Salon.com > Paul J. Caffera

Republicans for Kerry?

Sat, 27 Mar 2004 00:37:00 +0000

Victor Fasciani, a 40-year-old asset manager, pays membership dues to the Republican National Committee, the only party he's ever belonged to. He was at the 2000 Republican Convention in Philadelphia, where he was a New York delegate for John McCain. He's no fan of John Kerry, but come November, he says, "I'm probably not voting for Bush, and I'm not voting for Ralph Nader, so that leaves me with a quandary."

It's a quandary afflicting many moderate Republicans, who feel alienated by their party's rightward lurch and economic irresponsibility, and who fear that another four years of Bush will consolidate the power of the party's most hard-line conservative elements. Even as moderate Republicans make gains in liberal states like New York and California, they're feeling squeezed by their own party. Elements of the Republican right have declared jihad on the values party moderates hold dear, and though the White House claims to embrace all Republican factions, for most moderates there's little doubt where its loyalties lie.

A predictable tragedy

Wed, 05 Nov 2003 00:37:00 +0000

When a shoulder-launched missile was fired on Sunday from the shelter of an Iraqi date grove and blew the rear rotor off a Chinook transport helicopter, the United States suffered the single most lethal attack on its troops since the invasion of Iraq began more than six months ago. But obscured in the initial government comments and press accounts of the deadly attack was a crucial point:

The tragedy was predictable. And though it has long been known that hundreds of shoulder-fired missiles are circulating among hostile forces in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, the Bush administration and congressional leaders have done little to protect the commercial passenger jets and some military helicopters that ferry thousands of troops in and out of the war theater.

Although Chinooks used for Special Forces operations are reported to carry anti-missile technology, a U.S. Army official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Salon that the National Guard CH-47 Chinook helicopter shot down on Sunday was unprotected. The chopper was being used to ferry at least 36 troops from Fort Carson, Colorado's, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to the main U.S. military base in Baghdad; from there, they were to proceed to Kuwait City, where they would have boarded one of two daily commercial airliners that the Pentagon has hired to bring troops home for a two-week break from the Iraqi war zone.

Bush abandons troop-protection plan

Sat, 27 Sep 2003 22:39:00 +0000

Even as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made headlines this week by announcing that up to 20,000 fresh troops may be called to Iraq, President Bush and members of the congressional leadership were quietly abandoning a plan to protect troop-transport airliners from missile attack by terrorists or Saddam loyalists.

The measure, first advanced by the Pentagon, would have begun an ambitious program to equip the commercial airliners that are used for troop transport with advanced technology to protect them from the shoulder-fired missiles. Confused by disarray in the administration's plans to protect airliners from missile attack, the House of Representatives slashed the original $25 million request to $3 million. Congressional officials say the Bush administration did nothing to win approval of the full measure -- despite recent missile attacks on U.S. military craft flying near the Baghdad airport.

The outcome shocked many in the Defense Department and, critics said, it clearly could leave troops vulnerable. "I am appalled," said one Defense Department official who asked to remain anonymous. "We are setting ourselves up for a fall. We are paying lip-service to force protection and instead are digging a deeper hole in which to bury our head."

Terrorist threat or political hype?

Wed, 20 Aug 2003 00:32:00 +0000

When British arms dealer Hemant Lakhani was arrested a week ago and charged with plotting to sell portable missiles to terrorists who would turn them against commercial jets, the Bush administration portrayed the bust as a milestone in the war on terrorism. Top administration officials went before the reporters and, in solemn tones, described the catastrophe that might've been if not for the alert work of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agents. Bush himself offered a similar view when he met with reporters at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"The fact that we're able to sting this guy," the president said, "is a pretty good example of what we're doing in order to protect the American people."

Within days, however, a more critical view began to emerge among top national-security experts: The arrest of Lakhani and two alleged accomplices was welcome, yes, but its significance was being dramatically overstated by an administration on the defensive over its failure to capture Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and its struggles in Afghanistan and Iraq. By the critics' line of reasoning, the administration was exaggerating the significance of the Lakhani arrest just as it had the arrests last year of alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla and the Lackawanna Six "sleeper cell" in New York. While officials were tipping off reporters in advance of the bust, they complained, the administration was continuing to resist substantive -- and expensive -- measures to protect commercial jets.

Bush’s do-nothing plan for airline security

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 22:25:00 +0000

When al-Qaida terrorists in Kenya failed in their effort to shoot down an Israeli charter jet with a shoulder-launched missile last November, airline security experts were relieved, but only briefly. Such an attack had long been expected, and though the missile missed its target that day, the experts urged that the near-miss be regarded as a wakeup call to airlines and governments worldwide.

A little more than six months later, the administration of President George W. Bush is making only a limited commitment to reduce the threat of shoulder-launched missiles, and critics both inside and outside the government say he is putting both passengers and the airline industry at risk.

The administration recently blocked two congressional measures to address the threat, including a comprehensive $9 billion plan to begin outfitting passenger jets with sophisticated anti-missile equipment. Instead, a new report by Bush's Department of Homeland Security says the administration is proposing a timetable in which the study and planning would not be completed until 2005, and the first widespread installation of anti-missile technology would be years away, at best. Only $2 million would be spent in the next few months to assemble staff and data on the risk posed by portable missiles; up to $60 million would be allocated next year to continue the study.

Last chance to avert catastrophe?

Mon, 09 Dec 2002 20:46:00 +0000

When terrorists linked to al-Qaida fired a portable missile at an Israeli jet as it took off from Mombasa, Kenya, they rocked the aviation world. Before the attack on the Tel Aviv-bound Arkia Boeing 757, few air travelers had ever considered that their plane could be blown out of the sky by a heat-seeking shoulder-launched missile, even though nearly 1,000 air passengers have perished in such attacks. Their ignorance was not shared by American officials, who have been aware of the portable missile threat for years. Until the failed attack in Africa, however, they said nothing. The reason: The government has done almost nothing to prepare for the possibility -- some experts call it a probability -- that terrorists will use shoulder-launched missiles against American commercial jetliners, either within or outside the United States. Had the government and airlines responded to this threat as it was emerging, America's air travelers would be protected by now. Instead, both government and the industry saved their money and hoped for the best. Now al-Qaida is gunning for Americans and America's fleet of jetliners is unprotected against missiles that weigh 35 pounds and can fit in the trunk of a car.

The air industry’s worst nightmare

Fri, 22 Nov 2002 20:36:00 +0000

The war on terror took an unsettling turn last week with the resurfacing of Osama bin Laden and the FBI's announcement that al-Qaida is planning "spectacular attacks ... [with] high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the U.S. economy, and maximum psychological trauma." The FBI identified the U.S. aviation industry as a prime target for al-Qaida, and although critics have complained the bulletin was vague, Salon has learned that in the days before it was issued, national security executives met secretly with top airline officials to discuss the risk that high-tech portable missiles might be used against commercial jets.

According to sources who attended it, the meeting was convened by the year-old Transportation Security Administration on the afternoon of Election Day, Nov. 5. It included Adm. James Loy, chief of the agency; President Bush's secretary of transportation, Norman Mineta; representatives of the Office of Homeland Security; and a group of 25 airline CEOs. Gathered in a secure conference room in the Department of Transportation Building in Washington, they heard evidence of the growing and intractable threat that shoulder-fired infrared-homing missiles pose to crowded commercial jets taking off and landing at U.S. airports.

Hand-held terror

Thu, 08 Nov 2001 20:45:00 +0000

American Airlines Flight 970 was supposed to be routine, a two-hour hop from Managua, Nicaragua, to Miami International Airport. The only thing different about the scheduled flight leaving from Augusto Cesar Sandino International Airport on March 31, 1993, was that it was carrying senior-level Nicaraguan diplomats. Just before the plane was to take off, airport authorities received an anonymous telephone call threatening to shoot down the Boeing 727 with a shoulder-launched missile.

The plane was kept on the ground until security crews could sweep the area by foot and helicopter for any suspicious activity. The authorities had plenty of reason for concern -- the caller had said the plane would be shot down with a "Redeye" missile. Redeyes, the first American-made, shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, had been captured by the Russians at the end of the Vietnam War and subsequently shipped to the Cubans, who then funneled them to Nicaragua's communist Sandinista regime.

In the end, the flight took off without incident, but the incident unnerved airport authorities and American Airlines, who realized that they were virtually powerless against the invisible threat. It also showed how close to home the threat of shoulder-launched missile attacks against passenger jets has come.