While patiently waiting in the security line at DFW Airport in mid-December on my way home to Florida following final exams, I noticed a lady being interrogated by Transportation Safety Administration personnel.
I was able to hear most of the conversation. Apparently, she had exceeded the maximum liquid ounces allowed for carry-on, primarily in mouthwash and shampoo, that passengers are permitted to take aboard commercial aircraft. The fact that she appeared to be north of 80 years old, was barely five feet tall, and walked with a cane did not seem to mitigate her offense with airport security personnel.
After all, rules are rules; good security is good security. With terrorists seeking to strike headline-grabbing blows against democratic–and some non-democratic–governments, no stone could be left unturned in the war on terror. If it meant scolding an elderly woman, giving her an extra few pat-downs and examining her carry-on baggage as carefully as one would examine an original copy of the Declaration of Independence, so be it.
About a week earlier, an anguished father was waiting for his appointment at the United States Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria. His name was Alhaji Umaru Mutallab and he is among the most prominent citizens in Nigeria, a former government minister and the retired chief executive of the country’s largest bank. He is well-known and extremely well-respected throughout the country.
When he got to meet with embassy personnel, he requested, indeed begged, for their assistance. He relayed troubling news: that he had had a recent telephone conversation with his son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who told him that he had found the true meaning of Islam, that he was destined to perform his religious duty and that his family should simply forget about him. His father was certain that this was an unmistakable warning of his son’s intent to engage in terrorist activities. The meeting ended with embassy personnel promising to look into the matter. As is often noted, the rest is history.
Action was taken by our intelligence system, but not the kind to be expected given the nearly $100 billion invested since 9/11 in upgrading our intelligence capabilities and fostering greater intelligence sharing among the myriad–at last count 16–spy branches responsible for keeping our country safe.
While we are not sure of the decision-making process within the morass of agencies in the weeks between the Abuja meeting and Christmas day, we do know that Abdulmutallab was placed on a list–but not the list that would have enhanced his chances of being apprehended before he could put his plan into action. You see, there are actually three different lists maintained by the U.S. government and passed on to airport security officials worldwide. The lowest-level list, on which Abdulmutallab was placed, consists of approximately 60,000 people who, while having raised red-flags about possible suspicious behavior or contacts, are not deemed of sufficient concern to warrant any additional screening at airports.
Those on the second list, about 13,500 people, are deemed to be mid-level threats. They are to be questioned at all airport security stations and are subjected to enhanced luggage and body searches. Had Abdulmutallab been placed on this list–which would easily be justified based upon his father’s concerns–merely a cursory examination would have revealed that he possessed a valid visa to enter the United States, he paid for his ticket in cash and he did not check in any luggage, all tell-tale signs of suspicious activity and, when added to his father’s warning, an unmistakable forewarning of what followed. Yet neither security personnel at Nigeria’s airport nor at Amsterdam’s Schippol questioned him before he boarded, and he did not have to pass through the body scan machines used at Schippol which would have revealed the explosive packet within his undergarments.
So, an elderly, petite woman with a walker is subjected to more scrutiny than a walking bomb who practically has an “I am a terrorist” sign, in bold letters, affixed to his shirt. Is this the return-on-investment for the tens of billions we have expended in upgrading our security and intelligence capabilities since that tragic day more than eight years ago?
Had American intelligence personnel passed the information obtained from his father to airport security officials in Lagos and Amsterdam, the plot almost certainly would have been stopped before Abdulmutallab boarded a plane for the United States. Were it not for the brave actions of a Dutch passenger, the failure of our multi-billion-dollar security and intelligence systems to red-flag an easily identifiable terrorist would have resulted in more tragic consequences.
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Then there’s Michael Hicks, an 8-year-old Cub Scout from New Jersey whose name has appeared on the mid-level list since 2003, barely a year after he was born. He remains there despite repeated attempts by his family, with the assistance of his district’s representative, to have his name removed and is routinely subjected to enhanced security screening whenever he travels.
Nathan Mitzner is a junior risk management insurance major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
