A study released by the RAND Corporation acknowledged that
shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles — also known as
man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) — are a terrorist
threat to civilian jetliners, but concluded that spending $11
billion (plus annual operating costs of $2.1 billion) to outfit the
commercial airline fleet with defensive countermeasures was too
expensive.
To be sure, $11 billion is a lot of money. But it’s less than
one-half of one percent of the $2.4 trillion federal budget for
fiscal year 2005 and less than 3 percent of the Defense
Department’s $400-plus billion budget. Surely there must be a way
to find a spare $11 billion to address a crucial security need.
In the more than three years since the 9/11 attacks, the United
States has spent considerable resources to increase airport
security to prevent future hijackings. But instead of trying to
hijack airplanes, what if al Qaeda or some other terrorist menace
decides that it’s easier to shoot down airplanes and kill the
passengers?
Remember, militants who were widely believed to be members of al
Qaeda tried to shoot down an Israeli plane in Kenya in November of
2002, using hand-held surface-to-air missiles. They only narrowly
missed.
If one of these missiles connected, the human death toll would
be considerably less than on 9/11, but the economic impact would
not be slight. RAND estimated that a single successful missile
attack against a commercial airliner could inflict economic losses
from $1.4 billion, if there was a total shutdown of airline traffic
for just one day, to $70.7 billion if the shutdown stretched out to
a month.
Commercial air travel was stopped completely for a few days and
was severely disrupted for at least a week after 9/11, but the
flying public was coaxed back into flying by assurances that the
government and the airlines were taking precautions to prevent more
hijackings. If a single airliner is shot down by a missile, public
confidence is not likely to be restored by more passenger searches
and a larger presence of law enforcement at airports.
The scary reality is that ground security to defend against
MANPADS is nearly impossible. These relatively light and portable
systems have a range of several miles which would require policing
an area of several hundred square miles around many airports.
MANPADS are a known clear and present danger. At least 500,000
such systems have been produced worldwide. And at least 17
terrorist organizations (including al Qaeda) are believed to
possess Soviet SA-7 missiles — the same missile that was used in
Kenya in November 2002. And it’s not just the SA-7 that’s a
concern. The American Stinger missile (supplied to the mujahadeen
in Afghanistan to down Soviet Hind helicopters) is also thought to
be in the hands of terrorist groups, including al Qaeda.
There is also a well-documented history of using MANPADS against
civilian aircraft. According to the International Civil Aviation
Organization, since the 1970s, at least 42 aircraft have been
attacked by MANPADS. Twenty-nine of them went down. According to
the FBI, 550 people were killed as a result of those attacks.
If $11 billion will diminish this threat, it’s $11 billion well
spent. Here’s one way to find more than enough money to install and
operate the countermeasures for their projected 10-year life cycle:
Cancel the Air Force’s F-22, the Marine Corps V-22, and the Navy’s
Virginia-class submarine. Total savings: more than $160 billion in
future program costs.
The F-22 was originally designed for air superiority against
Soviet tactical fighters that were never built, and the U.S. Air
Force does not have an adversary that can seriously challenge it
for air superiority. The V-22’s tilt-rotor technology is still
unproven and inherently more dangerous than helicopters that can
perform the same missions at a fraction of the cost. The
Virginia-class submarine was designed to counter a Soviet nuclear
submarine threat that no longer exists.
According to Citizens Against Government Waste, in 2004
congressional appropriators stuck 10,656 projects in 13
appropriations bills for a total of $22.9 billion in pork barrel
spending — more than twice what’s needed to procure the
countermeasures cited in the RAND report. The point is: The money
is there, if the government takes the threat seriously.
The paramount responsibility of the federal government is to
provide for the common defense. In the post-9/11 world, that means
defending against terrorist attacks. While it’s impossible to
defend against every potential line of attack, the government would
be shirking its duty if it couldn’t find $11 billion to protect
commercial airliners against such a serious threat.
