Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 3

3 SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 WEDNESDAY SECTION 1 CHICAGO TRIBUNE U.S. UNDER ATTACK i. irr vs. i SECURITY GAP Yf By John Diamond and Naftali Bendavid Tribune staff reporters WASHINGTON The billions of dollars that America spends combating terrorism suddenly seemed paltry Tuesday as the symbols of American power-jet planes, skyscrapers, the Pentagonbecame death traps for the victims of a massive and undetected terrorist attack. Up to now, nightmare scenarios for America have been a missile crashing down on a city, or a biological weapon going off in a crowded subway.

Washington was on the verge of deciding to build a missile shield against enemies who may field weapons that could threaten the United States. And major cities across the country practice their responses to a biological or chemical attack. Few envisioned the horror that unfolded Tuesday, in which terrorists, some apparently armed only with knives, took the controls of three jet airliners and flew them into the Pentagon and the twin towers of the World Trade Center. U.S. intelligence has focused on countering the kind of attacks that had happened: truck bombs, explosives hidden in airplane luggage, and bio-weapons released in crowds.

Intelligence about Tuesday's attack began to emerge only after the fact. Electronic intercepts by U.S. intelligence suggested the involvement of exiled Saudi millionaire Osama bin, Laden, according to senior U.S. officials. That only added to the embarrassment facing a U.S.

intelligence and national security apparatus that spends some $12 billion a year fighting terrorism. The U.S. devotes substantial attention to cracking bin La-den's organization. The World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the USS Cole bombing last year all linked, according to U.S.

officials, to bin Laden helped feed the growing U.S. anti-terrorism apparatus. But the vast resources devoted to detecting terrorists, including clandestine intelligence sources, electronic eaves- U.S. SAFETY REPORT So u. Reuters photo by Shannon Stapleton A law enforcement officer reacts to a collapsing World Trade Center tower Tuesday.

dropping devices, law-enforcement departments devoted to counter-terrorism, and scores of overseas FBI and CIA bureaus, failed to produce detailed warning of Tuesday's attacks. "There was no intelligence," said Rep. Curt Weldoh, (R-Pa.) a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee. "This was a massive operation and it's a failure that was caused by a lack of resources. Our government failed the American people." The Bush administration refrained from publicly pointing to any group or individual but strongly suggested that it believed foreign organizations, possibly state-sponsored, were responsible.

In his nationally televised address, President Bush said the U.S. would go after not only the terrorists themselves but also any states that gave them sanctuary. "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them," Bush said. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he was told by senior FBI and CIA officials that electronic intercepts captured suspected members of bin Laden's Al-Qae-da organization reporting back on the terrorist strikes.

Despite that apparent intelligence coup, no one at the FBI or the CIA could explain how a terrorist strike that must have involved dozens of participants v- i 'V tiar Firefighters comb the remains of said Tom Bloom, a Fokker 100 pilot for American Airlines. "Somebody had to be at the controls, and it wasn't the pilots because I don't know of any pilot who would sit there and allow his aircraft to be flown into the building." The GAO and the DOT inspector general have blamed both the airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration, a branch of DOT, for failing to shore up documented weaknesses in the security checkpoint system. Less than two months ago, the FAA announced it was seeking $99,000 in civil penalties against American Airlines for allegedly failing to apply appropriate security measures on six flights last year. American Airlines operated two of the hijacked planes involved in Tuesday's attacks, officials said. As the investigation into Tuesday's terrorist strikes began, authorities did not say exactly how the hijackers breached security.

One passenger aboard the plane that crashed into the PentagonBarbara Olson, a CNN commentator and wife of Solicitor General Ted Olson reportedly told her husband that the hijackers were armed with knives and cardboard cutters. Generally, blades less than 2 12 inches long can legally be carried aboard aircraft, according to airline security standards. Some experts predicted there would be a radical shift in U.S. security measures, including banning people without tickets from going past checkpoints. "I think we will probably see more of a move to the El Al Israeli-type of approach, wtth armed vh could have escaped the global information dragnet the U.S.

has deployed. In fact, there have been numerous warnings of impending terrorist activity over the past few months. In June the Pentagon pulled Marines out of an exercise in Jordan and rushed ships to sea from a Mideast port after intelligence surfaced of a specific threat. A month earlier, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh said the main objective of terrorist organizations such as bin Laden's was perpetrating "large-scale, high-profile, high-casualty terrorist attacks against U.S. interests and citizens." Not everyone was ready blame U.S.

intelligence. John Pike of the think tank said the failure was mainly one of airport security Four separate planes, each with long flight plans that meant they were loaded with fuel and "virtually flying fire-bombs," were hijacked in a carefully coordinated attack. "The notion that if we had just spent more on intelligence this would not have happened is absolutely unfair," Pike said. An incident in 1994 in which a small aircraft crashed into the White House, raised in some minds the specter of an airliner crashing into an important government building. "Sure, I've imagined it," said Sen.

Robert Byrd, as he left the Capitol Building in response to a hasty evacuation ordsr as rum ors swirled that another plane was heading for the seat of U.S. government. Although the means of Tuesday's attack were unanticipated, many U.S. cities have planned extensively for chemical or biological weapons attacks involving hosts of casualties. On Tuesday in Lower Manhattan, many of those skills emergency response, triage, mobilization of an entire region's hospitals came into play.

Samuel "Sandy" Berger, national security adviser to President Clinton, said U.S. national security officials have long known that the nation is vulnerable to determined, well-coordinated terrorist attack. I Chicago Tribum What this means, as American Airlines Capt. Bruce Killips noted, is that "just about anybody intent on getting into the cockpit could." Once that was accomplished, the rest of the hijackers' job may have been relatively easy. "Anyone with basic flying skills could drive right into the building," Reuters photo by Peter Morgan the World Trade Center after Tuesdas terrorist attack.

1 procedures and equipment." But clear gaps are apparent. The front line of America's airport security system, government investigators found last year, is manned by workers whom the FAA has failed to ensure are fully trained. Complicating the problem is the heavy turnover of airport security personnel. At Logan, security employees turned over at a rate of 207 percent a year, well above the national average of 126 percent a year. One reason is the low pay The GAO estimated that security screeners at U.S.

airports typically are paid as little as $6.25 an hour, compared to as much as $14 an hour in Europe. After getting past airport checkpoints, a small number of hijackers could overpower the flight crews, said Rich Roth, a former Secret Service agent who is now an aviation security consultant. Logan and the other two airports involved Newark and Dulles International handle mostly domestic traffic, which would have allowed the terrorists to avoid the heightened scrutiny in place at terminals with a lot of international flights, Roth said. The planes may have been chosen because they were crosscountry flights. "They wanted flights full of fuel," Roth said.

"That way you've got more fuel to blow up." Tribune staff reporters John Schmeltzer, Geoff Dougherty, Stephen Hedges, Rogers Worthing-ton, Andrew Zajac and Flynn McRoberts contributed to this report. Easy cockpit access, lax security aid hijackers FAA takes unprecedented action For the first time in history, the FAA grounded all flights nationwide as a result of Tuesday morning's attacks. The FAA said the ground stop would be in place until at least noon Wednesday. During a national ground stop, no civilian flights are allowed, but military and law-enforcement planes are not affected. FAA'S RESPONSE TO TUESDAY'S ATTACKS All times EOT Although the exact number of flights in the air at the time of the grounding was unavailable, between 4,000 and 5,000 planes are in U.S.

airspace at any given time during a normal weekday morning. Here is what happened to Tuesday morning's flights: The FAA issues a nationwide ground stop. The FAA also closes all New York and Washington, D.C, area airports. All flights are ordered to return to their airport of origin or land at a nearby airport. Some flights are diverted to Canada.

Approximately 50 domestic flights and 22 U.S.-bound international flights remain in the air. 2:07 D.m. ,1 All domestic flights are grounded. 1 0-1 2 international flights bound for West Coast destinations and Honolulu remain in the air. personnel in airports," said William Waldock of the Center for Aerospace Safety Education at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz.

He also predicted tighter screening of airport workers. Security audits conducted in foreign countries generally show a much higher rate of catching contraband compared to the U.S. According to FAA data from 1999, the most recent year for which data are available, the agency cited more than 5,000 security violations involving airport operators and major carriers. The majority involved failure to control access to secured areas, and hundreds of citations were issued for failing to detect weapons or properly screen baggage. Among the security violations found in recent years at Logan International Airport in Boston where two of Tuesday's hijacked flights originated were easy access to parked planes and lax baggage inspections, according to a 1999 Boston Globe investigation.

Any crackdown on airport security, however, would be weighed against Americans' sense that they can move more freely than their counterparts in Europe and other areas of the world, where rifle-toting airport guards are common. FAA officials "noted that what is acceptable to the public elsewhere may not be acceptable in the United States," the GAO report stated. FAA officials told investigators that the agency "must be aware of the need to protect civil liberties and privacy in considering checkpoint By Michael Berens and Jon Hilkevitch Tribune staff reporters For all the security measures taken at the nation's airports, two things stand between a safe trip and terror: a simple dead-bolt lock on the cockpit door and scantly trained checkpoint workers paid less than the people flipping burgers at airport fast-food outlets. Government investigators concluded as much just last year in a report warning that attacks on aircraft by terrorists remain a "persistent and growing" concern. "The trend in terrorism against U.S.

targets," according to the General Accounting Office report, "is toward large-scale incidents designed for maximum destruction, terror and media impact." Investigators for the GAO underscored what has long been seen as the soft underbelly of the nation's airport security system: the screening of passengers and carry-on baggage. The GAO noted that in tests, low-paid airport security workers missed as many as 1 in every 5 weapons or explosives. Indeed, the day before Tuesday's attack, the Department of Transportation's inspector general planned to launch an audit "to assess FAA's efforts for improving passenger and carry-on baggage screening at security checkpoints within the United States," according to a departmental memo. Once on a plane, access to the cockpit is not as difficult as some passengers may think. Cockpit doors in U.S.

jetliners are designed to be easf broken p.m. The majority of international flights are grounded, many are diverted to Canada. All remaining international flights are either on U.S. ground or in Canadian airports. Source: FAA down in case a pilot is incapacitated or there is other emergency.

"It has to be unjammable and it has to be able to be opened from both inside and outside the cockpit in case the flight crew became unconscious," said Mary Jean Olsen, a spokeswoman for Boeig Co..