Case Study 2 -Terrorism: Effects, Recovery, Prevention

Dustin Maddy, HunWen Tao, Colin Wheeler

Questions to ponder:

Should we prepare for terrorist attacks or does the cost outweigh the benefit?

Should response organizations for terror attacks be separate from natural disaster response organizations or should they be combined?

Are today’s transportation systems acceptable for minimizing the effects of terror attacks?

What do you value more in Transportation, protection from terrorists or rider safety?

Internet Resources:

Tokyo Sarin Gas Attacks

On March 20, 1995, members of a religious cult interested in overthrowing the Japanese government released sarin gas, a nerve agent, on five subway cars in Tokyo during the morning rush hour.  12 people died and between 500 and 1000 people were hospitalized.  Here’s an easy read to fill in the details. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_subway

A nation with low crime and few international enemies, Japan is not a likely target for future terrorist attacks, especially with the domestic groups of concern under heavy surveillance.  However, the country still realizes that the threat exists and has implemented new procedures for such emergencies.  This article focuses more on the preparations in the medical field, but also talks about other problems with the system, like a lack of communication and coordination between the different emergency response groups.  It also reminds us that terrorism is not defined by the number of deaths and injuries, but by the terror it instills. 

http://pdm.medicine.wisc.edu/18-2pdfs/new_106Asaijapan.pdf

In part because Japan does not expect to be terrorized again, Japan has not had a real counterterrorism policy and did not create one after the Tokyo subway incident.  This article mostly talks about the implications of Japan’s involvement with the United States’ counterterrorism policy.  In the section titled “Two Rocks and a Hard Place” (approximately half way through), the author discusses why, despite the dense, very transit-oriented population, Japan is working on the reaction rather than prevention. 

http://policyreview.org/dec01/leheny.html or here

Public transportation is a favored terrorist target because of the quantities of people gathered in one small space.  Does that mean riding the bus is more dangerous than driving?  This study compares the combined security AND safety risk of different modes of transportation. 

http://www.vtpi.org/transitrisk.pdf

9/11 Attacks in the United States

This link is to the 9-11 Commission's complete report.  We don't recommend that you read the entire report for this project, but look over some articles to get a better sense of what the commission decided happened before, during, and after the attacks.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm

The Public Transportation Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 gives interesting numbers on how federal funds may be spent on transportation security and what some senators believe would be a good use of future funds.  This bill never became law, but it did once pass through the Senate with unanimous consent.  Click one of the links next to "Full Text" to read the contents of the bill.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s108-2884

London and Madrid Transit Bombings

Following the Madrid bombing, the EU promulgated a series of recommendations regarding public transportation and precautionary measures. Britain was at the forefront in taking precautionary measures. This link is from the British Department for Transport and gives a list of such measures. Should the US do the same?

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_railways/documents/page/dft_railways_035939.hcsp

This is a detailed timeline of the London terrorist attack as well as the immediate and lasting effects. The order is reversed, so start from the bottom. Although British officials were criticized for being "sluggish" in finding the culprits, they cannot be faulted for not being thorough and accurate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4694069.stm

This is an estimate of the economic damage from the London terrorist attacks. Keep in mind that London is one of the most visited cities on Earth and one of the reasons the cost of living is so high there is because tourism allows it to be.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/15/AR2005081500818_pf.html

This link outlines some of the proposed changes in European transportation policy that never took effect after Madrid. Although some of the propositions may have been expensive, it is difficult to put a price on safety.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25047-2005Mar10?

This is a brief overview and timeline of the events following the Atocha Station bombings in Madrid on 3/11/04. One thing to point out is that there were over 3 times as many victims in Madrid as were in London. Note times and immediate aftermath.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3597885.stm

This article lays out the political significance of the Madrid bombings.  There is much intelligence that details that one strike changed the political swing in Spain and that in Britain, two or three would be needed to obtain the same outcome. Although an argument in foreign policy does not need to be addressed, it should be kept in mind.

July 22, 2005 Friday Final Edition

HEADLINE: Spain's policy change may have spurred London bombers

SOURCE: San Antonio Express-News

BYLINE: JONATHAN GURWITZ

BODY:

The perpetrators of the terrorist attacks in Great Britain in early July believed they could target the transportation system of that nation's capital, inflict massive civilian casualties and compel changes in British foreign policy that would make it more friendly to the goals of Islamic extremism.

These attacks may or may not have been connected with yesterday's explosions in London, but where in the world could the jihadists have gotten the idea that slaughtering innocent civilians would be an effective way to alter the foreign policy of a Western nation?

Spain.

Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero made withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq the centerpiece of his campaign for prime minister in 2004.

Three days after the Madrid train bombings that took 191 lives and injured 1,500, Zapatero -- who had been trailing in polls prior to March 11 -- won the election and quickly made good on his promise to pull out of Iraq.

A 42-page al-Qaida document, part of which had been posted on Internet message boards before the Madrid attack, laid out the plan:

"We think the Spanish government will not stand more than two blows, or three at the most, before it will be forced to withdraw because of the public pressure on it. If its forces remain after these blows, the victory of the Socialist party will be almost guaranteed."

In a column immediately after the bombings in Madrid, I wrote: "They were wrong that it would take two or three strikes to accomplish this goal; it only took one. And in this remarkable success, terrorist groups around the world -- and not al-Qaida alone -- will draw a single conclusion: Terrorism works."

Over the past four years, we've become disturbingly accustomed to the terrorist onslaught against civilians around the world. What hasn't yet registered is the willingness of Islamic extremists to subvert the laws and rights enshrined in Western societies to protect personal and religious freedoms in order to carry out lethal attacks against those societies.

Oppressed by secular tyrannies and expelled by religious monarchies in the Middle East, leaders of the Islamist movement sought and were granted sanctuary in Europe and North America. It's no coincidence that the indoctrination of many of the 9-11 conspirators took place in Madrid and Hamburg, that shoe bomber Richard Reid was a student at London's Finsbury Park mosque or that Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman used mosques in New York to inspire the perpetrators who first attempted to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993.

Failing to grasp this subversion of liberty by Islamic extremists, most Westerners likewise fail to comprehend that their global demands are absolute and non-negotiable. Yet this treachery is a source of particular pain for Muslims who cherish their Western freedoms.

"You are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions," wrote the Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri in the Times of London on July 8. "Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: To take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you."

Taheri argues that we kuffar, or infidels, are focusing on the Islamists' tactical goals -- driving the crusader nations out of the Muslim world, destroying the Zionist entity -- while ignoring its strategic goal: The establishment of a worldwide caliphate in which their perverted interpretation of Islam becomes universal law and non-believers are either forced to submit or are killed.

The Islamist mindset, like other utopian visions, begins with the premise that people are weak. Almighty sheiks and caliphs, whose power derives from God, are therefore required to lead them to salvation.

By capitulating to their tactical demands, as the government of Prime Minister Zapatero did, lovers of freedom amplify the Islamist belief that democracies -- whose power derives from the people -- are inherently weak.

And weakness, or the perception of it, merely invites more terrorist attacks.

Madrid's reaction to the attack was not nearly as staunch as in London.  Because over 75 Al Queda members were arrested following 3/11 stricter border checks were one of the preventative measures taken by Spain. This article details some of the applicable nations.

Spain seeking agreements with African countries on immigration, terrorism

El Pais (Internet Version-WWW)

Friday, September 9, 2005 T13:44:41Z

Spain seeking agreements with African countries on immigration, terrorism

Excerpt from report by Lluis Pellicer: "Spain to increase antiterrorist and economic cooperation with Africa", published by Spanish newspaper El Pais website on 9 September

Barcelona: The director-general of foreign policy, Rafael Dezcallar, announced yesterday that the government will be drawing up an action plan for Africa. The aim of this programme will be to increase official Spanish development aid in the continent - until now (such aid has been) focused on Latin America and the Mediterranean - and the fight against terrorism, according to Dezcallar. "We will have our action plan but we will have to give priority to some countries in bilateral relations", he added. (Passage omitted)

The states which the Spanish action will focus on include South Africa, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Ethiopia, where an aid office has just been opened. This "greater activity" in Africa, Dezcallar explained, also pursues the signing of new treaties to regulate the migratory flows between the countries of West Africa and Spain.

"There are good prospects for this in spite of the fact that it is complicated. We have a treaty with Nigeria which is working very well, we are negotiating another one with Ghana and we will be doing the same with Mali, which until now has refused to sign agreements of this kind with other states", he said.

Spanish foreign policy in Africa, which Dezcallar described as "weaker than expected hitherto", will also focus on the fight against terrorism. It is a matter above all of improving border checks, the operations of customs posts and contributing to the development of strategies against terrorism.

Much intelligence suggests that another series of attacks WILL occur.  Especially dangerous targets are Poland, the UK (again) and the US. This link details that financial support from Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi has infiltrated into a large network of terrorist rings. Mexico? Ay Dios Mio!

SECTION: EN CLAIRE; Exclusive Reports On Issues Of Strategic Significance; Pg. 3

HEADLINE: Bosnia's Now-Clear Link to the London, Madrid, and US Attacks

BODY:

FORENSIC AND OTHER intelligence has now linked the London terrorist bombings of July 7, 2005, to terrorist support operations in Bosnia, just as the terrorist attacks of March 11, 2004, on Madrid, and September 11, 2001, on New York and Washington were later discovered to be linked to the Bosnian nexus. Despite this, the United Kingdom and United States governments have consistently gone out of their way to reject intelligence input which in any way implicates the Bosnians, and particularly the Bosnian Islamist/jihadists linked to the SDA (Party of Democratic Action) party of the late Alija Izetbegovic, who was directly supported by the UK Blair Government and the former US Clinton Government.

Balkan government intelligence sources from more than one country have confirmed that they had been consistently rebuffed when attempting to advise British MI-6 (Secret Intelligence Service: SIS) officers, or US State Department or Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers in the region about jihadist operations in the area, linked to both the loose al-Qaida collection of networks, or to the Iranian Government. One source, debriefed by Defense & Foreign Affairs in the region on July 8, 2005, specifically noted: "They don't want to hear about it." At the same time, British MI-5 (Security Service) sources have told Defense & Foreign Affairs that they had been warned by their own Government (ie: 10 Downing Street) not to bring forth intelligence which raised doubts about links between British extremist Islamists and Bosnia.

It is clear that, both in the UK and US, there was an "intelligence failure" which contributed to the unimpeded execution of the London bombings, the Madrid bombings, and the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, but it was an "intelligence failure" caused by strong political suppression from above of any suggestion that UK and US policies toward the SDA Government of Izetbegovic in the 1990s was misguided. As well, the State Department at a bureaucratic level has continued to insist on a continuation during the Bush Administration of policies created toward the Balkans by the Clinton Administration, despite the clear evidence that these policies were now seen to be contrary to good governance in the former Yugoslavia. In the case of the UK, the Blair Administration is merely continuing with its policies from the 1990s.

What is significant in the case of the UK is that UK Military Intelligence was, during the period of the John Major Government, hostile toward the approach of SIS toward the Balkans, considering it "soft" on the jihadists and dangerous to the British troops operating within the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) inside Bosnia. The SIS and Foreign & Commonwealth Office line -- sympathetic to the jihadists -- was more in keeping with British Labour Party policies, and was thus adopted when Tony Blair and Labour were elected on May 1, 1997.

Since that time, not only have the US and UK governments attempted to disguise or suppress evidence of the linkages of the terrorist build-up in and to Bosnia, they have punished and isolated any officials who might question the "political correctness" of their approach. The result has been to essentially allow and encourage, or at least tacitly facilitate, the terrorist build-up which created all of the major terrorist attacks in Europe and North America in recent years.

Reuven Paz, the Director of the Project for the Research of Islamist Movements, reported on July 11, 2005, in a study for the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Israel:

The bombings in London's public transportation system on July 7, 2005, are too similar to the March 11, 2004, Madrid explosions, consisting of 10 explosive devices aboard four commuter trains during rush hour to ignore the possible connection. The nature of the attacks; the lack of the element of martyrdom; the two declarations of responsibility by "al-Qaida's Secret Group in Europe," and by the "Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades;" and, above all, the clear link to the Islamist insurgency in Iraq, all -- point at a Moroccan/Algerian cell or grouping that is carrying out the global strategy and doctrines of al-Qaida. Whereas the orders and the operational planning did not necessarily stem from the al-Qaida leadership in Afghanistan, Pakistan or elsewhere, the strategy did.

On May 2, 2005, Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis noted:

Apart from the mounting evidence of Bosnian linkage to the Madrid bombings of March 11, 2004, there is now evidence that the al-Qaida assets controlled in Iraq by Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi have plans to work through Bosnia to undertake a major WMD terrorist action in Europe, reportedly utilizing a nuclear or other WMD device. US military forces captured this information directly from Zarqawi's laptop computer abandoned when the al-Qaida leader was forced to flee his position as US forces closed in on him. There are also reports that Zarqawi had also earlier dispatched a number of special terrorists, involved in chemical and/or biological weapons, into Bosnia to prepare for attacks on European targets.

Zarqawi's intimate involvement with the terrorist infrastructure in the Balkans, and B-H [Bosnia-Herzegovina] in particular, was absolutely clarified by the intelligence gathered from his laptop, and from the extensive flow of Islamist fighters fed into his Iraq insurgency from B-H training and logistical bases.

Despite this, the US State Department has continued to support -- as it did during the Clinton Administration and then at the behest of the Clinton White House -- the B-H SDA leaders, who support the Islamist terrorist operations. At the same time, the State Department has worked to destroy the RS [Republica Srpska] leaders who have provided the most significant intelligence support to the US and NATO on regional terrorist assets.

And confirming Zarqawi's pre-eminent role in the North African jihadist movement, from whence much of the manpower derived for the Madrid bombings, Defense & Foreign Affairs Senior Analyst Yossef Bodansky noted in a June 20, 2005, report entitled Zarqawi Begins to Take His Jihad Into North Africa:

[M]essages confirm that the key Islamist-jihadist forces in North Africa -- specifically in Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria -- have been unified into a single regional command answerable to Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi and through him directly to Osama bin Laden and his Shura. Called "The al-Qaida Organization in the Land of the Berbers", the new command unifies, and/or coordinates between, virtually all the Islamist-jihadist forces in the entire North Africa. All the senior and key commanders, as well as experts, of the new organization are veterans of war in Iraq, having been trained in Syria and/or Iran, and then fought for about a year in the ranks of al-Zarqawi's forces in Iraq.

There are extensive other links between Bosnia and, for example, the Madrid bombings, including one link which emerged only on July 11, 2005, in a report which highlighted the relationship between the newly-appointed Bosnian Ambassador to the US, Dr Bicera Turkovic, and the jihadist who declared al-Qaida's responsibility for the Madrid attacks. Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis of July 11, 2005, in a report entitled Additional Evidence of Support for Terrorists, Violations of Arms Trafficking Laws by New Bosnian Ambassador to US, dealing with the Turkovic appointment to the US, noted:

One of the mujahedin from Afghanistan who went into Split [Croatia] during this period and met with [then, in the early 1990s, Bosnian Ambassador to Croatia] Bisera Turkovic's driver was Abu Dujam al-Afghani, the person who declared that al-Qaida took responsibility for the March 11, 2004, Madrid bombings. Because of his accent, people who met him concluded that Abu Dujan was from North Africa, and probably from Morocco. [Abu Dujam al-Afghani is nom de guerre]. Abu Dujam means Sveti Duje who was the Catholic Saint protector of the city of Split, and al Afghani is clear. His real name remains unknown.

Sources confirm that the London bombings in no way represent the pinnacle of operations against the West, and that major strikes continue to be planned against the US, including the use of nuclear weapons, already smuggled into the US via Mexico.

In the meantime, it is expected that jihadist strikes against civilian targets will occur in Warsaw and Rome, to protest the Polish and Italian support for the war in Iraq, and that, failing appropriate counter-terrorist action and pre-emptive intelligence, terrorist incidents would rise in intensity in Western Europe until they match the type of actions undertaken in Iraq. This would include kidnapings and ritualized beheadings of victims.

Adequate countermeasures cannot be achieved until the coordinating nexus of the operations, in Bosnia, is controlled, and to achieve this, the US and UK need to end both the pro-jihadist leadership of Bosnia under Britain's Paddy Ashdown as High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the "politically-correct" approach which ignores the reality of anti-Western terrorism command and control, and Islamist-related narco-trafficking in Bosnia, Kosovo, and jihadist-occupied southern Serbia.

This article is a brief transcript from a recent episode of NBC's Dateline. Sen. Joe Biden discusses transportation policy in the US and how we can learn from the attacks in Europe. Pay close attention to his solution for taking preventative measures. Does he really have one? Is it what you'd expect?

SHOW: Dateline NBC 8:00 AM EST NBC

July 8, 2005 Friday

HEADLINE: Terror in the Morning; Protecting ground transportation in the US

REPORTERS: JOHN LARSON

BODY:

TERROR IN THE MORNING

Announcer: Terror in the Morning continues.

STONE PHILLIPS: It happened in Moscow, it happened in Madrid and now here. In the US, this latest terrorist attack prompted the tightening of security around mass transit. But the question remains: Just how vulnerable are the transportation systems that carry millions of people through American cities every day? Here is John Larson.

Unidentified Woman #1: Here was a double-decker bus that pretty much just blown apart...

JOHN LARSON reporting: (Voiceover) As images of mangled steel and bodies beamed over the Atlantic, fidgety passengers here in the US could not help but wonder, `Could this happen here?' Within hours of the London blasts, mayors and governors across the nation took immediate action trying to insure it doesn't: in St. Louis, Los Angeles, DC and New York. But tens of thousands of miles of tracks run like veins through the heart of almost every major US city, and some are convinced they are very vulnerable.

(Emergency vehicles and personnel; bombed bus; emergency vehicles and personnel; subway station; emergency vehicles; armed police officers; train; tracks)

Senator JOE BIDEN: The potential for carnage is overwhelming.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) Delaware Senator Joe Biden commutes by train every morning to the nation's capital. And he's been concerned for years about US rail security.

(Train; Joe Biden riding train; train)

Sen. BIDEN: We are significantly more vulnerable here than almost any other mode of transportation, and I'm fearful.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) Fears following 9/11 were given credence in October of 2002 when an FBI memo warned that debriefings of al-Qaeda detainees indicates that the group has considered directly targeting US passenger trains. The memo states, "Recently captured al-Qaeda photographs of US railroad engines, cars and crossings heighten the intelligence community's concern of this threat."

(Subway station; documents)

Sen. BIDEN: (Voiceover) In one of those safe houses in Afghanistan we found photographs of American rail vulnerabilities, stations, tunnels, bridges and crossings.

(Soldiers)

LARSON:: (Voiceover) By early 2003, the White House acknowledged terrorists may target not only passenger trains but cargo trains. One strategy memo signed by President George Bush notes, "The greater risk is associated with rail transport of hazardous materials.

(Train near Capitol building; document)

Sen. BIDEN: And if a chlorine gas car is exploded, you could kill literally a hundred thousand people.

LARSON: (Voiceover) But here's the problem, unlike the relatively contained if costly concern of airport security, coming up with viable security solutions for the web of commute trains, subways and buses used daily by as many as 32 million travelers has proven far more difficult. In fact, in March 2003, the Transportation Security Administration cautioned Congress that, "gaps in authority, resource limitations and conflicting priorities leaves land- based transportation systems unacceptably vulnerable to terrorist attack, particularly rail, subway and bus transportation systems. Concerned congressmen point out that the federal government spent $15 billion since 9/11 to upgrade air travel safety. Ground transit has received the equivalent of only 2 percent of that sum.

(Luggage checking machine; subway stations; Capitol building; documents; lines at airport; injured people being helped)

LARSON:: (Voiceover) And if anyone needed a reminder of how deadly, crippling and politically sensitive a terror attack on trains could be, along came March 11th, 2004. At 7 AM that morning, radical Muslim terrorists planted 13 backpacks full of explosives on four trains destined for the Spanish capital of Madrid. The four trains raced toward Atocha, the main hub at the heart of Madrid. A quarter of a million people pass through here every work day. It's rush hour. The trains are packed with working class commuters, migrant workers, schoolchildren. By 7:20, all terrorists exit the trains. The first blast is now just 15 minutes away. Kindergarten teacher Amparo Ortego was on the first train.

(People entering train; inside trains; train; tracks; Puerta de Atocha Madrid station; train station; people; tracks; people inside train; person exiting train; tracks; Amparo Ortego entering train)

Ms. AMPARO ORTEGO: (Through translator) When we approach Atocha, where most everyone gets off, that's when the bomb exploded.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) Seven thirty-eight AM, after the first train pulls into the station, a security camera captures this, passengers on the platform noticing smoke coming from the first blast and then another blast and another, a manmade inferno.

(Train; security camera; excerpt of train bombing)

Ms. ORTEGO: (Through translator) I heard the first explosion and then the second.

LARSON:: What did it sound like? What did it feel like?

Ms. ORTEGO: (Through translator) It's as if the world were falling on top of you, and then everything went silent. You couldn't hear anything.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) But the chaos was captured by this voicemail recording of a cell phone call.

(Excerpt of train explosion)

Unidentified Woman #2: (Translation onscreen) I'm in Atocha. There has been a bomb on the train and we had to...

Ms. ORTEGO: (Through translator) Everyone running in panic, screaming, saying things like, `We are all going to die.'

LARSON: (Voiceover) Two minutes pass, 7:39. The security camera still rolling captures the aftermath of four more bombs going off on a second train just outside the station.

(Excerpt of train explosions)

Ms. ORTEGO: (Through translator) As soon as we got off the train, another bomb exploded, so we look upward because we thought the station would collapse.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) It does not, but two minutes later, as emergency workers rush to the scene, two more bombs explode on another train approaching the station three miles away. Nine bombs exploding in the span of four minutes. A minute later, at 7:42 AM, a 10th and final bomb goes off on yet another train in another station. There are so many wounded, emergency workers rip out benches to use as stretchers. In all, over 1500 people were injured that day; almost 200 were killed.

(Person directing people; people helping injured; bombed train; bombed train; people helping wounded)

LARSON:: What should Americans take away from the tragedy here in Madrid?

Mr. GUSTAVO de ARISTEGUI: That there is no such thing as a terrorist that carries an ID of al-Qaeda.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) Terror expert and Spanish parliament member Gustavo de Aristegui says the bombing in Madrid is alarming for Western cities because it was planned locally by immigrants who spent years living in the West before turning against the West. The group that banded together to blow up the trains consisted largely of Western-looking men, some with families, local girlfriends, jobs and careers.

(Gustavo de Aristegui working at computer; bombed train; train station; train; people walking)

Mr. de ARISTEGUI: There are people that have been living among us for years that can be reached and turned to fight against us.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) This, warns experts, is a new phase in radical Muslim terror. Men influenced by al-Qaeda, yet not members, fighters with experience gained not in the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq but in living among us, detecting the soft spots of our daily urban life, whether in Europe or the US.

(People walking; Paris street)

Mr. de ARISTEGUI: You can call them "Sleeping Cells" if you want, or cells that don't even know that they are cells, people who have been recruited and fanaticized and not even trained.

LARSON:: Could the Madrid scenario happen here?

Mr. ROGER CRESSEY: Absolutely.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) Former White House terror adviser and NBC News analyst Roger Cressey.

(Roger Cressey and Larson walking)

Mr. CRESSEY: I think it's probably the biggest challenge for the FBI right now. Director Mueller said as much in his public testimony where he said, `What I'm worried about most is what I don't know. And that really means: Are there sleeper cells today now working inside the United States?'

LARSON:: (Voiceover) In February, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Intelligence Committee that US transportation systems, quote, "remain a key target." Explaining the attacks in Madrid show how devastating a simple low-tech operation could be.

(Senate hearing; injured being helped)

LARSON:: What do you do about trains? Once we talk about trains, we could talk about buses.

Mr. CRESSEY: Mm-hmm.

LARSON:: We could talk about casinos or whatever.

Mr. CRESSEY: Right.

LARSON:: But--I mean, how do you play perfect defense on the nation's rail system?

Mr. CRESSEY: It's impossible because, unless you fundamentally change our mass transportation system, you're always going to have vulnerabilities that terrorists can take--take advantage of. You have to have a layered defense where you try and identify the threat as far away from the train station or the bus terminal as possible.

Mr. JONATHAN FLEMING: And we look at intelligence that's specific to transportation systems every single day, whether that's domestically or internationally.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) Jonathan Fleming is the chief operating officer of the Transportation Security Administration, the federal agency in charge of mass transit security. When we interviewed him several months ago, he assured us America's rail passengers were safe.

(Jonathan Fleming reading at desk)

Mr. FLEMING: I'm not aware of any specific plot against a rail entity. What I can say is that a number of agencies and a number of entities are working very hard to make sure that any suspicious activity is investigated immediately.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security raised the threat level for mass transit. Its new director, as of February, Michael Chertoff giving a press conference.

(Press conference)

Mr. MICHAEL CHERTOFF: (Press conference) The intent of al-Qaeda and its affiliated organizations to attack in Europe and in the United States has been well documented and continues to be reflected in intelligence reporting. We've already taken additional measures to secure transit systems since 9/11 and since the railway bombing in Madrid.

LARSON:: (Voiceover) The new measures since Madrid include requiring Amtrak passengers to present ID cards for ticketing, hiring over 100 train inspectors across the country, developing new canine response units, and--as the Homeland Security Department told NBC--establishing a protective corridor around the nation's capital, redirecting most hazardous cargo carriers seven miles around DC. Still, Senator Biden does not think the federal government is doing enough. He's trying to pass a package that would add over a billion dollars to railway security. He says it is stuck in a Senate committee, a similar effort died last year once it reached Congress.

(Train; inspectors on train; police officer and dog; train in Washington, DC; Biden leaving train; Capitol building)

Sen. BIDEN: But critics say you can't protect 22,000 miles of rail. They are absolutely right. But you can pick the high vulnerability targets and you can much better secure them.