This should make you furious. This should make you angrier than you have been over almost anything since Sept. 11 — and that includes the war in Iraq.
A recent test showed that 75 percent of fake bombs or bomb parts got past TSA security at Los Angeles International Airport, and 60 percent got past TSA screeners at Chicago's O'Hare.
Those are two of the busiest airports in the world. Those are two of the juiciest targets a terrorist could desire.
Seventy-five percent? Three out of four times? We are constantly hearing the tired and misguided phrase "fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em here."
They needn't bother with us over there. With a 75 percent chance of success, why would they go anywhere BUT here?
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
Now, the reason this news should have you outraged — and, more importantly, why our president and his national security team should be outraged — is this failure draws a straight line to the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and that field in Pennsylvania six years ago.
Unlike Iraq, which had nothing to do with the actual explosions of Sept. 11, airport security was at the heart of that tragedy. Tighter security, from passenger identity to spotting box cutters, could have thwarted that day.
Can you imagine how our lives would be different if those 19 hijackers had been stopped? Think about every security issue you now face in daily life, think about the economic drain on this nation, think about the war, the lives lost, the political hate and arguments, and all of it goes back to how those men got on those planes.
So you would think, before throwing hundreds of billions at a conflict in Iraq, the first, the biggest, the most obvious use of money and effort would be at the real ground zero of the Sept. 11 terror plan — the airports.
Instead, six years after the fact, we still have disinterested agents. We still have equipment inferior to what is actually available (thanks to politics and budgets). We still have more emphasis on stuff rather than interrogating people (the way Israelis do).
And we still have federal officials making excuses. The latest comes from the TSA chief Kip Hawley, who, in response to these bad results, blamed harder tests.
According to published reports, Hawley told a House committee, "We moved from testing of completely assembled bombs … to the small component parts."
Yeah? So? You expect terrorists to put a completely assembled bomb in an empty briefcase and slide it on the belt?
A FLAWED SYSTEM
Don't laugh. That, in fact, is actually how they used to test agents, by putting fake bombs in empty suitcases. You know what? There were still failures.
This time, they packed things like detonators or batteries inside a toiletry kit, or they hid watch-timers is carved-out books. And because of that, our TSA chief is justifying these unacceptable numbers? This is like a kid saying, "Well, of course I failed the math test. You wanted me to add AND subtract!"
The fact is, there is no excuse. None. And President Bush, who vows to keep this nation safe, should be the loudest and harshest critic.
After all, it was the government who insisted on taking over airport security after 9/11, saying we couldn't trust such critical work to lowly paid private screeners. So the Transportation Security Administration was formed, and we tripled the pay, and what do we get? We get 75 percent at LAX and 60 percent at O'Hare. Meanwhile, the same tests showed that the San Francisco airport — which employs private screeners — allowed only 20 percent of the fake bomb equipment through.
And private screeners are what we had before the TSA.
We're going backward. I travel more than most people, so I am not shocked. Sadly, many of the TSA people I see seem more interested in when their break is coming than what or who is going through security. I often see dazed looks, bored postures, shared jokes between agents.
The TSA should be ashamed. And if — or when — there is another attack involving airplanes, and everyone, as always, goes looking to blame someone, we can go back to these pathetic results, we can go back to 75 percent and 60 percent.
And we can blame ourselves.
