Ridge Praises Int'l Effort on Air Marshal Plan

Ridge Praises Int'l Effort on Air Marshal Plan
AP, Washington

December 31, 2003


Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge on Tuesday hailed the response of other 
nations so far in the U.S. quest to get air marshals deployed, if necessary, to 
protect commercial airplanes against terrorist attack. 
"I'd put the family on the plane," Ridge said when asked about how strongly he 
felt about new safety measures the Bush administration has undertaken. 

Ridge made the rounds of morning news shows a day after he Department of 
Homeland Security issued a new directive giving the government the option of 
denying access to U.S. airspace to airlines which do not cooperate. 

"Working with our partners around the world, I think we have made great 
progress in this area," Ridge said in an interview with ABC television. 

"People travel. People must travel," Ridge said. "We cannot submit to the fear 
associated with the continuous scream that they (terrorists) would use aviation 
as a means of attack." 

Under the new policy, foreign airlines risk being denied access to American 
airspace if they don't obey the new directive that some international flights 
crossing over or headed to the United States must carry an armed law 
enforcement officer to thwart terrorists, Homeland Secretary officials said 
earlier. 

"Any sovereign government retains the right to revoke the privilege of flying 
to and from a country or even over their airspace," Ridge told a news 
conference Monday. "So ultimately a denial of access is the leverage that you 
have." 

There has been no indication so far that any country will refuse U.S. demands 
to place guards on designated flights. 

Ridge told ABC that the notion of grounding another nation's commercial flight 
would be "seen as a last alternative" if the United States cannot resolve 
concerns about passengers on a given flight before that plane's scheduled 
takeoff. 

Ridge says the nation will remain at the "Code Orange" high alert through the 
New Year's holiday and perhaps beyond. "We are as concerned today as we were 
yesterday," he said Monday. "We'll be concerned as much this week as we were 
last week." 

The new directive requires selected international flights that enter U.S. 
airspace to carry an armed law enforcement officer aboard. The Homeland 
Security Department will require such officers on airplanes where intelligence 
information leads to a specific concern about that flight. 

For months, U.S. security officials have feared that al-Qaida operatives would 
again hijack planes to use them as missiles. The most recent concerns centered 
not on domestic passenger flights, but on airliners or cargo planes that take 
off from overseas and cross over U.S. airspace, either on their way to a U.S. 
airport or to a foreign one. 

The Bush administration raised the terrorism alert level to orange, or high, on 
Dec. 21, citing nonspecific but credible threats of an imminent terrorist 
attack. 

Air France canceled six flights between Paris and Los Angeles over Christmas, 
after security discussions between U.S. and French officials. 

Homeland Security reviews the passenger and crew manifests of all planes bound 
for U.S. airspace, generally after the plane has taken off, because passenger 
lists are usually finalized only minutes before the plane taxis from the gate, 
department spokesman Dennis Murphy said. 

Some passenger lists are reviewed beforehand, he said. 

Some international airlines said Monday they would cooperate with the new U.S. 
requirement. Others, including airlines in Canada and Germany, said they 
already were using armed marshals on some flights. Britain said Sunday it had 
tightened security for trans-Atlantic flights and suggested, as it has in the 
past, that it might put armed sky marshals on some planes. 


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