"Missile Threat Means New Rules at Airports"

Sunday, March 30, 2003

Missile Threat Means New Rules at Airports
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York (NY) Times


WASHINGTON, — Federal authorities will order major security improvements at
several of the nation's largest airports after inspections showed that
passenger planes taking off or landing at those airports would be vulnerable
to attack by terrorists using shoulder-fired missiles, senior Bush
administration officials said.

The inspections, which began several weeks ago, are being conducted by a
federal task force created by the White House late last year after
terrorists linked to Al Qaeda tried to shoot down an Israeli passenger plane
on takeoff from an airport in Kenya in November. The two small,
shoulder-fired missiles barely missed the plane.

Administration officials would not identify the airports that would be
required to make major safety improvements, citing security reasons. But
they said the list included several of the nation's busiest, and that the
improvements would include new, round-the-clock security patrols and
tightened electronic surveillance of the flight paths used for takeoffs and
landings.

This week, dozens of National Guard troops were deployed to the Los Angeles
International Airport to patrol the perimeter and road checkpoints, in part
because of what security officials acknowledged was concern about
shoulder-fired missiles.

A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages
Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark Liberty International airports, said it was
aware of the missile threat and was responding to it. The spokesman,
Pasquale DiFulco, said the port authority had a policy of not discussing
details of its security planning. "But we have certainly taken the necessary
steps and precautions to address these issues," Mr. DiFulco said.

Bush administration officials said that nationwide inspections, which have
been carried out at roughly 80 airports by officials of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal
agencies, demonstrated that a terrorist with a shoulder-fired antiaircraft
missile weighing as little 30 pounds would find it relatively easy to evade
security at many large airports and fire a missile that could bring down a
passenger plane.

American intelligence and law enforcement agencies say that Al Qaeda and
affiliated terrorist groups are believed to have an arsenal overseas of
dozens of shoulder-fired missiles, including the American-made Stinger and
the Russian SA-7, and that others can be bought by terrorists on the black
market for several thousand dollars each.

Many of the Stingers available on the black market are left over from the
American-backed guerrilla effort in Afghanistan to force out Soviet troops
in the 1980's. The Stinger and missiles like it are capable of shooting down
planes several miles away at heights of more than 10,000 feet.

Administration officials stressed that they had no evidence to suggest that
Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups had managed to smuggle any of the small
missiles into the United States, or that they intended to try.

"We are not aware of any credible, specific intelligence information that
Manpad attacks are being planned against commercial aircraft in the U.S. at
this time," said James M. Loy, director of the Transportation Security
Administration, using the acronym for Man Portable Air Defense Systems, the
technical name for the missiles. "The administration does, however,
recognize the potential threat."

Officials say the attempt to shoot down the Israeli plane in Kenya last
November had created alarm in Washington that Al Qaeda would try a similar
attack in the United States. The incident near the international airport at
Mombasa came six months after a similar Russian-made missile was fired at an
American military plane in Saudi Arabia. That missile also missed.

American intelligence officials say that in the attacks in both Kenya and
Saudi Arabia, the planes may have been saved by antimissile technology that
is routinely installed in Israeli passenger jets and United States military
planes.

There is no similar federal requirement that antimissile defense systems be
built into American passenger planes. But since the Kenya attack, a growing
bipartisan movement in Congress has called for the installation of
antimissile systems on American-owned commercial planes in the United
States.

After a Congressional briefing on the issue by representatives of the
Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon earlier this month,
Representative John L. Mica, a Florida Republican who is chairman of the
House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation, said that the missile threat
was sobering and "we can't afford not to act." Mr. Mica said that he would
seek immediate federal financing to protect commercial planes against
terrorist missiles.

Federal aviation officials say that it costs about $1 million to $2 million
to outfit a passenger plane with equipment to deflect a missile.

There are a variety of different types of antimissile technologies
available, including a system that releases decoy flares to draw a
heat-seeking missile away from a plane; other systems use jamming equipment
to interfere with a missile's guidance system.

Lawmakers say that among the American passenger planes likely to be
outfitted first would be those used routinely for flights overseas,
especially to parts of the world where Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups
are known to exist.

In a speech last month to an air travel conference in Thailand, Steven J.
McHale, the No. 2 official in the Transportation Security Administration,
warned his Asian counterparts about the dangers of portable missiles and
called on their governments to step up security around their airports and to
make sure that their own military stocks of the missiles were secure.

"There are thousands available on the gray and black markets, and many of
these are finding their way into the hands of terrorist groups," Mr. McHale
said of the portable missiles. He warned that a single missile attack on a
passenger plane in Asia "would likely cripple international aviation."

Asa Hutchinson, the under secretary for border and transportation security
in the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview that the
federal government had taken a variety of steps in recent months to deal
with the missile threat at major airports, although he could not reveal
details for security reasons. "We're much better off than we were some time
ago," Mr. Hutchinson said. "But certainly this is a threat and a
vulnerability that we're concerned with."

While the federal government has the authority to order airports to step up
counterterrorism measures, Mr. Hutchinson said the Department of Homeland
Security understood the budget constraints on many large airports. "There
will be negotiation," he said. "Obviously we're not going to be telling them
to do something they're totally incapable of doing."

The worldwide inventory of portable surface-to-air missiles is estimated at
700,000, according to government officials and private weapons specialists.
The vast majority of those missiles are in government arsenals, but
munitions specialists say that shoulder-fired missiles like the Stinger and
the SA-7 are so small and portable that many are diverted from government
stocks each year and sold on the black market. A Stinger is about 5 feet
long, 6 inches wide and weighs about 35 pounds when fully armed.

John Iannarelli, a spokesman for the F.B.I., said that many airports were
being asked to step up their training of security officers to be on the
lookout for the missiles. "A lot of this is educational," Mr. Iannarelli
said. "These are rather conspicuous weapons, and we want to make sure that
it is recognized for what it is."

Administration officials said some large airports had stepped up
anti-missile security measures long before the federal inspectors arrived.

Logan Airport in Boston is flanked on three sides by water, and airport
officials have provided local clam diggers with mobile phones to allow them
to call in if they see suspicious activities.

The chief spokesman at San Francisco International Airport, Mike McCarron,
said that inspectors from the Transportation Security Administration
completed their review of the airport's antimissile defense this month. Mr.
McCarron said airport officials believed San Francisco International was
better protected than others because it is surrounded by water, allowing the
Coast Guard to keep a close eye on activities nearby. He said that the
airport had also stepped up its road patrols on the perimeter of the
airport.

"We think we've got a pretty good idea of what's going on," he said.

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