security.'"
A criminal of any sort is usually an opportunist. Finding himself disaffected, in a disaffected situation, he stumbles-upon an opportunity and does something very-nasty with it. "Very nasty" can of course mean an endless number of things; so many things that you're never going to guess nor interdict them all.
A far better strategy is a holistic one: remove the source of "disaffection." Build an internally stronger Republic in which people feel actually-listened-to. Build a Republic with strong internal infrastructure, busy factories, alternate sources of supply. In other words, re-build more of the nation that we were in, say, 1950.
Finally, Your Honor, do the right thing: submit Articles of Impeachment. You talk about the fundamental importance of "law enforcement," and you are right. Therefore, make it so. No Civil Officer of this Government, absolutely without-exception, shall be permitted to apply his or her Office toward illegal ends. No Civil Officer shall usurp or evade the law. Anyone and Everyone that does so will be Removed from office... that is to say, Impeached.
Articles of Impeachment are not a political thing, nor are they "discretionary." You're the Grand Jury: if you see probable-cause, you must indict. Once the process (and it is a sober and sorrowful process not to be engaged-in lightly) is necessarily started, you and your esteemed Colleagues in both Houses must perform it with the sobriety of a juror in a first-degree murder case.
This nation cannot grow and prosper with lawlessness and abuse in its highest halls, any more than it can grow and prosper with bombs in its airports. The effect, really, is very much the same.
This is what the Democratic Party must do if one of your party members is elected President.
1 - Arrest Bush and Cheney for treason and put them on trial. They set up a propaganda program to sell the Iraq War to the American public.
2 - Get US troops out of Iraq immediately - no BS 'phased withdrawal' spread out over years. The Iraqi people are smart and brave enough to solve their own troubles.
3 - If you want to secure American borders, begin by dismantling all US military outposts overseas. Explain to me why the US have military installations in Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Germany, England, etc. The Cold War is over.
.
And an acorn could fall and bonk you on the head...
WHAT SAY YOU ABOUT THAT?
Where's the challenge in convincing Americans of the inherent FEAR that the sky is falling when you've accomplished all this FEAR to date.
THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR BUT THE FEAR MONGERS THEMSELVES.
Dear Jane,
Why be a Henny Penny?
America
XXOO
.
All your fearmongering has nothing to do with us, Harman, it's all about you and your lordly power. You and Clinton and the rest of the Republicrats have destroyed our freedoms and, by so doing, committed treason against our country.
I is my deepest Obama-like hope that, when Bush leaves for Texas, you go with him.
Nothing but trying to scare the pants out of the ill informed.
there will be no next president...bush and chaney are not going anywhere..get ready for the takeover...this country deserves these clowns
While we all are aware that our country has to have adequate safe guards and security measures, I can't help but think, just another 'repuglican red alert' scare campaign here. Is this kind of written piece any real help or, maybe, as big a threat to our life and freedom as that of a 'terrorist' attack? Every time we hear this stuff we have to realize our civil liberities are being eroded away and we all lose. If Bin Laden was behind 9/11, I'm not convinced, he is getting a win here as we withdraw into our armed camp of insecurity and fear. One other thing, after watching Jane Harman on this issue I do not trust her any more than gwb. She has sponsored and supported some of the most questionable legislation I have seen. She certainly is no supporter of our constitutional rights, check her record.
"Law enforcement stands on America's front lines and can offer valuable perspectives that inform the national intelligence cycle."
Restore Posse Comitatus.
Then ask. .
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Posted March 11, 2008 | 08:39 PM (EST)