U.S. vows tighter air security

Screening system criticized

Critics said Sunday that although the Reid incident resulted in passengers removing their shoes before boarding most flights and the 2006 scare prompted restrictions on liquids brought aboard flights, there is still no comprehensive system to prevent passengers boarding with non-metallic explosive materials.

"We've known that this threat exists, and they've not done anything to address it," said terrorism expert Larry C. Johnson, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst who also served as a deputy director in the U.S. State Department's Office of Counterterrorism.

Johnson said "our urgency is always event driven," and it will take a successful attack with liquid or powdered explosives before the federal government closes the security gap.

"If we didn't have meaningful change after Richard Reid, why should this be any different?" Johnson asked. "We'll have a month of inconveniencing passengers with body patdowns. After a month or two, people will get tired of it."

An apparent malfunction in a device designed to detonate the highly explosive chemical PETN may have been all that saved the 278 passengers and the crew aboard Flight 253. No undercover air marshal was on board.

David Schram, a security consultant based in London, said Saturday's incident highlights a lack of uniformity in the approaches countries take to airport security.

"The reality here is that there's a patchwork system when it should be unified," Schram said.

While U.S. authorities have placed great emphasis on thoroughly screening passengers and luggage, the deployment of new technology has been uneven.

Many larger airports, including Detroit Metropolitan Airport, have rolled out new body scanner machines that can see beneath a passenger's clothing, while "puffer" machines help electronically detect traces of explosives. But body scanners -- which could have detected what Abdulmutallab allegedly carried under his pants -- can cost millions of dollars per airport, and only a handful of the nation's hundreds of airports have them.

Overseas, privacy and cost concerns have kept body scanners out of many airports.

Lawmakers call for change

Michigan lawmakers called Sunday for improvements.

"We need a thorough review of what is possible and realistic for aircraft originating from other countries, not only concerning passengers but also baggage," Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, said in an interview with The Detroit News.

Miller, Michigan's only member of the House Homeland Security Committee, which will hold hearings on the incident, accused federal officials of "coddling" the terror suspect by treating him for burns rather than submitting him "immediately to the harshest interrogation that this administration would allow."

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said: "We came awful, awful close to having a plane come down in Detroit."

"We are going to have to find out why and how the system broke down," the Holland Republican said in an interview.

Appearing on Sunday talk shows, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said travelers are "very, very safe," and "this was one individual literally of thousands that fly and thousands of flights every year." She stressed that no significant damage was done and "once this incident occurred, everything happened that should have."

Abdulmutallab, who had a multiple-entry U.S. visa, was on a list of people suspected of terrorist ties, one of about 550,000 names in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database, known as TIDE, but was not elevated to a no-fly list or even designated for additional security searches, Napolitano said. That would have required "specific, credible, derogatory information," she said.

Changes considered

"We did not have the kind of information that under the current rules would elevate him," she said. Napolitano said the Obama administration is considering changing those rules.

White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters that Obama, who is vacationing in Hawaii, was told of Sunday's incident about 90 minutes after the flight from Amsterdam landed. Burton said Obama also asked national security officials for another briefing as soon as possible.

David Scher, 65, a Mio retiree, said Sunday he no longer flies because he does not feel safe. "When his father came forward, he should have been put on the no-fly list," Scher said of Abdulmutallab.

"I hope the president enjoys practicing his backstroke in Hawaii while I say my rosary every time an airplane flies over."

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