Just days ago, national security executives met secretly with airline CEOs to warn them that al-Qaida may be planning to fire shoulder-launched missiles at commercial jets in the U.S. There's virtually no defense.
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By Paul J. Caffera
The war on terror took an unsettling turn last week with the resurfacing of Osama bin Laden and the FBI's announcement that al-Qaida is planning "spectacular attacks ... [with] high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the U.S. economy, and maximum psychological trauma." The FBI identified the U.S. aviation industry as a prime target for al-Qaida, and although critics have complained the bulletin was vague, Salon has learned that in the days before it was issued, national security executives met secretly with top airline officials to discuss the risk that high-tech portable missiles might be used against commercial jets.
According to sources who attended it, the meeting was convened by the year-old Transportation Security Administration on the afternoon of Election Day, Nov. 5. It included Adm. James Loy, chief of the agency; President Bush's secretary of transportation, Norman Mineta; representatives of the Office of Homeland Security; and a group of 25 airline CEOs. Gathered in a secure conference room in the Department of Transportation Building in Washington, they heard evidence of the growing and intractable threat that shoulder-fired infrared-homing missiles pose to crowded commercial jets taking off and landing at U.S. airports.
Sources within the White House Office of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Salon the conference was prompted in part by a recent Senior Executive Intelligence Brief prepared by the CIA, which alerted top Bush administration officials and selected military leaders that terrorists have likely smuggled shoulder-launch missiles into the United States in recent months.
The news was ominous for the millions of people who fly on American jets each year: Every commercial flight is susceptible to an attack from terrorists armed with launchers that are small, relatively easy to obtain and surgically accurate. And even after a decade of research at the federal Aviation Research Laboratory in New Jersey, neither the government nor the aviation industry can do much to mitigate the danger.
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By Paul J. Caffera
The war on terror took an unsettling turn last week with the resurfacing of Osama bin Laden and the FBI's announcement that al-Qaida is planning "spectacular attacks ... [with] high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the U.S. economy, and maximum psychological trauma." The FBI identified the U.S. aviation industry as a prime target for al-Qaida, and although critics have complained the bulletin was vague, Salon has learned that in the days before it was issued, national security executives met secretly with top airline officials to discuss the risk that high-tech portable missiles might be used against commercial jets.
According to sources who attended it, the meeting was convened by the year-old Transportation Security Administration on the afternoon of Election Day, Nov. 5. It included Adm. James Loy, chief of the agency; President Bush's secretary of transportation, Norman Mineta; representatives of the Office of Homeland Security; and a group of 25 airline CEOs. Gathered in a secure conference room in the Department of Transportation Building in Washington, they heard evidence of the growing and intractable threat that shoulder-fired infrared-homing missiles pose to crowded commercial jets taking off and landing at U.S. airports.
Sources within the White House Office of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Salon the conference was prompted in part by a recent Senior Executive Intelligence Brief prepared by the CIA, which alerted top Bush administration officials and selected military leaders that terrorists have likely smuggled shoulder-launch missiles into the United States in recent months.
The news was ominous for the millions of people who fly on American jets each year: Every commercial flight is susceptible to an attack from terrorists armed with launchers that are small, relatively easy to obtain and surgically accurate. And even after a decade of research at the federal Aviation Research Laboratory in New Jersey, neither the government nor the aviation industry can do much to mitigate the danger.
