9/11 Again — For The U.S. Capitol?
September 11, 2006 at 10:42 am
CQ National Security Editor Jeff Stein interviews Dan Coleman, the FBI’s former top expert on Osama Bin Laden:
…he is certain that Washington remains bin Laden’s unfinished business. Coleman can see the next hijacked plane swooping down over the the Mall’s ribbon of green grass and roaring over the tourists’ heads, straight into the Capitol. Airliners rest virtually unguarded while they are refueled on airport tarmacs, he points out. The Transportation Worker Identification Credential is still far off. Terrorists can easily beat X-ray scanners and explosives detectors, he maintains, especially in Europe. And it would not be too difficult for al Qaeda operatives, using false identities, to charter a single large airplane, take over the crew and fly it into the Capitol Building loaded with fuel. “They have to up the ante, make it worth their while” to risk another attack in the United States, Coleman said. “They have to kill a whole lot of people.”
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