The Oregonian’s June 1 cover story, headlined “Security a trade-off at U.S. landmarks,” talks about how the federal government is modifying historic buildings in the name of security, including the Pioneer Court House in downtown Portland. (It’s a nice article, by the way, written by Oregonian staffer Jeff Kosseff and not ripped from a wire service.) The article quotes Earl Blumenauer criticizing the federal government for not having a cohesive strategy to choose which security upgrades to make: “It’s symptomatic that the federal government doesn’t have a comprehensive, uniform approach to balancing issues of security, functionality and the role these often historic critical structures play in the health of the community,” followed by his sound bite: “It would be terrible if we have the dominant architectural influence of the next century be Osama bin Laden.”
This made me think of the Mt. Tabor reservoir project: $XX million to cover the Mount Tabor reservoirs. (I say “$XX million” because the estimates range from $20 million to $200 million.) No one seriously argues that covering the reservoirs won’t make them safer against terrorist attack.
Blumenauer hints at the question that the City should be asking, but which I haven’t seen much discussion of in print: If we have (say) $20 million to spend to reduce the terrorist threat, what’s the best place to spend it? (The phrase “most bang for the buck” doesn’t quite work here.) More formally, which of the many possible projects to spend it on will most reduce the threat of terrorist attack? We don’t seem to be doing that; instead we’re building first and planning later.
Let’s say that nationwide we’re willing to spend $10 billion on capital improvements to reduce the threat of terrorist attack, including protecting and improving things like water systems, government buildings, and monuments of symbolic importance. How much would we reduce the threat of terrorism in the United States by spending $1 billion of it in the Gaza Strip and another $1 billion in the West Bank, on things like schools, houses, and places to work? That would be a lot more effective than covering the reservoirs and building parking garages for judges.
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>No one seriously argues that covering the reservoirs won’t make them safer against terrorist attack.
I could argue that. It would go something like this. Terrorists aren’t trying to attack our reservoirs or water systems. They are trying to kill people. The logistics of poisoning a water supply through the Tabor reservoirs and killing large numbers of people would be difficult, if it would even be possible post 9/11 to pull off the poisoning. The Tabor reservoirs are not the lowest hanging fruit for the terrorists. Terrorists prefer attacks that exploit the weaknesses in our defense system that are the easiest to exploit. Reservoir poisoning doesn’t fall into this category. Maybe covering would make the reservoirs safer from attack, but it won’t make our society perceptibly less venerable to attack, which is what really matters in the end.
>…including protecting and improving things like water systems, government buildings, and monuments of symbolic importance.
Attacking the above is not the lowest hanging fruit. Attacking unguarded chemical plants that are essentially unsecured would be easier. Also blowing up a fuel truck on a bridge somewhere, or hijacking a large container ship and ramming it into a port city at high speeds, or some other more easily implemented attack is more likely. With the lack of security at ports there is no telling what type of weapons, ingridents for and/or explosives could be smuggled into the country. In order to stop terrorist attacks, you need to think about how what you would attack if you were a terrorist.
>How much would we reduce the threat of terrorism in the United States by spending $1 billion of it in the Gaza Strip and another $1 billion in the West Bank, on things like schools, houses, and places to work?
Isn’t that pro terrorism liberalism, you know trying to address the root cause instead of the futile approach of band aiding the symptoms 😉
I agree that our domestic counter terrorism approach is not well thought out or organized, primarily because the current administration does not take domestic attacks seriously, which is extremely puzzling. We can spend 180 billion (so far) on fighting in Iraq but we can’t shore up our own defenses? Doesn’t make sense to me.