REPORT: SECURITY CONCERNS

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jun 23, 2008 | by PAM ZUBECK

The Air Force alone can't protect the nation's air and space defense command center at Peterson Air Force base from a hijacked plane, security consultants said, raising questions about why Colorado Springs Airport officials weren't consulted about moving the center there from Cheyenne Mountain.

Although the consultants didn't analyze threats posed by the nearby airport, they said airliner attacks such as those of Sept. 11, 2001, are beyond Peterson's capacity to respond.

"The responsibility for detection and prevention of these types of attacks falls beyond the 21st Space Wing's physical security system's capability," a Systems Effectiveness Assessment said. The finding was cited in a classified Government Accountability Office paper obtained by The Gazette.

"Protecting soft targets from these types of attacks are very difficult and costly and would require considerable coordination and planning with several other agencies outside the DOD (Department of Defense). (Thus), a new facility design that would provide protection to the level of Cheyenne Mountain was not analyzed," the assessment said.

The GAO document suggested the Pentagon downplayed security issues in its March report to Congress and didn't fully explain the North American Aerospace Defense Command center's vulnerability.

At issue is Peterson's Building 2 where NORAD, a binational command with Canada, was moved last month to share space with Northern Command, the nation's homeland security command.

As the NORAD command center, the Air Force designated Building 2 as worthy of Protection Level 1, "signifying those assets whose loss, theft, destruction, misuse or compromise would result in great harm to the strategic capability of the United States."

Yet, the security assessment done by a contractor said the above- ground building couldn't withstand medium- or high-level threats and has only a 6 percent chance of surviving a low-level threat.

Colorado Springs owns the land on which Peterson is located, except for Building 2 and two others. It also owns Colorado Springs Airport and cooperates with Peterson on security matters, airport director Mark Earle said.

"We support whatever they ask us to do to accommodate their security needs," Earle said. "We didn't get involved in that decision (moving NORAD) at all, and it wasn't something that we were consulted on."

Bill Scott, a former Air Force flight test engineer, writer for Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine and author, said a big concern should be incoming aircraft. A plane on approach could divert without notice and strike Building 2 in a matter of seconds.

"It would be hard for anyone to argue with that," he said.

Earle countered that many military bases lie near airports and that the Transportation Security Administration and local officials are on top of things, screening commercial flight passengers, monitoring the perimeter of the airport and working with general aviation fixed-base operators.

"That is a huge apparatus out there, not only locally but nationally," Earle said. "This is a more secure airport than most because of the joint relationship" with the military.

While the TSA doesn't screen general-aviation passengers, it checks pilots' licenses against terrorist watch lists, said Craig Spence, vice president of aviation security for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association in Frederick, Md. He said general aviation, which has 19,983 landing facilities and constitutes 75 percent of air traffic, is an unlikely conduit for terrorism, because it's a closeknit community.

"Just as you're not one to pick up a stranger in your car, pilots are the same way," he said.

He said he has no concerns that the Navy's Atlantic fleet and other key military assets sit in the harbor at Newport News, Va., near private boats. "There's no difference in what you have with Peterson Field in Colorado Springs," he said.

Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, disagrees. He sent letters Friday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., saying he is "appalled at what I've learned" about potential vulnerabilities at Peterson.

He said Adm. Timothy Keating, the former NORAD/NorthCom commander who made the decision to move the NORAD center, didn't mention potential security problems but promised sizeable dollar savings. Udall noted NORAD/NorthCom commander Gen. Gene Renuart has since "repudiated" the savings Keating cited as the basis for the move.

He urged Gates to address security concerns immediately, including the possibility of moving back to the mountain.

"To delay action or ignore the GAO findings is to put our national security further at risk, as well as to potentially endanger the Colorado Springs community" Udall wrote.

NORAD/NorthCom said in a statement last week some measures have been taken and others are in the works to protect the center.