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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Other signals reinforce the sense that the White House does not view the situation with urgency.
After reviewing the technology available for protecting passenger jets from missile attack, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Homeland Security Council concluded that only two companies are involved in developing directional infrared countermeasures systems: Northrop Grumman, an American company that builds the Air Force's new large aircraft laser system, and BAE, a U.K. firm working on a laser system for the Navy's tactical aircraft. But the review failed to identify a third alternative: Israeli defense contractor Rafael also builds a laser anti-missile system, and unlike the Northrop Grumman and BAE systems, Rafael's system has actually been tested on a commercial jet against live missiles -- something the Bush administration's plan does not envision doing until around 2005.
Rafael's test occurred from March 9 to 13 at Israel's southern Uvda Air Force Base and involved the very Boeing 757 that was attacked in Kenya. Using a variety of missiles, fired from several angles and distances, Rafael's system successfully jammed every missile fired at the jet. Despite these impressive results, and the lower cost of Rafael's system, it does not appear that this system is in the running to protect U.S. passengers.
Regardless of which system or systems might eventually receive approval from the Department of Homeland Security, none will be allowed onto airliners without the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration. Here again, the Bush administration is taking a go-slow approach. Current plans do not call for any action on FAA certification to begin until the autumn of 2004, and then the certification process is expected to take a year or more.
When asked whether the FAA could accelerate its assessment of whether anti-missile systems adversely affect such critical issues as aircraft electrical and hydraulic systems, weight balance, and flight response, an FAA spokeswoman said the agency "can do anything on an expedited basis if [it] has enough people." But extra people means extra money, and that does not appear to be forthcoming.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, security officials were able to restore passenger confidence by federalizing security personnel and implementing more rigorous passenger- and baggage-screening procedures. But if a U.S. passenger jet is shot out of the sky with a shoulder-launched missile, there are few confidence-building security improvements that could be implemented quickly to restore confidence in the security of the civil aviation system.
Even if anti-missile systems were installed aboard every airliner, that would still only be a part of the overall solution. Jets equipped with anti-missile defense systems can be hit by what the military calls "leakers" -- missiles that get through an aircraft's defensive systems. Because of this, the U.S. military conducts "live fire" testing, in which missiles are fired at aircraft and aircraft components to obtain data on how to build aircraft able to withstand missile hits. Robert E. Ball, widely recognized as an expert in the field of aircraft survivability and the author of the world's only textbook on the subject, notes that live-fire testing "costs very little compared to the cost of the aircraft and the value of the lives saved."
James O'Bryon, a retired Pentagon official who for years headed up the Defense Department's live-fire testing program, says that live-fire testing typically adds a fraction of 1 percent to the cost of aircraft, about the same as the expense that crash-testing adds to a new automobile. As an added benefit to this approach, the design modifications that allow an aircraft to survive a missile hit also provide a degree of protection against threats such as rocket-propelled grenades, high-caliber machine guns, and sniper rifles.
But this is another area where the Bush administration has been unwilling to spend money. "Until we can test commercial aircraft through live-fire testing," one Defense Department official told Salon, "we will remain in the dark as to how the aircraft respond to a [shoulder-launched missile] attack." It may be that for certain aircraft, relatively minor engineering modifications, such as moving or armoring hydraulic lines, will result in making airliners far less likely to be lost if hit by a missile.
Many experts inside and outside government believe that it is almost inevitable that al-Qaida or another group will try to take down a U.S. airliner with a shoulder-launched missile. Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of counter-terrorism operations for the CIA, says that al-Qaida has a history of learning from its failures; neither the government nor the public should assume that the next group of al-Qaida operatives sent to bring down a jet will duplicate the mistakes made in Mombasa, he says.
"Time and again," Byrd told Salon, "the Bush administration pays lip service to the nation's great homeland security needs, yet when push comes to shove, they steadily refuse to put forth the necessary resources. Words and promises need to be backed up with the money to make those words a reality."
