Homeland Security

DATE=01/16/03

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=BRUCE HOFFMAN, TERRORISM AND SECURITY EXPERT WITH THE RAND CORPORATION.

NUMBER=3-492

BYLINE=TOM CROSBY

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

/// Editors: This interview is available in Dalet under SOD/English News Now Interviews in the folder for today or yesterday ///

HOST: Responding to a report in the Washington Post newspaper, the White House says it is working on plans to prevent terrorists from shooting down commercial airliners with shoulder-fired missiles. Spokesman Ari Fleischer says some steps have already been taken to prevent such attacks, but for security reasons those steps must remain secret.

Bruce Hoffman is a terrorism and security expert with the Rand Corporation. He tells V-O-A's Tom Crosby, the government has needed to be more "pro-active" in protecting airliners.

MR. HOFFMAN: It's a long-standing problem. I don't think this is something, in any sense, that has necessarily surprised terrorism and security specialists. It was really the next threat that was waiting to materialize.

MR. CROSBY: What can be done? The report that appeared in the Washington Post suggested that anti-missile defenses for passenger airliners are being considered, but is that practical?

MR. HOFFMAN: I think it is practical. There is, certainly, in Israel and other places, in the process of development now really a new generation of defenses that would completely foil or defeat, if not thwart, effectively such attacks. I think the problem is that, as always in terrorism, we are playing catch-up; that we should have been proactive and already have these systems ready to go. But, unfortunately, it has taken the attempted attack on, or attempted downing of an Israeli charter plane in Mombassa, Kenya, back in November, to alert us, or re-alert us, to this danger.

MR. CROSBY: When we talk about these systems, are they systems on the ground, or would they be systems mounted in the planes themselves?

MR. HOFFMAN: Any security, I think, has to be pervasive. You can't cover just, for instance, planes and in-flight and ignore the periphery of airports and ground security. And, by the same token, you can't just take care of the ground security dimension and forget about the in-flight either and the takeoff or landing. So, what is most important is to have systems, sometimes multiple systems, indeed systems that are redundant, that address the threat in both directions.

MR. CROSBY: Of course, the SA-7 missile, which is cited specifically, a shoulder-fired weapon, can be deployed just about anywhere, and the shooter can move very quickly after firing, can't he? So, it makes them a little hard to track down.

MR. HOFFMAN: It does make them hard to track down, but there is still a process of assembly, there is still a process of actually sighting the target and successfully engaging it, and then releasing the missile. I will argue that one reason we haven't seen greater terrorist use of these weapons in the past -- because, of course, they're not new weapons; they've existed for decades now -- but the reason we haven't seen more frequent terrorist use of them in the past is that they're actually quite difficult to use. They're not fire-and-forget weapons. They are difficult to use accurately, as we saw in Mombassa. And that, in the past, has dissuaded terrorists.

I think the problem now is that, of course, it's not an impossible skill to learn. And certainly the use, not only in Kenya, but last May at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, suggests that this is a tactic that terrorists are not only turning to increasingly, but may in fact be improving and honing their skills with.

MR. CROSBY: How available are these weapons?

MR. HOFFMAN: Unfortunately, I think they're readily available. More than 50 countries in the world manufacture some version of -- in fact a more sophisticated version of -- the SAM-7. Indeed, the arsenals of virtually every country in the world contain these weapons. They're easy to obtain on the black market for perhaps as little as 25-thousand-dollars. Unfortunately, they're pretty widespread.

HOST: Terrorism and security expert Bruce Hoffman of the Rand Corporation. He spoke with V-O-A's Tom Crosby.

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