American Inspection Teams Check Threats At Foreign
Airports
Aviation safety teams are hard at
work in cities all over the world, after they were dispatched this
week by the Bush administration. The White House is concerned that
al Qaeda terrorists or their sympathizers might try to launch
shoulder-fired missiles at commercial aircraft. The result could be
disaster.
Can It Be Done?
Can airports from Manila to Istanbul defend incoming and
outgoing aircraft against a shoulder-fired missile attack? The
question was brought home in spades earlier this year when an
Israeli jetliner departing Kenya was the target of two Soviet-era
SAMs fired by terrorists at the departure end of the runway. Both
missiles missed their target. Now, the Bush administration has very
quietly set up an office within the Department of Homeland Security
to deal with the missile threat. HSD has -- also, very quietly --
asked for $2 million to fund the operation.
Shhhhhh.
The inspections began overseas several weeks ago. But the White
House, worried that leaked word of the effort would spark
terrorists to strike sooner rather than later, kept the whole thing
hush-hush until security was tightened at airports where US
carriers frequently do business. Airports under scrutiny include
those in Baghdad (below) and Basra, Iraq; Manila; Istanbul;
and Athens.
But the inspections are just the first step in the
administration's efforts to protect aircraft from portable SAM
missiles, whether they're of American or Soviet design. So, during
the past week, the government has notified eight contractors that
they're finalists in the process of selecting a missile-defense
system for non-military aircraft.
Although the work is being done very quietly, there is a sense
of urgency. Intelligence agencies say the al Qaeda has dozens of
small missiles, many of them Stingers left over from the American
effort to help Afghan rebels in their fight against Soviet
occupation in the 1980s. What the terror network doesn't have, arms
dealers say can be found easily enough on the black market for as
little as just a few thousand dollars each.
Gauging The Threat
"Throughout the global war on
terrorism, the manned portable missile threat is perhaps the
greatest threat that we face anywhere in the world," General John
Handy, commander of the US Transportation Command, told reporters
recently. He said the missile threat in Iraq "is somewhere between
high and moderate, depending upon what part of the country you are
in." Just this past summer, there were two incidents where
suspected Iraqi militants fired SAM missiles at American military
aircraft. In both cases they missed, partly because of the anti-air
missile defenses on board the aircraft.
The American inspections of foreign airport security will
continue, according to Homeland Security. But locations where
teams are looking into the issue won't be announced until the
inspections are finished -- or nearly so.
ANN Correspondent Dave Bender contributed to this
article.