New York’s going Green (Zone)
By Tom Carey / tom@theklaxon.com / 11.30.2009
Updated on: 01.27.10 at 8:22 pm
[Editor’s note: This is the first of a series following the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial and its security.]
Soon lower Manhattan will mirror the landscape of Baghdad’s infamous Green Zone. Physical security measures, such as numerous check points, sally ports, barriers and route constraints, will curtail the downtown area, as do the government offices and international compounds found in Iraq’s Green Zone.
If anyone has trouble picturing this, just remember the weeks and months following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Entering and leaving the city during business hours was stressful and discouraging. And now, just blocks away from the carnage and chaos of the World Trade Center site, the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his “band of brothers” will begin with the selection of a willful, but wary, American jury.
The City of New York will be on high alert through the course of what many predict to be a lengthy trial with estimated expenses of about $75 million to be spent on the planning and implementation of security measures. In the worst downturn since the Great Depression, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder promised Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the federal government would help cover this cost. But with the nation’s largest police department of 35,000 members down some 5,000 from 2001, is the New York Police Department ready to go it alone on this one?
If the U.S. Department of Homeland Security should raise the orange flag now—before the streets run red with blood—they will not only buck up but also provide New York with unlimited resources it deserves to protect its citizens.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani wants Mohammed and his four co-conspirators tried in a military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Giuliani told Fox News that moving the case to New York “…seems to be an overconcern with the rights of terrorists and a lack of concern for the rights of the public.”
Even New York’s Governor David Paterson has joined critics questioning the White House choice of venue to try these five alleged terrorists.
Many critics contend that holding this trial in New York will cause traffic congestion, a drain on police manpower, an enormous bill for security preparations and at worst, another attack. New York Daily News columnist Michael Lupica said it very succinctly: “This is a trial that will dominate the city and hold it hostage and bring back the day and none of the dead.”
Mitigation and preparedness: Target analysis
The NYPD’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division, in conjunction with the U.S. Marshal’s Service are currently reviewing the security posture of the Federal Court complex in lower Manhattan and its surrounding areas. Upon conducting a thorough threat and vulnerability assessment of the surrounding areas, one can conduct a viable target analysis by utilizing a variety of methods that will measure the likelihood in which a terrorist event may unfold. The necessary measurements to create proper standoff protocols to ensure force protection and safety to the general public will certainly be scrutinized, especially in an area that was designed to accommodate horses and carriages.
New physical security measures are surely to be the scene of the downtown court area in the near future. Entrances to the complex will be controlled by access control procedures the likes of which American civilians have ever seen. Chemical and radiological measuring devices are likely to be staged in the vicinity to handle any threat that comes their way.
The proper implementation of these measures will harden targets and provide the illusion of a secure environment. Counter intelligence and counter surviellance will be a key in keeping the area safe by collecting and disseminating information in a timely fashion.
Target analysis flipside: Threats to prisoners on trial
As with any high-profile prisoners, these defendants will receive the same type of protection afforded to that of the twentieth Sept. 11 bomber, Zacarias Moussaoui, and domestic terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. However, these prisoners were not tried for the crimes in the geographical area in which they committed them.
Moussaoui was tried in Alexandria, Va., for his role in the World Trade Center attacks in New York, and McVeigh and Nichols were tried in Denver for the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
Also, authorities must be prepared to confront grieving, distraught or angered citizens who may want to take the law into their own hand in a fanatical way. Individuals may see themselves as “vigilante patriots” and attempt to assassinate Mohammed or one of his henchmen. These individuals might attempt this act without remorse or concern of capture by authorities. In fact, the detainment processes maybe the modus operandi of the act to gain notoriety and publicity.
The inner perimeter
In an already congested area minutes from the Brooklyn Bridge, police headquarters and city hall, police brass will have to make tough choices of security over the public’s ability to conduct daily business. The frozen zone/inner perimeters are likely to be streets leading up to the entire court complex, the complex itself and the adjacent streets.
One Police Plaza, which runs adjacent to the federal courts will, no doubt, beef up its security with the USMS, by assigning its tactical assets, such as the Emergency Service Unit (ESU), Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) and police officers trained in Chemical Ordnance Biological Radiological Awareness (COBRA). Terrorists often exploit an organization’s vulnerabilities through their design and taking note of a security forces procedures. Counter intelligence and counter surveillance efforts will be a key in keeping the area safe by collecting and disseminating information in a timely fashion.
The implementation of a sufficient Physical Protection System (PPS) will be needed to ensure a secure environment for the Federal Court complex.PPS requires the perception of the materials or the function of the physical security devices as being able to counter a threat and defeat it. Utilizing an efficient PPS requires timely detection. Counter Intelligence and counter surveillance efforts will be a key in at this juncture in keeping the area safe by collecting and disseminating information in a timely fashion.
The use of additional serpentine barriers, sally ports equipped with cameras and a host of other intrusion devises can assist force protection personnel to delay of vehicular attack. Properly trained and proactive personnel are the best defense in vetting the authorized public in admitting or denying access to the frozen zone.
Vulnerabilities in both the physical process and human factor (time alert on post) will have to be scrutinized and re-evaluated by security and NYPD brass to ensure the system is working. Complacency on these posts can’t take place since the adversary will take advantage lapse in security.
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