Just nine months ago, his office was in the Pentagon, not that far from the area that was destroyed in yesterday’s attack. Robert Tyrer was chief of staff to Defense Secretary William Cohen, and now he is president of The Cohen Group, the consulting firm the former Maine senator formed last January.

“Life as we know it is going to change pretty significantly after this,” he said in a telephone interview from Washington. “As awful as it was to see the [USS] Cole and the embassies in Africa, there was some distance between those and the average person here.”

That distance, he said, is gone, replaced by the images of the World Trade Towers collapsing and smoke rising from the Pentagon.

“It is just so horrible,” he said, “I keep thinking about the people I worked with and met and fear what has happened to some of them.”

Tyrer, as the top civilian aide to Cohen from 1997 to 2001, was involved in the United States’ response to the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Yemen last year, as well as the bombings at American embassies in Africa. He said there was a tremendous amount of planning by terrorists before those attacks were carried out. He said there must have been even more exact planning to carry out the multiple airplane hijackings followed by attacks in multiple locations.

“This had to involve pretty careful planning to get capable pilots aboard these planes and take over these planes,” he said. “When people like this, with no regard for life, including their own, are willing to do these horrific things, some will get through.”

Tyrer said most Americans have no idea of the number of plots against this country, both at home and abroad, that are not successful. He said few have ever been made public.

“There are a very talented and dedicated group of utter madmen that are dedicated to the proposition that civil society will be undermined,” he said. “Their fanaticism is unmatched. And while this may be the worst that’s happened, it will not be the last.”

He could not give specific examples, but he said there have been plots to attack military facilities both in the United States and aboard. He said they have been thwarted by both “great” intelligence efforts and “dumb luck.” Those that have not been thwarted have made headlines.

“The irony is that we have tightened up a lot,” Tyrer said.

For example, many federal buildings have made changes to minimize the possibility of vehicle bombs. He said security at military facilities was greatly improved after the 1996 bombing of a housing complex in Saudi Arabia.

“They then switched targets and attacked a ship,” he said. “I think that is what we saw today. They switched their attack to the air.”

With all of the sometimes-conflicting news reports, Tyrer is cautioning restraint until the attacks can be thoroughly investigated. He said it takes time to figure out exactly what happened, let alone who planned the attacks.

“I clearly remember the first report I got on the Cole,” he said. “My aide woke me to say there had been an attack on the ship, but that the hole was only 40 inches long. An hour later I was told it was 40 feet long.”

Like many offices in the nation’s capitol, The Cohen Group had closed for the day. Tyrer said he and Cohen had been scheduled to travel to New York City on business Tuesday afternoon, but the meeting was canceled.

Tyrer is a graduate of the University of Maine and worked for Cohen when he served in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He also serves as a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.