Inform Or Terrorize?

The Fine Line On Security Threats

By David Ignatius
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Courtesy Of "The Daily Star"

There’s a fine line between leveling with the public about security threats and scaring people to death with inflammatory terrorism alerts and warnings. The Obama administration has commendably tried to lower the temperature in its public statements, but in recent weeks, officials may have erred on the side of providing too little information.

The Washington area is always in something of a security lockdown. But even so, it was unusual to see officers brandishing automatic weapons at the CIA’s entrance in Langley, Virginia, on Tuesday morning. An agency veteran spotted them and wondered aloud, What’s up?

CIA spokesman George Little wouldn’t talk about specifics, but he offered this general comment: “Security at CIA headquarters takes different forms over time and is always a top priority, whether it’s visible or not.”

The security puzzle is complicated by sharp warnings issued this month by officials in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. It would be good to know whether US officials agree with these foreign assessments of an increased terrorist threat. I have been asking this question since last Friday, but so far, the only comment is this oblique statement from a spokesman at the National Counterterrorism Center: “There’s always something out there.”

Now, I agree with President Barack Obama’s efforts to avoid the Bush administration’s mistake of bumping up the threat level whenever it received worrisome intelligence. Still, there’s a need to provide good information – precisely so the public will understand that terrorism is a fact of life in the modern world, and not an existential disaster. For timely public discussion about the current terrorism threat, you must examine statements from other governments, which express growing concern.

“All the lights are red. They are flashing from everywhere,” Bernard Squarcini, France’s counterterrorism chief, told the French daily Le Monde on September 19. He had warned in a September 10 interview with Le Journal du Dimanche that the risk of a terrorist attack on French soil has “never been higher” and that “objectively, there are reasons for worry.”

Adding to French jitters was an anonymous phone call September 14 warning of an attack on the Eiffel Tower. French police cleared 2,000 people from the area. That same day, a caller warned about a bomb at the big Metro station at Saint-Michel. Both warnings proved to be false alarms.

Concern was also voiced by Joerg Ziercke, the head of Germany’s Federal Crime Office, a national police agency. He told Der Tagesspiegel on September 5 that since the beginning of 2009, Germany had seen a growing number of its residents traveling to terrorist camps and that he now classified 131 people in Germany as “potential instigators.” He said 70 of them had “completed paramilitary training in terror camps” and 40 had combat experience with the insurgents in Afghanistan.

What are the comparable figures for the United States? Does the FBI know? Do US officials share Ziercke’s concern that it’s harder to track these militants because of limits on storing telecommunications data?

Jonathan Evans, the head of Britain’s internal security force, MI5, warned of rising threats from Yemen and Somalia last Thursday in a speech to the grandly named Worshipful Company of Security Professionals. He noted that “a significant number of UK residents” were receiving training from Al-Qaeda’s Somali affiliate, known as Al-Shabaab, and said “it is only a matter of time before we see terrorism on our streets inspired by” these Somali recruits.

What does the US government think about these terrorism reports? Are they accurate or overblown? I can’t offer any guidance for readers, because officials at the White House and various agencies still wouldn’t comment as of midday Tuesday. Perhaps officials are awaiting the outcome of what’s described as a decisive battle in Yemen to capture or kill militant American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

Americans shouldn’t obsess constantly aboutterrorist threats. It’s bad for our national psyche. But by the same token, if terrorism becomes an unmentionable subject – with officials across the government clamming up – then we’re living in another sort of artificial world.

Evans explained to his audience in London why it is important to have a measured, open discussion: “In recent years we appear increasingly to have imported from the American media the assumption that terrorism is 100 percent preventable, and any incident that is not prevented is seen as a culpable government failure. This is a nonsensical way to consider terrorist risk and only plays into the hands of the terrorists themselves.”

Syndicated columnist David Ignatius is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.