U.S. May Need to Pay to Install
Antimissile Devices on Airliners

PHILIP SHENON / NY Times 9apr03

WASHINGTON, April 8 — Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said today that the threat of missile attacks on passenger airliners was so serious that the government might have to consider paying for the installation of antimissile devices on the fleets of commercial airlines in the United States.

Mr. Ridge said that, for now, the government should pay for research on technology that could be used to protect passenger planes from the portable shoulder-fired missiles that are known to be in the arsenal of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

His comments, made in a meeting with reporters, were welcomed on Capitol Hill among lawmakers who have recently introduced legislation that would require the federal government to pay for the installation of antimissile technology on commercial planes, a program that could cost billions of dollars.

The issue took on urgency after terrorists linked to Al Qaeda fired two shoulder-fired missiles at an Israeli passenger plane as it took off from an airport in Kenya last November; the missiles just missed the plane.

Unlike passenger planes of airlines in the United States, Israeli airliners are routinely outfitted with antimissile technology, like decoy flares or electronic jamming equipment.

"At some point in time, we will have to have a national public policy decision as to whether or not public dollars should be expended for that purpose," Mr. Ridge said today. "But I think the first public dollars we ought to expend is to take a look at the technology itself to see if adaptation can be made."

	Last updated: April 9, 2003
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He said that the threat of shoulder-fired missiles was "an issue that we began working on before we even had a Department of Homeland Security," adding that "it's an area of concern, legitimate concern, for commercial aviation internationally."

Mr. Ridge said that recent intelligence information suggested that the threat of other types of domestic attacks by Al Qaeda might have eased slightly and that his department had plans to begin to eliminate some of the tightened security procedures that were imposed in the days before the war with Iraq.

Shortly before the American invasion, Mr. Ridge raised the national color-coded threat level to orange, suggesting a "high risk" of terrorist attacks, and ordered security enhancements at federal buildings and other facilities under a program known as Operation Liberty Shield.

But senior government officials say they have been pleasantly surprised by a drop-off in intelligence suggesting that Al Qaeda was close to any sort of attack on American soil.

"There's a lot of positive news out there, in spite of the adversity and the challenge we're confronting in Iraq," Mr. Ridge said. "I do envision at some point in time we will probably start cutting back on Liberty Shield and, ultimately, we'll reduce the national threat level."

He declined to predict when the threat level would be reduced. "We check periodically," he said. "To date, we keep it where it is."

At his meeting with reporters, Mr. Ridge said seven large cities — New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington — would be the chief beneficiaries of a $100 million discretionary fund that had been provided to the Homeland Security Department for counterterrorism programs in the current federal budget.

New York would be the largest recipient in the program, the Urban Area Security Initiative, with $25 million, with Washington in second place at $18.2 million.

Mr. Ridge said the seven cities had been chosen on the basis of an analysis by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency of where terrorists were most likely to strike, and he suggested it should be a model for how federal counterterrorism money was distributed.

Mayors of large cities and governors of populous states have complained about rules that are intended to distribute federal security aid evenly among the states, without regard for the density of their populations or the security threats they face.

Mr. Ridge, the former governor of Pennsylvania, said the federal rules needed to be rethought.

mindfully.org note: Here's another great idea that we've passed along to the Department of Homeland Security, which is really keen on getting lots more ideas from everyone interested in protecting themselves from the consequences of their own action or inaction. More on what you can do as a good American citizen below. But, in the mean time, you'd better start cutting back on nonessential cash expenses such as food, heat, and shelter, in order to pay the increases in taxes that are coming down the pike.

"We want to make sure that the first focus is on preventing catastrophic terrorist events," he said. "And obviously, those would occur if a weapon of mass destruction were used in a populated, dense urban community."

While the $25 million for New York City is only a tiny fraction of the federal money the city is seeking for antiterrorism measures, New York's two senators, both Democrats, said they were pleased by the distribution formula announced by Mr. Ridge.

"While many of us disagree with the overall amount of dollars the administration is allocating to homeland security, they have been fair to New York when it comes to dividing the money," said Senator Charles E. Schumer.

New York's other senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said that she was "pleased that New York is recognized as the top priority" and that "this can set a precedent for future distributions."

Other Democrats stepped up their criticism of the administration over proposed legislation that is intended to expand security measures around the nation's chemical plants but would emphasize voluntary compliance by an industry that has repeatedly been identified as a prime candidate for terrorist attacks.

Senator Jon S. Corzine, a New Jersey Democrat who is offering a bill that would place far stricter security controls on the industry, said that "voluntary efforts are simply not enough" and that "we would not accept this in the context of nuclear power security, and we shouldn't accept this to protect Americans from the dangers posed by unprotected chemical plants."

Be sure to call the Dept. of Homeland Security with your own emotionally-charged suggestions. They are just sitting by the phones waiting for your call. Well, actually there're in the building next door, with their ears against the wall and eyes glued to the webcam they placed in your toilet. So keep those suggestions rolling in folks! And don't forget to watch Fox News for all that great fiction on the War in Iraq.

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