President in transition must be on alert for terrorism

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By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

With voters concerned about a faltering economy and the war in Iraq, the possibility of a terrorist attack on American soil has not been at the top of the presidential campaign agenda.

And until either Barack Obama or John McCain takes the White House, no one knows whether homeland security and concerns about a domestic attack will be a priority or will fall by the wayside in the face of other issues.

"We don't know an attack is inevitable, but we know the risk is high," said Matt Bennett, vice president of Third Way, a politically moderate think tank. "And we know if the response is not smooth, we risk tremendous damage to the U.S. in every possible respect, from increased loss of life to lack of faith in leadership of the new president."

Mr. Bennett is part of a group of policy analysts that has spent the past 10 months researching scenarios of a terrorist attack in the first year of a presidency.

The Homeland Security Presidential Transition Initiative, a joint project of Third Way and the Center for American Progress, plans to publish a security manual that will be distributed to the candidates before Nov. 4.

The manual draws from discussions with a range of security analysts, including John Podesta, who was a chief of staff for President Clinton, and Jamie Gorelick, deputy attorney general under Mr. Clinton. They think that, once in office, the next American president must quickly devise an extensive preparedness plan to establish a governmental chain of command, communicate with the public and coordinate mobilization efforts.

Based on the content of each candidate's Web site, Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain have preliminarily pinpointed their top postelection homeland security priorities. Both men outline plans that include supporting first responders, improving border security and protecting infrastructure.

"The question is: To what extent are the campaigns already planning for the transition and planning their leadership teams?" said P.J. Crowley, senior fellow at liberal think tank Center for American Progress. "On the one hand, it sounds presumptuous, but on the other hand, it's really important."

The analysts have been working with history as their guide, claiming terrorists are inclined to strike during leaders' first terms. This happened in 2001 with Sept. 11, less than eight months after George W. Bush took office. Mr. Clinton was inaugurated a mere month before the bombing of the World Trade Center garage in 1993; George H.W. Bush was only weeks away from his inauguration when the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 happened in 1988; and three days after Gordon Brown became British prime minister in 2007, two terrorists loaded a vehicle with propane canisters and drove it into Glasgow International Airport.