A Higher Degree of Terror
In Britain, the threat of educated extremists
Two of the suspects had contacted an American organization for foreign doctors. In the United States, 1 in 4 doctors is a graduate of a foreign medical school; more than 10,000 foreign-educated medical students applied for residency programs in 2006, with more than 30 percent from India and Pakistan. More than half of the states do criminal background checks on license applicants. And foreigners applying for a medical license undergo standard fingerprinting and embassy screening.
Yet terrorism experts say that a more intense focus on the medical profession seems a misguided use of limited resources. And there is no movement to change current requirements. "Focusing on a group, doctors, is just not a productive way to find a terrorist," says James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. "More important than the fact that they are doctors is that this is a group of people who know each other. People tend to recruit people they know. That could be a medical group, or it could be a group of plumbers." Says Clark Kent Ervin of the Aspen Institute, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security: "Even if there were a criminal check and a terrorist watch checklist, what this incident shows is that neither would be helpful in an instance like this, where so-called clean-skinned people were involved."
In Britain, the most pressing question for investigators is whether the cell responsible for the attacks was recruited and formed overseas or if its members became radicalized after they got here and came together on their own. If the former holds true, tighter screening might reduce the chances of future infiltrations. But Shoebridge says any vetting procedures are probably doomed to failure, since candidates from countries like Iraq can provide only references that can't be properly checked. Further, asking applicants about their religious beliefs would be ethically questionable—and wouldn't necessarily ferret out the truth.
The sloppy handiwork of this cell indicates that its members received no training and were "recruited and radicalized in the U.K.," Rhodes says. U.S. sources say they are skeptical of al Qaeda connections: "If there is a connection, it's a pretty tenuous one," said a counter-terrorism official. Rhodes, however, suspects a connection and thinks the cell was probably organized by a professional operative keen to recruit skilled medical workers. She notes that an Anglican priest recently told British officials that he had met an al Qaeda leader from Baghdad who promised more attacks in Britain and the United States. His chilling threat: "Those who cure you will kill you."
With Emma Schwartz and Kevin Whitelaw
advertisement
