"An alarming, wholly provocative work."
-- Kirkus Reviews

"Good reporting and grounded extrapolation."
--Publishers Weekly

Heavily armed guards at the entrances to malls and restaurants. Citizens deemed "suspicious" taken away without formal charges or legal counsel. Would a "safe" America even look like America anymore?

One of the few journalists to penetrate the new counter terror initiative, Matthew Brzezinski offers an insider's look at the new technology, laws, tactics, and persistent vulnerabilities of the post-9/11 era. The result is this startling, sometimes controversial look at what it will take to achieve genuine homeland security and what it may be like to live inside Fortress America

Is this what a safe America will look like?

• Cameras at airport ticket counters that can tell if you are stressed

• Satellites and surveillance equipment that can see through the walls of your home

• Computer programs capable of spotting abnormal behavior

• National ID "smart" cards encoding your personal, financial, and medical information required for electronic police spot checks

In the aftermath of September 11, a massive effort has been launched to protect us from another terrorist attack. But the costs of safeguarding our country will require not only unprecedented amounts of funding, but dramatic changes in the way Americans lead their everyday lives.

Is this the new price of freedom?

• Mandatory chips installed in all cell phones and automobiles that can locate you instantly within a dozen yards
• Patriot II legislation that can arbitrarily revoke citizenship and allow terrorist sympathizers to vanish without a trace

• Transponder implants that could be injected into the bodies of prisoners, foreign nationals, and perhaps one day all US citizens…

Such high-tech measures are not the stuff of science fiction but in many cases are already being implemented. As Brzezinski discovers, similar measures have been in use for years in security states like Israel. But will Americans trade liberty for security? Will they have a choice? And can even the most radical measures insure that a 9/11 style attack won't happen again?

From an unheeded warning six years before the WTC disaster to dramatic war-game scenarios secretly conducted at Andrews Air Force Base and chilling on-site simulations of actual attacks, Fortress America paints a sobering picture of the future of freedom…and what life may be like in a maximum security state.

"An alarming, wholly provocative work."
-- Kirkus Reviews

"Good reporting and grounded extrapolation."
--Publishers Weekly

Matthew Brzezinski is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and former foreign correspondent at The Wall Street Journal. He is also the author of Casino Moscow: A Tale of Greed and Adventure on Capitalism’s Wildest Frontier. He lives in Washington, D.C.

In the words of the recent 9/11 Commission Report, Americans may be safer today than they were on Sept. 11, but they are not safe. Investigative reporter Matthew Brzezinski set out to discover just how unsafe we are. His book is well researched, and his news is not encouraging.

With 95,000 miles of unprotected coastline, 14,000 small airports, 103 nuclear power plants, 15,000 chemical plants and 260,000 natural gas wells -- among other things -- the United States presents a rich target list for terrorists. More than 16 million cargo containers reach our shores each year, yet only 5 percent of them are inspected. Brzezinski asks, "If we can't even put a dent in the flow of thousands of tons of illicit drugs smuggled past customs, how can we hope to stop a fifty-pound suitcase filled with fissionable material from getting through?" Obviously, it is impossible to protect everything all the time. Success will depend on better intelligence for warning and more analysis and investment to create cost-effective layers of defense, no one of which will be perfect but which together can create important deterrents to terrorists. Such an approach requires good risk assessment and setting priorities. And that is where Brzezinski argues we are not doing well. He makes a convincing case. We spend four times as much to help first responders in Wyoming as in California, and twice as much on Alaska as on New York. Few people believe that represents the real distribution of risks.

The new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has 186,000 employees and a budget of more than $36 billion but lacks an adequate intelligence and analytic capability. Moreover, Brzezinski reports that he kept hearing about money woes and equipment shortages wherever he went, because in reality the budget "does not represent a dramatic increase over pre-9/11 outlays. It simply lumps together the existing budgets of the twenty-two federal agencies that comprised DHS." And he argues that DHS lacks adequate additional resources at home, in part because they were swallowed up by a war in Iraq that worsened rather than improved the problem of terrorism.

One of the growth areas in DHS has been the Transportation Security Agency, but as the 9/11 Commission concluded, the TSA has focused most of its attention on screening commercial airline passengers and not enough attention on other dimensions of cargo and transportation safety. Brzezinski quotes an Israeli security expert who joked that TSA stands for "thousands standing around" and noted the silliness of making "little old ladies take off their shoes for security" while only 2 per cent of cargo on passenger planes is being screened. "As priorities go," the Israeli commented, "shoring up security for airborne cargo is to me much more important. It's also a lot cheaper."

Brzezinski argues that DHS has also not done an adequate job of regulating security in the chemical industry, where the Environmental Protection Agency says plants could endanger up to a million lives with poisonous clouds of ammonia, chlorine or carbon disulfide that terrorists could release over densely populated areas. In November 2003, "60 Minutes" sent several camera crews to demonstrate how easy it was to trespass at plants that make some of the most hazardous materials. When Brzezinski asked the responsible DHS assistant secretary what was being done, he was told that "Regulating is not our role." Instead, DHS merely advised chemical plants "on what their vulnerabilities are." But as Brzezinski argues, without regulations that apply industry-wide, it is difficult for any one company to shoulder costly measures that might put it at a disadvantage with its competitors.

Seaborne cargo containers are another area of concern. A large ship can bring in 8,000 containers -- potential Trojan horses -- at a time. Before Sept. 11, only 2 percent of containers were screened. The number more than doubled to 5 percent in 2003, but that "means that 95 percent of containers enter the United States without any sort of physical inspection whatsoever." Vehicle and Cargo Inspection Systems (VACIS), oversized versions of the screening devices that are used at airports, are also available, but only 135 of them were in place in January 2004.

The color-coded alert system that was put in place with great fanfare in March 2002 quickly became "something of a national joke, fodder for late-night talk-show hosts." Some critics point out that not only have alerts run the danger of crying wolf, they also hand terrorists costless victories by terrorizing the population. "One never hears these sorts of all-encompassing alerts in Israel," Brzezinski writes. "Picture an Israeli TV announcement that a suicide bomber might target Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, or Haifa in the next week or two. In Israel, warnings are either not issued at all or are accompanied by specific leads that can be acted on."

Better warning requires better intelligence, and Brzezinski wrestles with the trade-offs implicit in the additional domestic intelligence powers conveyed by the USA Patriot Act. He is aware of the dangers to privacy but also points out that one of the worst abuses of civil liberties, the secret imprisonment of hundreds of aliens (later criticized by the Justice Department's inspector general), was caused in part by the absence of good intelligence. He quotes a law professor who observed that the FBI intelligence before Sept. 11 "was so poor that they had to sweep broadly, using ethnic or religious criteria. Essentially, they were stabbing in the dark." His chapter on the mistreatment of Hady Hassan Omar, an Egyptian married to an American and seeking permanent residence in the United States, is a reminder of the larger issues at stake. Brzezinski concludes that "the urge to sacrifice the fundamental values that make America one of the freest societies will prove powerful in the years to come, for the question is not whether terrorists will strike again, but when."

Reviewed by Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

I

IMAGINATION UNBOUND

Baltimore Harbor, November 2002


Watch your step," said Sergeant George McClaskey. The police launch strained against its tether, grinding on the tires and rubber padding that had been slung along the dock. It was an old craft, dating back to the 1960s, and much weathered. The blue paint on its patched hull was faded. Its gunwales were pockmarked from countless collisions, and soot from its old diesel engine caked the icy stern. But its partially enclosed wheelhouse offered some protection from the biting wind. "Hope you're wearing long underwear," cracked McClaskey, as the deck shuddered and the launch slipped its moorings.

Baltimore's Inner Harbor spread out before us. On the south side, below the grassy slopes of Federal Hill Park, the marina slips were filled with white, gleaming motor yachts, and halyards and shackles beat noisily on the aluminum masts of expensive sailboats. In the innermost center, against the backdrop of the convention center and the retro brick baseball stadium beyond, floated the big charter boats and wooden skipjacks that took vacationers out on day cruises. And to the north, beneath the skyline, loomed the marine tourist attractions that anchored the Pratt Street Pavilions: a vintage submarine, painted gray and black with red shark's teeth on the bow, and a full-size replica of a Civil War-era frigate, the USS Constellation.

"That," said Sergeant McClaskey, craning his football player's neck toward a water taxi landing next to the Constellation, "is where I'd strike if I were a terrorist." I followed his gaze to the landing. Other than a few angry seagulls squabbling on the bulkhead, the place was deserted. But in summer, up to a quarter of a million people congregated on the Inner Harbor's piers and brightly painted promenades each weekend, catching a show at the waterside amphitheater, dining on crabcakes after an Orioles game, or taking the kids to see the dolphins at the National Aquarium. My wife and I were often among that weekend crowd, driving up from D.C. with our two-year-old daughter.

"If I wanted to create a big bang," McClaskey continued, "I'd pack a small boat with explosives"--relatively easy-to-find nitrate fertilizers or dynamite, he later elaborated, plus plenty of nails, screws, and other building materials that can double as shrapnel--"and crash it right here." The police launch slowed to an idle, sinking back into its own wake. For a moment we drifted, and I stared at McClaskey. Cops weren't supposed to say things like that, to plot like al Qaeda. At least, they never had before. But McClaskey wasn't being irresponsible or tipping off terrorists to what they probably already long knew. (After all, for any organization that could have dreamed up 9/11, smashing a boat into a wharf was the creative equivalent of child's play.) No, McClaskey was on the right track. He was adapting to the times. Imagining terrorist scenarios was part of any public safety official's job description post-9/11.

The launch bobbed in the choppy waters. McClaskey paused long enough for me to envision the gruesome consequences of a strike on the pier. "It'd be a catastrophe," he finally declared. "It would take forty-eight hours just for the tide to flush out the bodies from under the boardwalk."

This nautical factoid he had learned from experience, from nearly twenty years on the force fishing out dead drug dealers, drowning victims, and the occasional jumper from the Fort McHenry Bridge. But the big Irishman made it clear with an uncharacteristic sigh that his new counterterrorism assignment was truly uncharted territory. In the war on terror, he and most of his fellow officers were mere rookies, suddenly forced to play catch-up to the rest of the world. "Before 9/11," he said, "it never even occurred to us to consider the waterfront as a source of danger." Now perceived dangers lurked around every wharf. "Look at that barge," he added, nodding toward a tug hauling a barge full of diesel fuel off in the distance. "A beautiful weapon."

More grisly details followed. Ram the promenade with the fuel barge, said McClaskey, and deaths would not be the only tragedy. There would be dire economic repercussions, as well. Baltimore had spent more than $1 billion revitalizing the tourist district. Thousands of jobs had been created in the effort, and the project was a national showcase for urban renewal. But just one suicide bomber could undo all of that good work, sow panic, sink the whole town. Such was the nature of terrorism; the damage was never isolated, as the attacks on New York and Washington had so painfully demonstrated. By some reports, 9/11 had cost the U.S. economy anywhere from $75 billion to several hundred billion. The collateral damage was immeasurably higher when one considered how stock exchanges around the world had plunged--the Nikkei, the DAX, the CAC 40, the TSE. No one was immune to the carnage, and for cities like Baltimore, the stakes were now exponentially higher than anything the police department had ever faced before. And that was saying a lot, given Baltimore's unenviable distinction as America's drug capital. Ten percent of the city's residents, by police department estimates, were heroin addicts. In the week prior to my visit, four police officers had been shot, including one executed point blank for testifying against a local gang. The police department here had enough on its plate without having to worry about where and when extremists might strike next. But worry it did. The department's Criminal Intelligence Division, which before 9/11 devoted virtually all its efforts to the war on drugs, now spent upward of three-quarters of its time chasing down terrorist leads. The division's head, a polished and urbane young major by the name of John Skinner, was even sent to Israel to bone up on the basics of counterterrorism. And the police department's eleven-man maritime unit, whose main responsibilities until recently had included ticketing speeders and enforcing no-drinking-and-boating rules, now had far more daunting responsibilities.

Other big urban centers faced similar dilemmas. The NYPD diverted three hundred officers to a special counterterror unit. The city of Los Angeles went so far as to create its own department of homeland security, appointing ABC News terror expert John Miller as civic security czar, largely on the strength of an interview he had once conducted with the elusive Osama bin Laden. Nationally, every state followed L.A.'s lead and set up homeland security departments, and the FBI reassigned a quarter of its eleven thousand field agents to counterterror duties.

We rounded Locust Point, steamed past the towering steel hulls of thousand-foot-long Navy LMSR transport ships that would soon take tank brigades to Iraq, and entered the industrial sector of the port. Here the list of potential terrorist targets multiplied: oil terminals flying BP's and Shell's corporate colors, unprotected liquid natural gas storage tanks, exposed coal-fired power stations, and large petrochemical facilities with flimsy chain-link fences. Even the Domino sugar refinery, with its sticky-sweet flammable dust, posed a potential security threat: "Most people don't think about it," said McClaskey. "But that's a giant bomb."

Across Curtis Bay and the exposed trusses of the Fort McHenry Bridge, under which all freighters and tankers pass before docking, thick white plumes rose from smokestacks of the CW Grace chemical plant. "They make some really nasty stuff there. Highly toxic," said McClaskey's colleague, Sergeant Ed Coleman, a squat, muscular man who headed the Maritime Unit. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there were fifteen thousand facilities just like it around the country that produced, stored, or used toxic chemicals. "It's mind-boggling," he added, as a wave sent salt spray over the bow and drenched his black paratrooper boots. "I pretty much see targets wherever I look." And every one of those targets could set in motion an ever-broadening ripple effect. Should al Qaeda frogmen, for instance, manage to blow up an oil terminal, the nearby I-95 tunnel ventilation systems would have to be shut down. Shut down the tunnels, and the interstate highway must be closed. Close down a section of I-95, and traffic along the entire Eastern Seaboard snarls to a stop, to say nothing of what such an attack would do to disrupt oil supplies and prices in the mid-Atlantic region or to insurance premiums of ships docking on the East Coast.



Sergeants Coleman and McClaskey were not the only public servants fretting about suicide bombers following 9/11. All across the country, officials at virtually every level of government were rushing to take stock of America's vulnerabilities, starting with the White House, which commissioned the Central Intelligence Agency to identify the 100 most likely terrorist targets in the United States. The governors of every state were asked to identify 150 of the most visible targets in their jurisdictions and another 180 secondary targets. The grim surveys were known in bureaucratese as risk assessments, and for the most part they were not made public, for obvious reasons. But they were extremely important and constituted the opening phase of the domestic war on terror. Just as environmental impact studies are required before ground is broken on major construction projects, the risk assessments would form the foundation on which the security state was built. Priorities needed to be identified, the most pressing vulnerabilities addressed. The results of the assessments would form the basis from which scarce resources would be diverted and billions of dollars of federal, state, and local funding would be allocated to shore up homeland security. The problem, of course, was that the list of targets, to quote Sergeant Coleman, was mind-boggling. Subways, sewers, shopping centers, even...