Attack Shatters Beefed-Up Security

Without Knowledge Of Terrorists' Intent, Barriers and Bills Useless, Experts Say

The terrorist attack on Washington, for which the nation's top military and civilian defense officials have been preparing for nearly a decade, finally came yesterday. And still their efforts weren't enough.

The attack on the Pentagon illustrated the complexity of trying to protect some of the nation's most symbolic federal agencies, buildings and monuments, while keeping them open to the public, several security experts said yesterday.

As terrorists targeted U.S. facilities in the 1980s and 1990s -- from Beirut to Nairobi to Oklahoma City to New York City -- security in the nation's capital went up notch by corresponding notch.

Pennsylvania Avenue was closed to traffic. Jersey barriers were put up around the Washington Monument and the drives approaching the Capitol. The House and Senate took up a wide variety of bills on domestic security, with numerous task forces examining everything from bombs to chemical warfare, often with an emphasis on symbolic targets like those in Washington.

But the limitations of those security measures -- often in the hands of several agencies -- lay exposed yesterday, security experts said. They pointed out that the linchpin of the system is not Jersey barriers and metal detectors, but intelligence that a threat may be coming.

"The irony is that since Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center bombing, a lot of effort has gone into preparedness to deal with terrorist risks and respond in case of civil emergencies. A lot of the steps that were taken were directed against standard terrorist problems of truck bombs and that kind of thing," said Ian Lesser, a senior analyst in Washington who specializes in international security at Rand Corp., a public policy and research organization. "But above all, the core issue is one of intelligence."

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who has been involved in debates about reopening Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to vehicular traffic, said the attack transcended such discussions.

"This shows us that whatever we were doing should be history, and that we need to start all over again," Norton said. "We're much too late in recognizing that the nature of war has changed dramatically. . . . Today, we looked like we were operating in the 19th century."

This year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency took over a role previously played by the FBI's National Domestic Preparedness Office -- that of working with local police, fire and emergency management agencies. Counterterrorism spending, originally allotted to the FBI, went from $78.5 million in 1993 to more than $300 million last year.

Debates went back and forth on open societies vs. security, a drama that was -- until yesterday -- assuming center stage, with a huge protest scheduled during the World Bank meetings this month. Police planned to set up a fence around the perimeter of the meeting site, bringing a rain of criticism against the curtailment of free speech.

Yesterday's assault on the Pentagon reportedly took place after a commercial airliner left Dulles International Airport, turned off its transponders and turned back toward Washington without contacting the control tower. Controllers at Dulles warned Reagan National Airport controllers, but apparently even key staffers at the Pentagon were unaware of a problem flight approaching its airspace.

"Planes come up and down the Potomac all the time," said Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, referring to the proximity of National Airport. "You can hear them in the building. There was no warning."