Terror's Next Target?
More than five years after 9/11, a frightening inside look at why we are still terribly vulnerable
When it comes to terrorism, it's important to remember that terrorists are interested in carrying out attacks where they have near-certain odds of generating the maximum consequences. We are not talking about an unbounded problem. There are a finite number of meaningful targets worth attacking. Chemical facilities near urban population centers have the potential to inflict the greatest casualties; attacks on the electric grid, oil and gas facilities, major ports, and the food supply system have the potential to create the greatest cascading economic effects, at a price tag that would be in the billions. Defending the targets that would be most appealing to terrorists and investing adequate resources in safeguarding them are worth doing. Unbelievably, the Department of Homeland Security did not even have a good working list of the nation's most critical structures until late 2006-and most of the items on that list are a long way from being protected.
The expense involved in making our catastrophic terrorism targets less attractive is far from overwhelming. Lawrence Wein, a professor at the Stanford Business School, has determined that for a cost of $20 million to $30 million per oil refinery, sulfuric acid could replace the hydrofluoric acid used to manufacture high-octane gasoline, which proved so deadly in the Philadelphia scenario. Danger won't be averted entirely, but sulfuric acid at least does not form a dense cloud when released. The multimillion-dollar price tag for making the conversion may sound pretty steep to the average American, but that sum represents what Americans spend every two to three hours on the war in Iraq.
The LNG facility outside Boston would be considerably safer in a remote location near the harbor's entrance or farther offshore, which would mean tankers wouldn't need to transit so close to a densely populated area. If attacked, the fire would be spectacular, but the consequences would not. The Coast Guard should also reach out to the people who live, work, and play on Boston's waterfront to educate the very people who might witness a dry run or actual event. Our most important and largely untapped national assets are everyday citizens, who too often are kept in the dark about the details of potential terrorism attacks. We would do well to heed Thomas Jefferson's famous admonition, "A nation's best defense is an educated citizenry."
From The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation by Stephen Flynn. Copyright 2007 by Stephen Flynn. Published by arrangement with Random House, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc.
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