AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS/MISHA JAPARIDZE

Full Alert

An Arsenal of Ideas for the War Against Terrorism

There is no quick solution to the problems associated with the deadliest terrorist attacks in history. The following eight editorials suggest national and international policies that will take years to carry out but that must be initiated immediately.

Now is the time — today, tomorrow, and the foreseeable future — for the world, the nation, and individuals to prevent the terror of Sept. 11, 2001, from ever occurring again. This special section of RAND Review is one contribution toward that end.

Before capturing the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and the Afghan capital of Kabul in November, anti-Taliban fighters of the Northern Alliance rest in the village of Dasht-i-Qala in the Takhar province of northern Afghanistan.

Suddenly, a New NATO Agenda
By James A. Thomson
James Thomson is president and chief executive officer of RAND. He outlined this agenda at the opening of the 14th NATO Review Meeting in Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 19.
The terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11 have no apparent political aim other than to inflict as much harm as they can on the United States and the West. They are motivated by deep hatred of Western society and of the United States in particular. They want to continue a campaign of mass terror against the United States and also against targets in Europe and Asia. They are focused on "spectacular" acts that inflict maximum damage. There is little question in my mind that they would use a nuclear weapon if they could get their hands on one.
In the long term, we must fight this war on at least nine fronts:
1. Counterproliferation. The greatest danger we face is that terrorist organizations could get nuclear capability. The single most important thing we can do to improve our security is right now to buy and secure as much of Russia's stockpile of nuclear weapons and material as it is prepared to sell.
2. International cooperation. Moderate Muslim regimes are potential targets of attacks just as are all Western countries. We should build a broader coalition that includes many moderate Islamic states.
3. Diplomacy. Diplomacy will be the most important tool for gaining the support and cooperation of Muslim countries. Our own diplomatic abilities have generally withered. Our allies in Europe can be of great help. Some have stronger ties to Muslim countries than we have. And those countries have even stronger ties to other Muslim countries than any of us have.
4. Intelligence. Clearly, we have an intelligence problem. This is a failure of all of us. It seems that every review of U.S. intelligence capabilities in the past 30 years has called for more human intelligence. Likewise, we all must try to get the most out of our technological assets, and sharing among us all needs to be stepped up.
5. Image. The United States has a severe image problem in the Muslim world. A good hard look at ways to improve our communications is in order. We also need to see whether there are sources of hate mongering that can be silenced.
6. Police. Much of the effort to find the top leadership of terrorist organizations and to rip up their networks will be police work. Police will need to arrest and imprison the terrorists, cut off their financial flows, investigate how new foot soldiers are recruited and trained, and figure out how to interdict that. International police and justice departments already cooperate, but we should review our capabilities to make sure we are getting the most out of them.
7. Development assistance. Poverty, hunger, and poor health — especially when seen as a consequence of U.S. policy — help sustain the supply of foot soldiers. America needs to reverse its decades-long decline in international development assistance. We have a right to be sure it is effectively delivered, of course. The key is to improve the delivery of public assistance throughout the Islamic world, especially in the Middle East and around the Persian Gulf.
8. Military power. I don't see how the struggle against terrorism can be won with military force alone. I also don't see how it can be won without it. The more international cooperation we can secure, the less we will actually need to employ our forces.
9. Emergency planning. Every Western country needs to assess its own vulnerabilities. Given the interlocking nature of our societies and economies, there should be an international assessment as well. It should cover all the systems that ensure our personal and economic well-being: energy, water, food, health, transportation, commerce, and electronic communications. The assessment should also cover places where people gather in large numbers. And it should weigh the costs and benefits of potential remedies.
Part of this assessment has been under way in the United States for some time. But I do not have the impression that the work is well integrated, nor am I aware of efforts in other countries or of larger international efforts. NATO, with its responsibilities for civilian emergency planning, should pick up this last challenge.

Strike at the Roots of Terrorism
By Ian O. Lesser
Ian Lesser is a RAND senior political scientist and the lead author of Countering the New Terrorism.
Terrorism has systemic origins that can be ameliorated. Social and economic pressures, frustrated political aspirations, and bitter personal experiences can all contribute to terrorism. Fertile ground is sown for terrorism wherever regimes fail to provide for peaceful political change and wherever economies are unable to keep pace with population growth and popular demands for more evenly distributed benefits.
As the perceived leading beneficiary of a globalized world order, the United States has become a prime target of terrorists. But the roots of their rage are to be found in dysfunctional societies and "failed states." Therefore, the United States has a stake in promoting political and economic reforms around the world as a way to drain the reservoir of terrorism.
Although the United States has been the victim of catastrophic international terrorism, the vast bulk of terrorism worldwide is domestic. Unresolved ethnic and nationalist conflicts have traditionally been a leading source of terrorism, whether in the context of battles for Palestinian statehood, confrontations in the Balkans or the Caucasus, or ethnic frictions in Africa. Left unresolved, these conflicts will persist as flashpoints for local and international terrorism.

AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS/SERGEI GRITS

An Afghan woman and her daughter beg near a mosque in the village of Dasht-i-Qala on Nov. 9. Twenty-four years of war in Afghanistan — combined with drought, displacement, poverty, and human rights abuses — have turned the country into a humanitarian catastrophe.

As a global power, the United States has an overarching stake in containing terrorism worldwide, including terror within state borders far afield. Even where terrorism does not affect America directly, American interests can still be harmed when allies are destabilized or regions become insecure.
In the long term, and as a core objective, the United States should strike at the social, economic, and political roots of terrorism by coordinating global economic and political reforms, intensifying diplomatic initiatives, and remaining prepared for military engagements. Trying to change the environments that encourage terrorism would not imply any reduction in the taboo against terrorism as a tactic, or any sympathy for terrorists. Rather, our environment-shaping policy should simply treat terrorism as we would treat other sources of potential conflict and threats to national security: by giving first priority to prevention.
We must also consider ways to "harden" our policies in the face of the terrorist challenge. For example, successive American administrations have emphasized patient, extended confidence-building measures and negotiations in pursuit of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. Unfortunately, this approach has also offered ample opportunity for terrorism and political violence to derail progress toward a settlement — with disastrous consequences. Here, and in other areas, we will need to reconsider the glacial pace of traditional diplomatic approaches.
As part of our effort to shape the international environment in the coming years, we must shrink the zones of chaos around the world where terrorist networks have already found sanctuary. Afghanistan, Sudan, northern Iraq, and Syrian-controlled areas of Lebanon are leading examples in the Middle East. In Latin America, conditions in Colombia offer similar refuge. Just as a long-term objective should be to strike at the social roots of terrorism, a short-term objective should be to change conditions in areas that have offered safe haven to terrorists and in areas of concern for the future, including the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Where domestic terrorism is rife, as in Algeria, there will also be a risk of spillovers. At the diplomatic level, we should be keenly aware of the risks inherent in allowing political vacuums to exist. Such zones, lacking any clear-cut exercise of state sovereignty, will be the natural breeding grounds and operating environments for violent nonstate actors and terrorist networks.
Meanwhile, any government presiding over terrorist sanctuaries must understand that closing down terrorist bases and expelling known terrorists are essential preconditions for positive relations with the United States — and that continued tolerance of terrorist activity will involve a high and continuing cost.
Unfortunately, the terrorist threat can never be reduced to zero — contained, yes; eliminated, no. If anything, the growing tendency toward action by loose networks and small, ad hoc groups holds the potential for large numbers of incidents with only a loose motivational link. Under these conditions, the United States and its allies must hedge against the risks through efforts to limit the scale and destructiveness of terrorist acts. We must insulate society from terrorist-inspired disruption as well as forestall "superterrorism," or the terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction.
Military instruments are important parts of our counterterrorism arsenal. But the contributions of military assets will go far beyond the traditional uses of force for deterrence, coercion, and retaliation. As an example, air and space power can play a key role in helping to make terrorism — an inherently amorphous and covert phenomenon — more transparent to policymakers and allies. The ability to make terrorism more transparent will play a critical role in coalition building and public diplomacy.

Promote Democracy and Legitimate Governments
By Jerrold D. Green
Jerrold Green is director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy and of International Programs and Development at RAND.
Even if we destroy the terrorist networks that are waging war on America today, the underlying problems that provoke the spread of terrorism from the Middle East will remain. Middle Eastern terrorists will continue to target America as long as they perceive America to be hypocritical in its defense of corrupt and illegitimate regimes while at the same time advocating democracy for itself and others around the world.
The excesses of assorted royal families throughout the Middle East, and particularly in the Persian Gulf region, generate resentment among other citizens who themselves are forced to tighten their belts. Most ruling families monopolize decisionmaking while taking few steps to improve public policy by enhancing education, liberalizing their economies, or otherwise increasing the chances for sustained economic growth and an improved quality of life. In most states in the region, citizens correctly believe that they have little or no influence in decisionmaking. Political alienation is widespread.

AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS/RICHARD DREW

Time is of the essence. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, left, and Lakhdar Brahimi, the top U.N. envoy to Afghanistan, leave a Nov. 12 meeting at U.N. headquarters with diplomats from Afghanistan's six neighboring countries, plus the United States and Russia. The group tried to hammer out a political future for Afghanistan.

The political frustrations compound the resentment that stems from demographic and economic pressures. In the once opulent Persian Gulf of the 1970s, a flood of petrodollars led to the creation of expansive welfare states, providing citizens with free education and health care. Any citizen receiving a college degree in those days was guaranteed a high-paying government job. Nowadays, the Gulf economies are declining or stagnating, while the populations are swelling. The large youth populations still expect those high-paying, undemanding government jobs, but the ruling families have fewer resources available for co-opting the young people.

The United States is a focal point for these grievances. We support the ruling families partly to defend them against Iran and Iraq and primarily to secure Persian Gulf oil for the West. Many Gulf citizens have reason to believe that we prop up these regimes, protect them from their own citizens, and oppose reforms for our own selfish purposes.
If we truly believe that other people need democracy, then we need to promote it invariably. If we intend to remain engaged in the Middle East, then we need to become trusted advocates of political reforms in the region. If we fail to promote democracy consistently, then our perceived hypocrisy will continue to be the rallying cry for terrorists.
Political and economic liberalization could partially alleviate the discontent of Gulf citizens. Increased popular participation in decisionmaking and efforts to open up the economy could offset the widespread anger felt toward the ruling families. Why is this our problem? Because our friends in the Persian Gulf lack both the inclination and the resources to pursue the reforms on their own. We ourselves may be hesitant to confer more freedom on individuals and groups that could strongly oppose our presence in the region. But this is a circular argument: They have opposed our presence precisely because of the lack of freedom and the absence of political reform.
There is no immediate fix. We need to gradually promote democracy and economic development in the Middle East over the long term. We should push for political reforms as well as economic policies to enhance health, education, and employment opportunities throughout the region.
We must not repeat the mistakes we made when we ignored the Palestinians for decades, abandoned Afghanistan in 1989, and walked away from Pakistan a few years later. This time, we must not walk away. We must remain engaged. Indeed, we must help to build an entirely new nation for the Palestinians as well as help to rebuild the nations of Afghanistan and Pakistan — if not for humanitarian reasons, then for reasons of collective defense and even of narrow U.S. self-interest.
Let us not delude ourselves by thinking that the war on terrorism is exclusively a military challenge. It is no less a political one. Political problems demand political solutions. The problem of U.S. illegitimacy in the Middle East can be solved only by a broader, long-term U.S. commitment to legitimate political systems throughout the Middle East.

Give Selected Insurgents Selected Kinds of Support
By Daniel L. Byman
Dan Byman is research director of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy.
In the past, the United States has had mixed success in supporting foreign insurgent movements. But the failures have tended to be cases in which the insurgent groups were not serious threats to the prevailing regimes. For example, years of U.S. support for Kurdish and other fighters in Iraq have resulted in, at best, a stalemate.
In contrast, the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan has posed a potent threat to the Taliban regime for years. Our coordination with the Northern Alliance, therefore, has made strategic sense. The alliance is a useful example of the kinds of insurgent groups that might warrant future U.S. support as the war against terrorism moves beyond Afghanistan.
There are four prerequisites for an armed opposition to succeed, regardless of U.S. support: a willingness to fight and die, the capability to compete militarily with the foe, internal backing from sizable factions of the domestic population, and the support of at least one neighboring state. The Northern Alliance had all four of these before we arrived on the scene.

AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS/MARCO DI LAURO

A truckload of Northern Alliance fighters jubilate at the frontline village of Rabat, just 30 miles from the Afghan capital of Kabul, on Nov. 12, a day before taking the capital and forcing Taliban fighters to flee.

Although necessary, the four internal strengths are not necessarily sufficient for victory. If an insurgency possesses them, however, then external support can make a huge difference — depending on the kind of external support provided.
Out of 74 insurgencies that have been mounted around the world since the end of the cold war, external state support has played a major role in initiating, sustaining, bringing to victory, or otherwise assisting 45 of them. Those 45 include Hezbollah (supported by Iran and Syria against Israel), the Kosovo Liberation Army (supported by the United States against Yugoslavia), and the Taliban itself (formerly supported by Pakistan against Afghanistan).
The value of outside support always depends on the requirements of the insurgent movement, its ability to acquire what it needs domestically, and the strengths of the targeted regime. In general, however, four types of external state support have proven particularly important:

Safe havens are essential to the success of any guerrilla movement, providing insurgents with sanctuary from government attacks and a place in which to arm, train, organize, and stage operations as well as to rest and recuperate.

Money has a powerful effect, allowing insurgents to buy weapons, bribe local officials, pay operatives to write propaganda, and provide a social network that builds a popular base. Because conflict areas are often cash-poor, even a little financial support can go a long way.

Political backing is important. A state can grant insurgents diplomatic legitimacy, push for recognition of the movement in international fora, and encourage relief agencies to assist the group. Political support can also deny assistance to the government opposed by the insurgents.

Direct military support, in which states use their own armies to fight alongside the insurgents, greatly fortifies the effort to defeat government forces.

Other types of support, such as training and weapons, are less useful. Successful insurgents usually learn to train themselves. And they can often buy or steal whatever weapons they need.
The least helpful kinds of state support are individual fighters, intelligence, organizational aid, and inspiration. Outside volunteer fighters seldom add appreciable numbers to the overall insurgent cause, and they could be more of a hindrance than a help. Outsiders may provide intelligence, but successful insurgencies are almost always skilled at collecting information. Organizational aid and inspiration from abroad can be valuable early in an insurgency, but they become peripheral to a movement over time.
Although insurgent movements increasingly receive assistance from nonstate supporters (notably refugees, ethnic diasporas, and wealthy individuals), states can still provide a wider range of support with greater significance. Even the Taliban originally drew on the military backing of Pakistan. If this support had not been provided, the Taliban would have found it difficult to score its initial victories.
In the war against terrorism, therefore, the United States should discriminate in favor of the insurgent movements with the appropriate strengths, and it should provide the most useful kinds of support. The most useful kinds of state support will likely continue to be safe havens, money, political backing, and direct military support.
Washington must also recognize the potential costs of working with insurgents. For example, working too closely with the Northern Alliance would alarm Pakistan, hindering the overall antiterrorism effort. In general, insurgents are often brutal and ill-equipped to govern. Support for them can also drag the United States unwillingly into a broader conflict. Therefore, despite the many advantages of supporting some insurgent groups with some kinds of support, it is wiser, at times, either to limit that support or to withhold it altogether.

Fight Networks with Networks
By John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt
John Arquilla is associate professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and a consultant to RAND. David Ronfeldt is a senior social scientist at RAND.
Assuming that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network is our principal adversary, then we must outperform his network at all five levels at which information-age networks need to excel: the organizational, narrative, doctrinal, technological, and social.
First, at the organizational level, a global confrontation is now raging between hierarchical/state actors and networked/nonstate actors. The age of hierarchies is giving way to an age of networks. It is not yet clear whether the al-Qaeda network has a single hub revolving around bin Laden or has multiple hubs. If it has a single hub, then bin Laden's death or capture would signal the defeat of his network. However, the more a network takes the form of a multi-hub "spider's web" design, with multiple centers and peripheries, as may be the case with al-Qaeda, the more redundant and resilient it will be — and the harder to defeat.
Therefore, the United States, its allies, and friends must learn to network better with each other. Some of this is already happening with intelligence sharing, but much more must be done. It will be a major challenge for the cumbersome American bureaucracy to achieve deep, selective, all-channel networking among the military, law enforcement, and intelligence elements whose collaboration is crucial for success. U.S. counterterrorism agencies have been headed in this direction for years, but interagency rivalries and distrust have too often slowed progress.
Second, at the narrative level, Western ideas about the spread of free markets, free peoples, and open societies contend with Muslim convictions about the exploitative, invasive, and demeaning nature of Western incursions into the Islamic world. The United States has toughened its narrative by deeming the terrorist attacks "acts of war" against "the civilized world," and American public opinion has been galvanized by the revival of the Pearl Harbor metaphor.
The United States may hold the edge in the "battle of the story" in much of the world, but it will have to think deeply about how to retain that edge as U.S. forces take action in the Middle East. More than ever, we must craft an "information strategy" complete with truth-seeking teams of "special media forces" that could discover and disseminate accurate information. And wherever we use military force, we must beware of causing noncombatant casualties, so that we are not vulnerable to the countercharge of being "state terrorists."
Third, in terms of doctrine (or strategy), the al-Qaeda network apparently grasps the value of attacking from multiple directions by dispersed small units. Bin Laden and his cohorts appear to follow a swarm-like doctrine. Swarming entails a campaign of episodic, pulsing attacks by various nodes of the network at locations sprawled across global space and time. Against this doctrine, the United States has seemingly little to pose, as yet. The offensive part of U.S. doctrine is still based on aging notions of strategic bombardment, which is not likely to be a winning approach. A whole new doctrine based on small-unit swarming should be developed, emphasizing special forces and limited air power. The air power would be used mostly to provide fire support to our swarming teams on the ground.
Fourth, at the technological level, the United States possesses a vast array of very advanced systems, while al-Qaeda has relatively few. Nevertheless, perhaps only a small portion of our technological systems has utility against dispersed, networked terrorists.
Fifth, at the social level, the al-Qaeda network features tight religious and kinship bonds among people who share a tribal, clannish view of "us" versus "them." In this regard, the United States faces a profound challenge. If the Pearl Harbor metaphor holds up, and if U.S. operations result in successful early counterstrikes, then there may be unusual public solidarity to sustain the war on terrorism. But a different social divide could also emerge between the United States and Europe over whether the counterstrikes should follow a "war" or a "law enforcement" paradigm.
In summary, al-Qaeda seems to hold advantages at the organizational, doctrinal, and social levels. The United States and its allies probably hold only marginal advantages at the narrative and technological levels. Yet there appears to be little room for al-Qaeda to improve. In contrast, there is much room for the United States and its allies to improve, mostly at the organizational and doctrinal levels. Simply put, the West must build its own networks and learn to swarm the enemy network until it can be destroyed. At its heart, netwar — or information-oriented conflict waged by networks — is far more about organization and doctrine than it is about technology. It's high time we realize this.

Reorganize to Meet Today's Threats
By Bruce Hoffman
Bruce Hoffman is vice president for external affairs at RAND and director of the Washington office. He made these proposals in recent testimony before the U.S. Congress.
How do we begin to reorganize for a "war on terrorism"? Here's how: We need an integrated federal effort, routine threat assessments, and a reconfigured national security architecture.
First, the variety of federal agencies and programs devoted to counterterrorism remain pitifully fragmented and uncoordinated, with overlapping responsibilities but no clear focus. What is now needed is a comprehensive effort to knit together more tightly, with greater organizational guidance, the formidable array of capabilities and instruments that the United States can bring to bear in the struggle against terrorism.
Second, a prerequisite in framing a national strategy is a series of regular assessments of the terrorist threat, both foreign and domestic, as it exists today and is likely to evolve in the future. The last, formal, comprehensive foreign terrorist threat assessment astonishingly was undertaken at the time of the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War — over a decade ago. Although a new assessment was under way this past summer and presumably was in the process of being completed in September, the assessment was long overdue, given the profound changes in the nature, operations, and mindset of terrorists that we have seen in recent years.

AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS/SHAWN BALDWIN

Workers continue the recovery effort at the site of the World Trade Center in New York City on Nov. 4. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks destroyed a secret CIA counterterrorism office in the World Trade Center, seriously disrupting intelligence operations.

From here on out, regular assessments must weigh both the risks and potential remedies. Only once we establish a very solid understanding of the "new terrorism" — its motives, intentions, and capabilities — can we then discern the means to preempt, prevent, and deter terrorist attacks. For example, if religious extremists believe themselves to be profoundly alienated and excluded from the temporal world, then a bridge needs to be built between them and mainstream society before they withdraw into heavily armed, seething encampments bent on mass destruction.
Third, we must reconfigure the U.S. intelligence community to counter the terrorist threats of today and tomorrow rather than yesterday. Our national security architecture is a cold war-era artifact, created more than half a century ago to counter a specific threat from a specific country and a specific ideology. That architecture, which is oriented overwhelmingly toward military threats and hence to gathering military intelligence, was proven anachronistic with the devastating attacks that were carried out on Sept. 11 by nonstate, nonmilitary adversaries.
The U.S. national security architecture remains fundamentally unchanged since the immediate post-World War II period. For instance, an estimated 60 percent of the intelligence community's effort focuses on military intelligence pertaining to the standing armed forces of established nation-states. Eight of the thirteen U.S. agencies responsible for intelligence collection report directly to the secretary of defense rather than to the director of central intelligence. It is not surprising, therefore, that America's HUMINT (human intelligence, or spying) assets have proven so anemic, because our military orientation ineluctably feeds on technological intelligence, such as MASINT (measurement and signature intelligence), ELINT (electronic intelligence), and SIGINT (signals intelligence) collected by satellites orbiting the planet.
The increasing lethality of transnational, nonstate, and nonmilitary adversaries, who operate in loose networks rather than rigid command-and-control hierarchies, underscores the need to redistribute our intelligence collection efforts from traditional military adversaries to the spectrum of enigmatic adversaries who now pose such a salient threat to our national security. The U.S. intelligence community's roughly $30 billion budget is already greater than the national defense budgets of all but six countries in the world. But we now need to redistribute our personnel and resources so that we can respond fully to current and future terrorist threats.
Our anachronistic intelligence architecture has also created a dangerous gap in our homeland defenses. The CIA is responsible for foreign intelligence collection and assessment. By law, the CIA cannot operate within the United States. Domestic counterterrorism, therefore, falls within the purview of the FBI. But the FBI is primarily a law enforcement and investigative agency, not an intelligence agency. Worse yet, its investigative activities span a broad spectrum — perhaps too broad a spectrum — of offenses that includes kidnapping, bank robberies, counterespionage, serial killings, and other even more prosaic crimes in addition to terrorism.
The new Office of Homeland Security potentially provides an ideal opportunity to bridge this gap between the CIA and the FBI by creating a new analytical capability for domestic terrorist threats. However, such an analytical capability must also be buttressed by a new organizational structure in which the counterterrorism efforts of all domestic and defense agencies can be coordinated. At this time, it is not clear if the Office of Homeland Security will be granted sufficient authority and resources for this larger task.
It is time to go beyond simple bureaucratic fixes and to radically restructure our foreign and domestic counterterrorism capabilities. Just as the narcotics problem is regarded as so great a threat to our national security that we have a separate agency — the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency — specifically dedicated to counternarcotics, so should we create a similar organization committed exclusively to counterterrorism.

Stop Selling Out Aviation Security
By Brian Michael Jenkins
Brian Michael Jenkins served as a member of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security. He is a senior adviser to the president of RAND and a research associate at the Mineta Transportation Institute.
The Sept. 11 attacks demonstrate that compliance with rules does not equal good security. Security that is based solely on compliance with specific rules of the Federal Aviation Administration ceases to be dynamic. That kind of security becomes predictable. An intelligent observer can watch the procedures, discern the vulnerabilities, and exploit them — as terrorists did on Sept. 11. If an army were to do exactly the same thing in every battle, the army would soon be defeated. Rule-based security filters out the dumb; it lies wide open to the clever.
An improved security force is prerequisite to any significant improvement in aviation security. The current screening force is haphazardly recruited, unscreened, underpaid, inadequately trained, and poorly motivated to do a very difficult job. There is nothing inherently wrong with those who perform this difficult task, and in some places they do an excellent job, but the overall performance is patchy. The problem is systemic. Competitive bidding for security contracts and high turnover rates among personnel encourage cutting corners.
One option is to create a professional national service encompassing screeners, ramp guards, and air marshals, thus affording opportunities to make aviation security a career. Training can be more dynamic than mere classroom instruction. Realistic testing can prevent boredom and complacency and also provide opportunities for cash rewards and points for promotion. Performance can be made a matter of personal pride and a means to personal advancement. Years ago, when there was still a draft, we turned conscripts (and even young men given a choice between jail or enlistment) into good soldiers. We certainly can turn volunteers into a dedicated security force.

AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS/JOE MARQUETTE

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, leans over Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W. Va., to talk with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Tex., during a Nov. 13 hearing on an aviation security bill. In October, the U.S. Senate voted 100-0 in favor of legislation that would make airport screeners federal employees, but the U.S. House rejected the measure. Congress passed a compromise bill on Nov. 16.

It should not take long to create a well-trained professional security force — if we put our minds to it. People have referred to the Sept. 11 attacks as another Pearl Harbor. Eleven months after Pearl Harbor, we successfully landed an army of 100,000 men on the shores of North Africa. This is a less daunting task.
But we need a new organizational approach. We must consider every option except the continuation of the current contract-to-the-lowest-bidder system. A federal force has some advantages. A quasi-public aviation security authority is also a possibility. Although such an authority would be autonomous, it would remain under contract to either the department of transportation or the department of defense and thus be subject to federal review — and not subject to inappropriate industry or political influence over its staff. It would answer directly to the American public. The era of overt and covert industry influence has to end.

The cost would run to several billion dollars a year. Yet with approximately 700 million airline passengers a year in the United States, and with a security tax of three to four dollars per flight — an amount most passengers now would readily pay — security would be self-funding.
The tax ought not to appear on the airlines' top line or as an expense in calculating the bottom line. Likewise, the tax ought not to be subject to the annual budget negotiations in Congress. Put the security tax on every airline ticket, and direct the revenue stream to a trust to be used exclusively for its declared purpose. This idea surfaced in discussions of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security in 1997, but the idea was rejected then as unwarranted and politically unfeasible. Times have changed.
We must credibly reestablish air travel as safe and secure. The vitality of our economy depends on it. The common defense of our nation depends on it. Our lives depend on it.

Use Biometrics to Protect America
By John D. Woodward, Jr.
John Woodward, a former CIA operations officer, is a senior policy analyst at RAND.
There is no foolproof technical fix to counter terrorism, but biometrics could help make America safer.
Biometrics use a person's physical characteristics or personal traits for automatic, nearly instantaneous human recognition. Digitized fingerprints, voiceprints, iris and retinal images, hand geometry, keystroke dynamics, handwritten signatures, and, of course, facial features are all examples of characteristics that can identify us. Although biometric technologies may seem exotic, their use is becoming increasingly common.
Biometrics could be used to impede terrorism in several ways — notably, access control, fraud prevention, and terrorist identification.
Access control. Currently, many sensitive areas of airports are secured by the use of badges and tokens. An airline employee typically swipes a badge and gains access to a runway, baggage loading area, or airplane. But badges and passes are easily forged, stolen, or misplaced.
We can do better. Airline employees could be required to present a biometric, such as the iris, to a sensor. From a foot away and in a matter of seconds, the sensor can capture the iris image, convert it to a template (or computer-readable format), and search a database of templates of authorized personnel. A match would confirm that the person is authorized to enter a secured area.

AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS/MIKE DERER

Joseph Atick, chief executive officer of Visionics Corp., a top maker of fingerprint and facial recognition technology, poses next to a video screen of images of himself at the company's Jersey City, N.J., offices. Visionics has designed a facial recognition system that can alert airport workers in seconds if a security camera picks up the face of a known terrorist or felon.

This is not science fiction. Such a system has been used at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) uses a separate system in which 65,000 enrolled and vetted international travelers voluntarily use hand geometry to verify their identity at ports of entry. The system enables INS officers to spend more time on problem cases.

Fraud prevention. Travel documents should be used only by the persons to whom they are issued. But passports, visas, and boarding passes can often be forged, misplaced, or stolen. By placing an encrypted biometric signature on such a document — using a bar code, chip, or magnetic strip — we can make it harder for someone to adopt a false identity or produce a forged document.

Terrorist identification. Biometric facial recognition systems could also help thwart future terrorist activities in airports. Cameras at an airport or a port of entry could scan people�s faces to capture their images. Computer algorithms could then convert each image to a template that could be instantly searched against a computerized database of suspected terrorists. Visual inspection by law enforcement officials would confirm the computer match.
Although facial recognition systems are not technically perfect, they are improving. And although civil libertarians might decry their use as an invasion of privacy, three quick points need to be made:

We do not have a constitutional right to privacy in the face we show in public.

We are all subject to heightened scrutiny at airports and ports of entry, because they are sensitive facilities. The law requires us to undergo screening through metal detectors, and the law forbids us to make jokes about threats on airport property.

Facial recognition systems make no final determinations of a person's identity but, rather, alert the authorities to the need for additional diligence.
In addition, facial recognition systems do not focus on a person's race, skin color, hairstyle, or manner of dress. Rather, a computerized "faceprint" measures the distances and angles between geometric points on the face like the mouth extremities, nostrils, and eye corners. These objective measurements are free from human prejudices and preconceptions.
The U.S. government — including the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the U.S. Department of Defense, and our political leadership — has taken steps to encourage the use of biometrics. It is time to do more.
The federal government should promote continued research and development into biometrics by providing additional resources. The Biometric Consortium, which is the U.S. government's focal point for biometric technologies, should be expanded, and the newly created Office of Homeland Security should oversee efforts to use biometrics to protect America.
There is no high-tech silver bullet to solve the terrorism problem. And it's very doubtful that the current use of biometrics could have prevented the recent tragedy. But to the extent that we can make terrorism more difficult in the future, we can achieve a safer America. Biometrics is one technology that can eventually help us achieve this goal.