I happened to attend a breakfast with
Juval Aviv, a noted expert on security and fraud issues, as the featured speaker a few weeks ago in Tampa. His basic premise was that there will be another attack soon -- most likely in the form of simultaneous bus/car/truck bombs in different cities -- and that America was not at all prepared for it.
Other things he stated:
-- There will probably not be another plane hijacking -- not because of increased airport security, which he called a "joke" -- but due to the fact that passengers would not allow hijackers to take control of the plane as they did on 9.11.
-- Airport security in the U.S. is more for making Americans feel better -- "window dressing", as he called it -- rather than providing real secruity, as the screeners are poorly paid and poorly trained.
-- Suspicious items, such as packages or suitcases left alone in crowded areas, are not dealt with immediately, if at all. He cited a few cases studies his team did to test Israeli and American security in different areas. When they left bags or packages alone in crowded places in Israel, within seconds there would be security personnel coming to the scene, clearing people away, and examining the suspicious item. However, in America, it was routinely ignored. In fact, on one train, a suitcase was left on a train for an entire day without getting any notice -- even the conductor put his legs up on it as he finished his paperwork for the day. The difference is that the Israeli public immediately recognizes suspicious packages and does something about it to make sure it is checked out -- in the U.S., it is ignored. This is also the case with suspicious delivery vehicles, trucks parked outside buildings, and other similar security risks. This is a much more serious, and much deeper cultural issue that has not been dealt with, but is one of the major security holes in the U.S.
-- The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had created a whole new generation of terrorists, and were doing more harm than good in fighting terrorism. He gave an example of of the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, when he was a Massad security agent at the time. There was pressure to respond with a military attack, but he and others were able to convince them that there was a better approach. They lauched a covert operation to infiltrate the terrorist network, which eventually led to several arrests of the ones responsible for the original attack. It took several years, but it was fruitful, and did not involve the killing of innocent civilians -- which invariably creates new generations of terrorists -- as a military strike did.
-- He has told senior ranking officials in Homeland Security and other agencies of his recommendations in various high-level meetings, and he has been continually rebuffed. Fox News even asked him to "tone it down" when appearing on the network for interviews.
-- I asked him later about fingerprinting, since Japan is looking to implement a similar system to US VISIT. He said that fingerprinting "was a start", but not enough -- it was only part of a patchwork of inadequate security measures that have many holes in it.
I'd be curious to know what the reactions are among the dKos community regarding Mr. Aviv's speech.