Media touted foiled UK terror plot as political win for Bush, ignoring ample evidence of White House, GOP failure to protect against on-board explosives

In the days since British authorities foiled a plot to attack several U.S.-bound flights using liquid explosives, numerous media figures have asserted that this news benefits President Bush and the Republican Party, as Media Matters for America documented. But in order to make this assertion, they omit critical information about the GOP's handling of terrorism-related issues that, if highlighted, could actually produce the opposite effect in the polls. Specifically, they ignore the ample evidence that both the Bush administration and congressional Republicans have failed to sufficiently protect against such attacks, despite repeated warnings from terrorism experts, Democrats, and the 9-11 Commission.

Since the news of the British terror arrests broke on August 10, many news outlets have reported that the aviation security system in the U.S. remains vulnerable to attacks involving liquid or plastic explosives. Several outlets have placed this continued vulnerability in greater context by noting that terrorists attempted to carry out a similar plot more than a decade ago. From an August 11 article -- headlined "U.S. playing catch-up on liquid-explosive threat" -- by Houston Chronicle staff writers Eric Berger and Lise Olsen:

Twelve years after an al-Qaida terrorist blew a hole in a Boeing 747 with a liquid explosive, the government has not significantly upgraded its passenger-screening devices to prevent it from happening again.

Ramzi Yousef, a master al-Qaida bomb maker, boarded a Philippine Airlines flight in December 1994 with a few ounces of nitroglycerin in an empty contact lens solution bottle. Using wires from a Casio watch, he built a small bomb in the lavatory and placed it beneath a seat. The bomb exploded on the flight's next leg, killing one and forcing the airplane to make an emergency landing.

Yousef carried out this bombing as a trial run for a wider series of attacks -- known as "Operation Bojinka" -- that would have employed stronger explosives and targeted numerous planes over the course of two days in 1995. Law enforcement authorities uncovered the larger plot when a fire broke out in Yousef's apartment in the Philippines. But as an August 11 San Francisco Chronicle article noted, the London plotters "may have obtained the similar sophisticated liquid explosives that were to be used in the Operation Bojinka. The explosives, which can be hidden in a small bottle, like those used for contact lens solution, are hard to detect, and were originally developed by Yousef, whose uncle, Mohammed, was the chief architect of the 9/11 attacks." The article further noted that "one of the hallmarks of Osama bin Laden's followers is that if they don't succeed once, they will try again."

In the years after the foiled Bojinka plot, proposals came before Congress to increase funding for the development of technology to detect liquid explosives. Then, as one Reagan-era national security noted in the Houston Chronicle article, "[T]he issue just sort of fell off the radar screen."

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the government once again focused on the need for more effective aviation security. In November 2001, Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. The bill federalized the U.S. airport security system and mandated numerous other improvements in aviation security, among them the authorization of $50 million in annual funding for the "acceleration of research, development, testing, and evaluation of new screening technology for carry-on items ... [and] persons boarding aircraft or entering secure areas, including detection of weapons, explosives, and components of weapons of mass destruction." At the signing ceremony on November 19, Bush stated, "Today, we take permanent and aggressive steps to improve the security of our airways. ... The law I will sign should give all Americans greater confidence when they fly."

Since the passage of the legislation, however, the administration has devoted the bulk of its aviation security resources to preventing similar attacks as those that occurred on September 11. Meanwhile, the government has failed to prepare for "new threats" -- such as the use of liquid explosives -- as an August 12 New York Times article noted:

The Department of Homeland Security has taken significant steps since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to make it much harder to turn a plane into a flying weapon. But a nearly obsessive focus on the previous attacks may have prevented the federal government from combating new threats effectively, terrorism experts and former agency officials say.

The arrests overseas this week of people accused of planning to use an explosive that would be undetectable at airports illustrates the significant security gaps, they said.

While the department has hardened cockpit doors and set up screening for guns and knives, it has done far too little to protect against plastic and liquid explosives, bombs in air cargo and shoulder-fired missiles, the experts say.

Indeed, the administration and the GOP-led Congress have repeatedly diverted or opposed funding intended for the research and development (R&D) of explosive detection technology:

• At an October 16, 2003, meeting of the House Aviation Subcommittee, Rep. John L. Mica (R-FL), noted that "very little" of the $50 million in R&D funding authorized in the Aviation and Transportation Security Act had actually been used for that purpose. Admiral James M. Loy, then-administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), confirmed that the figures cited by Mica were "accurate."
• In fiscal year 2003, TSA transferred "about $61 million, more than half of its $110 million R&D appropriation, to operational needs, such as personnel cost for screeners," according to a September 2004 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The cut delayed the development of "a device to detect weapons, liquid explosives, and flammables in containers found in carry-on baggage or passengers' effects, as well as the development and testing of a walk-through portal for detecting traces of explosives on passengers." Tony Fainberg, a former manager of DHS' explosive detection research program, recently noted that new detection devices "could have been tested sooner" if this diversion had not occurred.
• As recently as July, the administration proposed diverting $6 million intended for the development of explosives detection technology to cover a shortfall elsewhere in the DHS budget. The ranking GOP and Dem members of the House Homeland Security Appropriations committee rejected it flat out, as did their Senate counterparts. Moreover, some Republicans in Congress have thwarted attempts by Democrats to boost funding for the research and deployment of explosion detection devices at airport checkpoints:
• During the House Homeland Security Committee's mark-up of the DHS spending bill in April 2005, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) proposed an amendment "to create a checkpoint security fund to provide $250 million already authorized for new passenger screening equipment." Republican committee members voted the measure down, as well as several others intended to increase funding for aviation security technology. According to an April 29, 2005, article in Aviation Daily, Rep. John Linder (R-GA) forcefully criticized the amendments and said that having an aircraft blown out of the sky would be a tragedy but not a catastrophe.
• The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act -- passed by Congress in December 2004 -- authorized $250 million in funding for the TSA to research and deploy explosive detection systems. During consideration of the Homeland Security Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, moved to substitute a version of the legislation that would have ensured that the government met this funding commitment. House Republicans defeated Thompson's motion by a vote of 230-196 on May 18, 2005.

An August 12 article by Associated Press staff writer John Solomon further detailed how DHS has both impeded the development of new explosive detection technology and failed to use the resources at its disposal:

Lawmakers and recently retired Homeland Security officials say they are concerned the department's research and development effort is bogged down by bureaucracy, lack of strategic planning and failure to use money wisely.

The department failed to spend $200 million in research and development money from past years, forcing lawmakers to rescind the money this summer.

The administration also was slow to start testing a new liquid explosives detector that the Japanese government provided to the United States earlier this year.

[...]

Japan has been using the liquid explosive detectors in its Narita International Airport in Tokyo and demonstrated the technology to U.S. officials at a conference in January, the Japanese Embassy in Washington said.

Solomon also reported that Tony Fainberg had "strongly urged" DHS to deploy explosive detection devices to foreign airports, "but was rebuffed." Said Fainberg, "It is not that expensive. There was no resistance from any country that I was aware of, and yet we didn't deploy it."

In the wake of the recently foiled terror plot in Britain, numerous lawmakers and terrorism experts have criticized the administration's failure to undertake additional measures to protect against the use of on-board explosives. Rep. DeFazio stated that this threat "has been consistently ignored." Susan and Joseph Trento, authors of an upcoming book on aviation security, wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "After spending $20 billion on aviation security, we still have not developed a defense against ideas terrorists had six years before 9/11." And 9-11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton said of the plot: "It's precisely the kind of thing that we have talked about again and again since 9-11. ... And we have said again and again that we simply must handle this with a much greater sense of urgency than we have in the past."

Indeed, the 9-11 Commission, national security experts and Democrats such as DeFazio have repeatedly warned of this threat in the nearly five years since the attacks:

• Exactly one month after the September 11 attacks, DeFazio suggested at a hearing of the House Aviation Subcommittee that the government should ban liquids on airplanes until a checkpoint screening system had been implemented to detect liquid explosives. DeFazio said, "I have suggested this previously to the FAA, that we prohibit individuals carrying liquids on board planes, just prohibit it. Then when we have what we believe is reliable security in every on-board screening device in the United States of America, then we can go back to allowing people to carry liquids on board."
• At a May 12, 2004, hearing of the House Infrastructure and Border Subcommittee, DeFazio cited Yousef's foiled 1995 plot and warned that terrorists often "repeat patterns." "They came back to World Trade Towers," he said. "I think they will come back. Is it suicidal belts that people wear on the planes? Is it checked bags? Is it cargo, as Mr. [Rep. Ed] Markey [D-MA] talked about? We don't know. But we need to be defending against all those things."
• On the July 19, 2004, edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, terrorism expert and former State Department official Larry Johnson noted that "one of the [aviation security] gaps still in place is that we haven't come up with effective detector at screening checkpoint for liquid explosives."
• The 9-11 Commission's final report, released on August 21, 2004, stated that the "TSA and the Congress must give priority attention to improving the ability of screening checkpoints to detect explosives on passengers. As a start, each individual selected for special screening should be screened for explosives."
• On August 24, 2004, two Chechen suicide bombers detonated explosives while flying on separate aircraft in Russia. The attacks killed 90 passengers, and traces of the explosive hexogen were found in the wreckage. "It's a matter of time before what happened in Russia happens in Australia, the UK or the United States," Chris Yates, aviation security editor for Jane's Transport, told USA Today.
• In an August 25, 2004, hearing of the House Aviation Subcommittee, 9-11 commissioner John F. Lehman noted that "the very real threat" of suicide bombers on aircrafts. He said, "Now that the whole protocol of dealing with hijackings makes the concept of gaining control of an airplane far more difficult, the likelihood of suicide bombing is commensurately higher. So we need to, again, not obsess on that problem, but make sure we have that covered as well as we have the other issues."
• During the same August 25, 2004, hearing, DeFazio reiterated that on-board explosives represent "one of the most extraordinary points of vulnerability." DeFazio even criticized the 9-11 Commission for not further emphasizing the danger posed by such attacks. He said, "The commission fell quite short of concerns already publicly expressed by this committee numerous times regarding the vulnerability to explosives on board planes. And I really think explosives are the major threat."
• At July 19, 2005, hearing of the House Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity Subcommitee, DeFazio again brought up the Yousef plot. He said, "[W]e haven't equipped our people at the checkpoint to detect the bomb that he used, which was a liquid-based. ... And I'm concerned that there are patterns out there. They came back after the World Trade Center. I'm worried that someone else's going to come back."
• In a follow-up report assessing the government's response to the 9-11 Commission report, the 9-11 Public Discourse Project noted "minimal progress" on its recommendation that the administration "give priority attention to improving the ability of screening checkpoints to detect explosives on passengers."
• The 9-11 Public Discourse Project gave the administration a "C" grade on its efforts to "improve airline screening checkpoints to detect explosives." The report read, "While more advanced screening technology is being developed, Congress needs to provide the funding for, and TSA needs to move as expeditiously as possible with, the appropriate installation of explosives detection trace portals at more of the nation's commercial airports."
• 9-11 Commission member James R. Thompson decried the ongoing "vulnerability to onboard explosions" in a December 16, 2005, Chicago Tribune op-ed: "Most Americans take it for granted that airline security problems have been fixed, or that terrorists will not target our aviation system again. Both assumptions are wrong. The enemy will find and exploit any soft spots in our security. Though we have hardened airliners against hijacking, they remain vulnerable to onboard explosions, such as the dual Chechen suicide bombings that brought down two Russian airliners in August 2004."
• As part of a 2006 GAO investigation, government officials were "able to carry materials needed to make a similar homemade bomb through security screening at 21 airports" in the U.S. 9-11 Commission co-chairman Tom Kean responded: "I'm appalled. I'm dismayed and, yes, to a degree, it does surprise me. Because I thought the Department of Homeland Security was making some progress on this, and evidently they're not."