The real threat

The guilty verdicts returned by a New York federal jury against the four alleged members of the Osama bin Laden terrorist network involved in the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa represent a remarkable achievement in international law enforcement. The FBI and federal prosecutors in particular deserve praise for tracking these criminals through six foreign countries, cracking open at least part of their highly secretive and disciplined organization, and bringing to justice those directly responsible for killing 224 people, including 12 Americans, in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.

The four found guilty, plus five others awaiting trial, represent the future of international security concerns. That threat is not from a missile fired by so-called rogue nation but from car bombs and briefcases full of chemical or biological agents driven or walked to a target.

Yet, as the United States races to spend $50-plus billion on a missile shield that even advocates agree may not work and that certainly will abrogate a vital arms-control treaty, it remains virtually immobile in correcting the longstanding vulnerability of its personnel overseas, especially those who work in its embassies.

Following an outbreak in the early 1980s of attacks against American facilities in the Middle East, a commission headed by CIA Deputy Director Bobby Ray Inman developed recommendations to better protect embassies and the people who work within. The recommendations were basic bricks-and-mortar stuff – build new embassies with ample setbacks from streets; for existing buildings, construct traffic barriers and checkpoints to prevent vehicles from getting too close, reinforce outer walls, reconfigure offices and use shatterproof laminated glass to reduce the most common cause of death in such bombings.

In the 16 years since, other commissions have been convened and all have reached the same conclusion – Congress and the White House get into embassy-security frenzies immediately after an attack but the frenzies always fade before enough money gets appropriated. Of the several hundred embassies and other foreign service offices in trouble spots around the world, only 15 have been brought up to Inman Commission standards.

In late 1998, following the East Africa bombings, Congress created the Accountability Review Board, headed by former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. William Crowe, to assess the progress made in improving embassy security. The commission produced a scathing report that traced “the collective failure of the U.S. government over the past decade to prepare for terrorist attacks and to adequately fund security improvements at American embassies.”

The board recommended an expenditure of $14 billion over 10 years, but the best the Clinton administration and Congress could do was a hurried one-time appropriation of $1.4 billion. By the end of 1999, the crisis had passed and the State Department was told to squeeze whatever security improvements it deemed necessary out of its existing budget. During that same year, more than 70 American embassies and consulates were evacuated and closed for 24 hours or more due to terrorist threats.

The convictions in New York Tuesday send a powerful message – the United States is willing to commit enormous resources to tracking down and arresting those who attack its citizens abroad. The question for Congress, as it prepares to commit enormous resources to combat a theoretical threat coming from the sky, is whether it has anything left for the real one coming down the street.