Wrong Questions Produce Wrong Answers : Part 1

Our Own Worst Enemy: Asking the Right Questions About Security to Protect You, Your Family, and America
by Colonel Randall J. Larsen USAF

In this critical and provocative examination of the deficiencies and oversights in homeland security, a leading expert reveals what individual citizens, communities, and business leaders can do to best prepare for the most dangerous threats.

Former Air Force colonel Randall J. Larsen has dedicated his career to keeping America safe. The man whom many consider to be the foremost expert on homeland security now believes that America's government and citizens often stand in the way of their own safety-by asking the wrong questions. With the specter of ever-growing, dangerous threats, this is a crucial book for every family.

Provocative and enlightening, Our Own Worst Enemy offers a meticulous examination of the key issues that contribute to national security, such as the economy, border protection and immigration, and national health care. Larsen explains why the government is not prepared to help us in a time of crisis, and his strict assessment will have you asking the right questions. Most important, he shows what every citizen, community, and business must do to protect themselves.

Chapter 1

JUST NINE DAYS AFTER THE 9/11 ATTACKS, TWO MEN AND A WOMAN CROSSED Pennsylvania Avenue and approached the northwest entrance to the White House. All three carried briefcases. Security was incredibly tight, and it took them nearly fifteen minutes to clear the metal, explosives, and radiological detectors, and a physical search of their bags. These were not regular times at the White House, and these were not regular guests.

Everything appeared normal, but a uniformed Secret Service agent asked one of the men why he had a surgical mask in his briefcase. The man replied, "Just for demonstration. You saw Mayor Rudy Giuliani wear one at Ground Zero, right?" The three were permitted to enter. They walked down two corridors and up two flights of stairs. After waiting for several minutes in a small room, Vice President Dick Cheney and several of his senior staff members walked into the room. In the same briefcase that contained the surgical mask, not more than ten feet from where the vice president was seated, was a test tube filled with weaponized Bacillus globigii. None of the security devices had detected it.

During that meeting, Vice President Cheney asked the question: "What does a biological weapon look like?"

I pulled the test tube from my briefcase and said, "Sir, it looks like this, and by the way, I did just carry this into your office." I went on to explain that Bacillus globigii is harmless, but physically and even genetically it is nearly identical to Bacillus anthracis - the bacterium that causes anthrax. If you can make the former, you will have no difficulty making the latter.

Two weeks later, Dr. Tara O'Toole, the director of the Center for Biosecurity-University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and I walked into CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to meet with the chief of indications and warning. While going through the security checkpoint, I noted the presence of a guard in full battledress uniform and armed with a machine gun (something not often seen at CIA Headquarters). After making eye contact with him, I took the test tube from one pocket, looked at it for a moment to make sure he could see it, and gently placed it in the other. The guard said nothing. Once again, a test tube of weaponized Bacillus globigii was carried into one of the most secure buildings in America.

Three weeks later, the office of Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, received an envelope filled with a far smaller quantity of weaponized and dangerous Bacillus anthracis. The young intern running the automatic letter-opening machine saw a fine mist of powder emerge from the envelope, and the Capitol Police were summoned. Later that day, all members of Congress and their staffs were evacuated from the Capitol Building and the six congressional office buildings. The Senate Hart Office Building, home to Tom Daschle and his staff, would remain closed for ninety days. It was contaminated with anthrax.

It would be easy to place the responsibility for the two earlier security lapses on the men and women entrusted with guarding the White House and CIA Headquarters. After all, if they can't protect their own house, how can we expect them to protect ours? But centering the blame on these individuals is both unjust and inaccurate. The failure was not one of execution, but of education. This lack of education and understanding of homeland security is the root of our problems. The Secret Service agent saw the test tube in my briefcase, but he asked about the surgical mask. He asked the wrong question. He is not alone.

Since 9/11, the business of homeland security has experienced unprecedented growth, creating a boom market for disciplines such as nuclear, chemical, and biological science, security and intelligence services, and information technology. While American taxpayers continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the homeland security machine, media reports inundate us with daily proof of our failures despite our most valiant efforts. My admittance into two highly secure government buildings with a test tube of Bacillus globigii was just one small (fortunately benign) and unreported example. Throughout history, America has proven to be a resilient and formidable world force capable of meeting any challenge head-on and emerging triumphant. So what, if anything, has changed? Why are we struggling with this so-called War on Terror? Certainly it can be argued that the world stage has changed dramatically over the past several decades, due to the end of the Cold War, the emerging threat from previously nonnuclear players, and the advent of state-sponsored terrorism. But in examining the trends and reactions of Congress, the administration, and the homeland security community over the past several years, it has become abundantly clear where America's problem lies. The most formidable military force in the history of mankind, the most brilliant scientists employing the most sophisticated technology available today, the most dedicated civil servants and the most committed, united citizens in the world cannot provide the answers to our problems so long as we continue to ask the wrong questions.

The number one problem of homeland security is that the majority of leaders in the public and private sectors, academics, self-appointed experts, and pundits rush to provide answers before they have properly constructed the questions. This is because they assume the questions have not changed. They are wrong. The questions have changed. The reason for these changes is not al Qaeda or 9/11; the reason is technology. Weapons formerly restricted to the arsenals of large industrialized nation-states are now within reach of small states and some nonstate actors.

In the twenty-first century, biotechnology will change our lives even more than nuclear technology did in the twentieth century. Thirty years ago we didn't have to struggle with the ethical dilemmas of stem cell research and cloning or the threat of genetically engineered bioweapons. But change has not been limited to new types of weapons; it is the entire international environment that has changed.

Copyright © 2007 by Randall Larsen

About the Author

Colonel Randall J. Larsen, USAF (Ret)is the director of the Institute for Homeland Security, a senior associate at the Center for Biosecurity, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and the cohost of public radio's Homeland Security: Inside and Out. Colonel Larsen served for thirty-two years in the Army and Air Force. His assignments ranged from duty as a nineteen-year-old Cobra pilot in the 101ST Airborne Division, with whom he flew 400 combat missions in Vietnam, to command of America's fleet of VIP aircraft at Andrews AFB, MD, and chairman of the Department of Military Strategy and Operations at the National War College.