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Via the Washington Post, Mary Beth Sheridan’s article “Visa Tracking Limited by Lack of Personnel“:

With great fanfare, the Bush administration has pledged to fortify the nation’s anti-terrorism protections by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new computer systems to keep tabs on millions of foreign students and visitors.

But even if that complex effort succeeds, immigration officials and experts say there is a gaping hole in the strategy: Because of a shortage of investigators, there are few people to chase foreigners flagged by the computers for overstaying their visas or dropping out of school. [...]

“How do you cope with the identification and questioning and perhaps apprehension of a couple hundred thousand people when you don’t have the resources trained or in place to do it? That’s the void. You’ve got a nice car but no engine,” said Tom Fischer, a retired INS district director whose Atlanta office oversaw a test of the student tracking system. [...]

More drastic measures to detect illegal immigrants haven’t won much support. Proposals for a national identity card, for example, have raised concerns about civil liberties. And INS officials are reluctant to deputize local police to arrest visa violators because of the complexity of immigration law and concerns about racial and ethnic profiling.

INS investigators discovered the difficulty of finding foreign student dropouts in an operation in San Diego in December. They sought the records of local universities and found about 50 apparent visa violators from countries linked to terrorism, officials said. When they went looking for the students, they located only 10, one of whom had his papers in order. Other students weren’t home, had moved or transferred.

According to the article, a number of the 9/11 hijackers could theoretically have been detained and expelled for visa violations. Hani Hanjour, one of the Pentagon plane pilots, arrived on a student visa and never showed up to class; two other hijackers had lapsed visitor visas. So the problem is real. It seems to me we can either:

And now for a completely different take on recent mouthing-offs by Chris Patten, Hubert Vedrine, Joschka Fischer et al. These thoughts were prompted in part by a “Le Sofa Blog” commentary I threatened to write about a week ago or so. That commentary, by the estimable Peter Praschl, was a puzzled-to-ticked-off review of a Jane Kramer article in the New Yorker, “Private Lives: Germany’s troubled war on terrorism.”

As perhaps befits a “Letter from Europe,” Ms. Kramer’s article meanders here, dallies there, stops at a bar to look at a poster and share a beer with Otto Schily (German justice minister), sprays conclusions with a “we’re no different” protective coating, and is generally hard to pin down to a single theme or definite insight. Mr. Praschl, understandably vexed with a wordy article that has trouble coming to a point, writes “what on earth does she want,” and focuses on her discussion of “Rasterfahndung” (roughly, “array dragnet”: computer profiling/database mining for criminal investigative purposes), which he finds wanting; he concludes “9/11 has apparently also wrecked a mind that used to be reliable.” That was so harsh I had to take a look for myself. It took me several re-readings to come to a somewhat different conclusion: Kramer has written two or three good articles disguised as a single unwieldy one (something I often seem to aspire to as well).

Kramer uses 8 Prinz Albrecht Strasse, and a permanent exhibit now housed at the site (Topography of Terror), as her essay’s touchstone. The address is infamous in German history: Gestapo headquarters, Berlin, 1933-1945. But Kramer sees how it is used differently today: as an explanation, if not excuse for an ineffective German police and intelligence response to 9/11. She is told frequently that it’s German history that works against effectively streamlining and centralizing Germany’s criminal investigative apparatus. Yet it’s also true that when faced with a direct, if relatively small threat to its own survival — the Baader-Meinhof or Red Army Fraction gang of the 1970s — German government and society wasted little time in going after these terrorists (with a grand total of a “close to” a dozen casualties to their discredit) hammer and tongs. In fact, computer profiling and many other antiterrorist measures now in use against Al Qaeda — however fitfully — saw their genesis in this first Bundesrepublik war on terror. In the end, the republic survived, democracy survived, the gang did not: so far, so good in the German democratic experiment.

It’s hard not to honor the impulse to say “never again” when faced with the documentary evidence of the Gestapo’s absolute powers and hideous abuses. Yet the Gestapo did not arise in a vacuum, much less in a nation with fifty years worth of democracy under its belt. Kramer wastes a good deal of time on a concept of “Transparenz”, which is ostensibly Germany’s guiding “sunshine law”ish principle that all government processes should be transparent and open. To me, Germany’s guiding democratic principle can simply be summed up as “never again.” Like anything else, though, this is a principle that can be taken to extremes. That train wreck of a confidence vote following Schroeder’s pledge of troops to Operation Enduring Freedom; later opposition (including Schroeder’s Green coalition partners) to Justice Minister Otto Schily’s domestic anti-terror package both have their political origins in “never again”: anything that merely arguably smacks of the Third Reich galvanizes righteous opposition.

It’s as if Germany has never legitimately needed to defend itself. Smack head. It never has needed to defend itself, barring that semi-ridiculous confrontation with RAF terrorists who obligingly starved themselves to death or committed suicide. Smack head a second time. Germany may still not need to defend itself. As Jane Kramer writes,

…one reason Germans do not have foreign terrorism in their cities is that the terrorists passing through on their student visas and business visas have not been willing to risk that protection by blowing up something here. [...]

“…Germany stopped taking a lot of serious things seriously [the day the Wall fell]. Not just militant fundamentalism but things connected to militant fundamentalism, like the proliferation of nuclear or biological weapons in the Muslim world. “Germany felt peaceful and secure,” [Tagesspiegel editor Robert von Rimscha] told me. “It was the end of history. We didn’t feel the obligation to monitor. We didn’t have embassy bombings. We didn’t have the U.S.S. Cole. Why turn ourselves into a target?”

With that, this American’s feelings gelled that we’re simply not in the same boat with the Europeans. In the game we’re playing today, it’s arguably good to be the weakest link, and it’s bad to make the link stronger. What incentive could Bin Laden, Hussein, or their ilk possibly have for attacking a European target? Many Europeans are busily arguing Al Qaeda’s case from Camp X-Ray to Kandahar, paying Hussein “how do you do” visits in Iraq, propping up Arafat in the West Bank, and generally triangulating away from the United States like mad. But mad isn’t the word for it, simple self-interest is, the more so since Muslim minorities have become significant voting blocs in their own right in countries across Europe.

…so we won’t be rowing together?
This is arguably the underlying point of Kramer’s article, but that’s not to say that craven self-interest is the only political impulse among Europeans. Schroeder’s own prompt “unconditional solidarity” statement seems heartfelt to me; Joschka Fischer’s outburst is likely best understood as tacking back to the left in advance of a make-or-break election for him and his Green Party and is at least balanced by his solidarity — at some cost to himself and his party — with Americans in the aftermath of 9/11. Great numbers of average Europeans instinctively, I think (or hope), see a common cause with the United States from a shared history reaching back hundreds of years, and from a common democratic and cultural outlook. But such sentiments will contend with simple calculations of safety, which may conspire to undo or stall reforms such as overhauling Germany’s banking secrecy regulations. Of these Kramer writes,

..the German banking system is so archaic that no one besides the bankers has that intelligence to give. Banking was only minimally covered in Schily’s anti-terrorism packages, and foreign police are astounded to learn that a German policeman or intelligence agent trying to trace money or identify a suspect’s accounts still has to submit a request to every one of the country’s three thousand banks—a procedure that is unlikely to inspire much efficiency, let alone much interest, in your average investigator. A lawyer who covers money-laundering issues for the Association of German Banks told me that, with four hundred million bank accounts in the country, there was simply no available technology for constructing a central computerized data base, but his argument—which is the argument of most German bankers—seems a little ingenuous in a world where computers are tracking the universe and describing the human genome.

Likewise, even Der Spiegel recently published an article (”Investigators are getting lost in a data mess”) betraying some impatience with the slow progress of “Rasterfahndung” work and noting,

Following three verdicts in different states which strongly curtailed computer profiling of so-called “sleepers”, the whole data collection effort is becoming ever more of a farce. [...]

A run-of-the-mill computer sits in a locked room [in Berlin] with sensitive data on its hard disk: tens of thousands of personal record extracts from the population bureau [Landeseinwohneramt], Berlin utilities, the three universities, or the airport authority. Investigators at the State Security Department aren’t currently allowed to use them, because the Berlin District Court [Amtsgericht] declared computer profiling in Berlin to be over for the time being. The reason: there was no “present danger” that justified the extensive data matching effort. [...]

The decisions may apply to just three German states, but the work of other state agencies is stalled by the verdicts. This is due to one trait in particular that all three terror pilots studying in Germany shared: high mobility. They may have lived in Hamburg, but they traveled throughout the republic. That’s just why data was to be exchanged between states for computer profiling purposes. … The verdict of the district court has made [interstate data inquiries to the city/state of Berlin] useless, because the data are under lock and key.

Reasonable people can differ about the efficacy of computer profiling, or the protocols to follow in implementing the tactic. But what seems to be happening in Germany is a piecemeal, state by state “policy” that defeats the freely made national choice to pursue terrorists with the tools at hand. The question is whether such national choices will be allowed to die with a whimper, or whether they will be pressed with new legislation that can withstand court challenges.

Recently I noticed German columnist Josef Joffe’s main argument why the United States would still need to work with its militarily undersized European partners in the fight against terror: all the nonmilitary details of investigation, sanctions, surveillance, and intelligence. If it turns out the Germans and Europeans aren’t much good at those either, the United States is left with little but military and U.S. homeland defense alternatives in its self-defense, and with little but “ethics commission” use for European voices. The incentives for Germans and Europeans to improve and streamline their intelligence and crime-fighting services are nowhere near as strong as they are in the United States. In Germany, at least, this may combine with the useful slogan of “never again” to slow the pace of improvement to a crawl.

Americans and Europeans aren’t in the same boat in this new war, so we won’t be rowing together. It would be nice if we were at least rowing in the same general direction; but that is as much in European hands as it is in American ones. Americans might acknowledge that we’ve seen some real solidarity and meaningful help across the pond. We might do well to think how to encourage more, since the more help we get from Europe (and elsewhere), the less draconian our own homeland security may have to be, and the fewer bludgeoning wars we may have to fight. Europeans might acknowledge, for their part, that “minutes of silence”, Keystone Kop criminal investigations, and puny military contributions to a deadly fight don’t entitle them to an honored seat at the table in the conduct of this war, or the undying gratitude of the American people. In other words, it will be up to Europeans to calculate whether they’ve already done as much as they’re comfortable doing for their transatlantic brethren, or whether more demanding sacrifices are in order.

Lest we believe that Euro-critics of the American war in Afghanistan are confined to the left, German CDU has-been Jürgen Todenhöfer wants to make sure the right wing gets some credit, too. Todenhöfer is interesting for having visited Afghanistan in the 80s (German netzine “Jungle World”) back when Afghans were fighting the good fight against the Soviet Union. He was also the development and foreign aid speaker of the CDU/CSU in the Bundestag from 1972 to 1990. Via Stefan Knecht of the German blog Le Sofa Blog, I was directed to Mr. Todenhöfer’s recent article titled “Der Flop: Über den Umgang mit der Wahrheit im Antiterrorkrieg ” (”The flop: on the handling of truth in the war on terror”) in the Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Todenhöfer’s CDU (center-right) credentials, in Knecht’s view, help to immunize Todenhöfer against charges of “anti-Americanism.” Mr. Todenhöfer’s remarks in this and earlier op-eds at least point to a kind of bipartisan Euroskepticism, or Euro-resentments. Mr. Todenhöfer may have saved his real beef for the end of the article, when he complains:

“Unconditional solidarity” has turned into “unconditional submissiveness”, and that’s unconditionally sad.

To set up this outburst, Todenhöfer asks:

What would our fabulous security experts think of a police chief, who while searching for a terrible terrorist who had hidden himself among drug dealer friends in the Kreuzberg [Berlin neighborhood] after a devastating attack on a high-rise apartment, had Kreuzberg bombed and in the process killed hundreds of civilians, among them many children, let the terrorist get away and nevertheless proudly proclaimed to the public that the whole thing was a great success, because at least the drug dealers had been knocked out by the bombing?

(For one thing, they’d ask for another week or two to re-read that sentence.) Todenhöfer goes on:

Why is it that something that would be a domestic catastrophe, a crime, becomes a heroic act in foreign affairs? Why may one do things as soon as one has crossed the borders of one’s own country that would be criminal at home? Are 5000 innocent killed Afghan civilians worth less than 3000 innocent killed Americans? Does the American Declaration of Independence now say, instead of “All men are created equal,” just “All Americans are created equal“?

It’s hard to know where to begin with nonsense like this. Note the ever-popular simplistic use of American political documents and principles. The Declaration of Independence is more a revolutionary document than a constitutional one, but even were “all men created equal” a constitutional principle, the question remains what to do when they “turn out differently,” some opting for instance to be firemen or bankers, while others opt to blow them up with jet planes full of passengers.

Moreover, the Declaration and the Constitution have always applied to “us,” not “them.” They are how Americans have declared themselves and ruled themselves. You’d think Todenhöfer would be relieved that we don’t extend the Constitutional blanket willy-nilly over the whole world. Were the world a big happy family, no independence would have been necessary, and 9/11/2001 would have been just another glorious, sunny day in New York City. But the world is anything but a big happy family.

It’s hard to know whether Todenhöfer is being disingenuous or merely foolish by arguing that foreign affairs and domestic affairs should be governed by the same rules. Affairs within a nation can be settled by law freely agreed to by the people of that nation. But across the border, there’s no reason to expect the home country’s laws apply, or its warrants will be honored. Todenhöfer’s hapless Kreuzberg police chief doesn’t have jurisdiction in Kabul; nor should he (or she). Recall that the Taliban were offered the chance to turn Osama in, and “honor the warrant”. They didn’t. Although he professes disdain for the Taliban and Bin Laden, Todenhöfer essentially seems to argue that’s where the matter should have ended. With the silly “police chief in Kreuzberg” analogy and sloppy political reasoning, Todenhöfer repeats the common error of seeing this as a criminal case rather than a war.

In this he joins a number of Germans and Europeans who seem to believe that their struggles with Baader-Meinhof, ETA, the IRA and the like are in some way commensurate with what happened on 9/11. They aren’t. Scale matters. In criminal cases you gather evidence about who committed a crime in the past. In war you go after people who have attacked you, to prevent them from doing it again. Todenhöfer’s new-found expertise in fighting terrorists notwithstanding, that includes killing them where they are and destroying their resources, which were clearly substantial in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, Americans had to do this regardless of the possibility of unintended casualties. Not that I care, frankly — as long as the casualties were unintended — but those casualties are likely much lower than the numbers Todenhöfer uses. Todenhöfer cites “an American professor in New Hampshire,” i.e. Mark Herold, to support the 5000 Afghan casualties figure, proving there is no information like disinformation — as noted earlier, more reliable estimates put the figure much lower. (I thought even Herold put the count at 4000, but whatever.)

Also, Afghan, American, and (who knows) European lives saved should also be counted in any honest analysis of the war so far. And while I agree with Todenhöfer that it’s merely a by-product, replacing a despicable regime with the hope of something better is no mean accomplishment. You’re welcome, world. Once again.

But regardless of such analysis: the right to self-defense is non-negotiable for Americans, as I think it would be for Europeans. Even though he seems to essentially deny Americans the right to self-defense, I’m not willing to argue that Todenhöfer’s views are run-of-the-mill anti-Americanism. But I am willing to suggest that he can take a hike.

(adapted from comments posted on Le Sofa Blog)

Jeff Jarvis, Ken Layne and others complain that Tom Ridge isn’t doing anything. Jarvis has a poll asking, “Is Tom Ridge doing his job?” I’d say “Of course!” It seems to me the Office of Flak-catching Defense — excuse me, Homeland Defense — is working precisely as it was designed to. You want progress, get after his boss.

The BBC reports “Ethiopian troops ‘deploy’ in Somalia“, stating that its sources indicate about 300 troops have deployed in the city of Garowe in northern Somalia. The Ethiopian government denies the report, but has been supporting opposition forces in Somalia for some time.

The Munich newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Nairobi correspondent, Michael Bitala, speculates that this is part of the US anti-terror campaign, noting that Ethiopian forces attacked “Al-Ittihad al Islamiya” terrorist camps in Somalia in 1996; the group is considered an ally of Al Qaeda, and may have helped assemble the bomb used in the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi.

Meanwhile, the German newspaper Die Welt reports that a German naval units will pass the Straits of Gibraltar today on its way to the Horn of Africa, where they will patrol the coasts of Somalia, Yemen, and the Sudan on lookout for ships carrying weapons. Correspondent Diethart Goos reports that the three frigates and five cutters (”Schnellboote” transported separately in special cargo ships) can fire across the bow of ships fleeing inspection, and then fire directly on such ships — not surprising, one would think, but given a “this is for real” headline: “German navy off Somalia may use live ammunition”. A somewhat disturbing note: the German naval units are apparently commanded by a newly formed Potsdam leadership group near Berlin, rather than the officers stationed in the Glücksburg naval headquarters; this may complicate or delay quick decisions in crisis situations.

Finally, Die Welt also reports that a 50-man German ABC (anti-atomic, -biological, -chemical weapons) unit will deploy to Kuwait in the next few days, to prepare for the rest of the 250 soldiers to be deployed there. Kuwait has accepted that 20 to 25 “Fuchs” reconnaissance tanks will be deployed. Despite being within the “Arabian peninsula” zone accepted by the Bundestag, the news has prompted concern that this signals a fight with Iraq:

FDP [opposition party] military expert Jürgen Koppelin demanded that the parliament be exactly informed, if a “new Iraq focus” is developing. “We should already know in advance, if there is a request by the Americans or from Kuwait,” said the FDP politician.

In a recent article in the New York Times, a Mr. Leon Friedman outlined why “It Won’t Be Easy to Convict John Walker.” I think Walker may not be found guilty of treason, simply based on so many people saying treason would be too tough to prove. Since I’m not a lawyer, I’m no more or less competent to judge this than any other non-lawyer. I can only use my own sense of justice: Walker is guilty of something, and I’d support going to great lengths to prove it.

According to MSNBC (”Walker’s Brush With bin Laden“), Walker claimed to be a member of the non-Afghan “Ansar”, which he knew was “funded by Bin Laden.” He also admitted receiving training in weapons and explosives at an Al Qaeda camp. All of this after after the U.S.S. Cole was attacked, killing 17 U.S. sailors, after two U.S. embassies were attacked with much larger large loss of life, and after Osama Bin Laden’s infamous 1998 fatwa calling for the murder of U.S. civilians (and military). However, Walker’s apparent choice to join the Al Qaeda fighting alongside the Taliban against the Northern Alliance, rather than train for terrorist attacks, may be a key mitigating circumstance.

Sorting through the variety of charges noted in Mr. Friedman’s article and the MSNBC article’s “What are the charges?” box is quite a chore. Mr. Friedman notwithstanding, I don’t think the government should have any trouble showing that “at least one goal of the non-Afghan fighters in Afghanistan was to carry out a terrorist act prohibited by the law.” Another possibility noted in the MSNBC article involved invoking an “obscure” Civil War era statute used to try Missouri civilians lending support to Confederate “bushwhackers.” Obscure or not, it seems to fit the circumstances fairly well.

Leon Friedman appears to identify a loophole in some versions of the “material support” charge, since the terrorist act being supported would have to be in the United States. I should think that the intent to commit future terrorist acts in the U.S. is fairly clear from Bin Laden’s videos and fatwa. If that’s not good enough, the law should be fixed to include “future” acts as well as completed ones. Whether or not he trained before the October law change, he trained, and after the law change he materially contributed to the defense of a terrorist organization that had already attacked U.S. interests. If it’s only such technicalities between Walker and a prison term on any of the direct charges Friedman identifies, so be it, but it’s nothing for Mr. Friedman to crow about.

It seems to me what Walker did was no different from joining a Mafia organization just before they kill the local D.A., and/or after they killed the local police captain: if you get rounded up in the aftermath, you should go to jail as a co-conspirator, or for any possible charge that will stick, whether you were a small potato or not. Regarding the CIA operative Mr. Spann’s death during the prison uprising at Mazar-e-Sharif: Walker may not have played a role in the uprising, but he may have known of that uprising in advance and failed to warn Walker, which I should think would be actionable. I’d support a lot of questioning of his buddies at Mazar-e-Sharif to see if that were the case, and a lot of plea-bargaining for their testimony about this or any other possible charge, in coordination with the new Afghanistan government.

Whether or not it’s easy to convict Walker of something, I think the attempt should be made, including very aggressive investigation and plea bargain deals with other witnesses. First, the fear of the United States of America should be instilled in everyone so foolish as to want to imitate him. Second, we (rightly) went after his fellow soldiers without quarter; we have no right not to go after Walker hammer and tongs as well — and for the same reason: he was helping shelter a murderous, terrorist organization that attacked and killed Americans, and that vows it will do so again. But moreover, he’s one of ours, and that makes it worse. To me, Walker’s conviction — and on substantial charges — seems just about as important as Bin Laden’s demise.

This brings me to the distinct possibility that Walker may face the death penalty. I believe that penalty is wrong in principle — strictly because human error and/or malfeasance make it inevitable that truly innocent people will sometimes be executed. But that blood is on our hands regardless of any conviction of Mr. Walker for an offense he truly committed. I believe the severest possible charges should be brought against Mr. Walker. I would prefer the severest sentence were life in prison. But unlike European countries who refuse to extradite suspects to the United States because of our death penalty, I can not support preventing or soft-pedaling U.S. criminal justice on that basis alone.

Yesterday and today, Jeff Jarvis has been listing a number of homeland defense recommendations for Tom Ridge to consider. Of all of them, the ones I think would reassure me the most would be the public health related items, such as getting information about new disease threats and diagnoses out pronto,. Foremost among the public health measures should be to have plans and infrastructure capable of handling surges of new patients. Look up “patient surge” and “smallpox” on Google, and you’ll find articles like this one by Monica Schoch-Spana, Ph.D, in the March 2000 Biodefense Quarterly: “Hospitals Buckle During Normal Flu Season: Implications for Bioterrorism Response.” Dr. Schoch-Spana writes:

The prevalence of crowded emergency rooms and ambulance diversions around the country during the 1999-2000 influenza season might suggest that an unusually potent virus was at work, sending sick people to the hospital in droves. Epidemiological data, however, made it clear that the recent flu outbreaks were nothing more than the annual appearance of a familiar respiratory illness, only appearing earlier than expected.

That patients’ urgent demands outstripped the ability of many hospitals to respond with prompt and, in some cases, adequate care was less a result of the disease than underlying pathologies within the healthcare system. Beset with pressures to reduce costs and facing regional nursing shortages, hospitals today lack the flexibility to deal with even nominal upswings in demand, let alone the potential health crisis of a biological attack or pandemic influenza. [...]

Influenza is an annually occurring outbreak of an infectious disease with comparatively low morbidity and mortality rates, and an active vaccine campaign. That it creates profound hardships for U.S. hospitals is worrisome from a bioterrorism preparedness perspective. Appraising the 1999-2000 flu season, the President of the Maryland Nurses Association, Mary Beachley, concludes, “If a major super bug hit, we’d be in trouble. Our response in the short-term would be okay, but long-term care with large numbers of critically ill patients [would] be a problem.” The efficiencies achieved through reduced bed capacity, staffing levels, and equipment ownership - survival strategies within a competitive health care industry - have left hospitals ill-equipped to deal with a mass casualty scenario.

There simply is no “give” in the current health care system, “no excess capacity or flexibility to handle things outside the norm, even the slightest blip,” according to Virginia Hastings, Director of Emergency Medical Services for Los Angeles County. Efforts to prepare the country for a potential bioterrorist attack must include a severe accounting of the present state of hospitals - namely the fiscal conditions that have fostered profound inelasticity.

Luckily, there’s a political model for fixing this I assume both fiscal conservatives and bleeding heart liberals can love: the Interstate highway system. That system, built on the public dime, was sold by Eisenhower as a military preparedness measure, to better allow tanks and other military hardware to be ferried hither and yon across these United States; many of the segments of that interstate system make little short-term economic sense, but as a whole, they ensured that military needs (however unlikely) for quick overland transport and relocation of heavy equipment could be met.

Likewise, I think we should consider a major public health initiative, that subsidizes and sponsors hospitals and hospital workers from doctors to nurses to paramedics, with the goal of higher preparedness for patient surges from bioterror attacks. Just as with some stretch of interstate highway in North Dakota or West Virginia, the beds and workers thus subsidized might not meet the strictly economic tests usually applied to a business proposition. But this isn’t just a business proposition; it’s providing for the common defense, against some of the plausible worst threats evil minds can conceive. We know those minds are at work. Let’s provide for some homeland defense — and not let the day-to-day benefits of a less precarious public health infrastructure bother us too much.

Possible cause and effect:

New York Times: U.S. Pressures Foreign Airlines Over Manifests

The U.S. is insisting everyone provide passenger manifests in advance for foreign arrival flights, or passengers will be put through “extremely rigorous, lengthy searches.” Saudi reactions:

Saudi Arabian Airlines and the Saudi Embassy declined to comment on the new requirement. A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy said last month that his country was not in any hurry to sign up for the passenger information system.

“At this time,” the spokesman said, “hundreds of Saudi citizens are being detained and questioned with regard to the hijackings. A lot of them are innocent people. That number would probably quadruple if we shared advance information on air passengers with the United States.”

They’ll probably be in a bit more of a hurry after some Saudi prince gets “extremely rigorously” searched for the first time in his life. As for “a lot” of questioned Saudi citizens being innocent people, that would seem to admittedly leave “some” of them who aren’t. At least 15 on September 11, for example. Not that I’d care if four times as many Saudi citizens get questioned, but might this not lead to fewer, better targeted questions, rather than more? Whether or not that’s the case: no one’s forcing Saudis to fly to the U.S.

=====

(edited 10:30am)

What went wrong, New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh: The CIA has been crippled by feel-good edicts about who to recruit overseas.