WASHINGTON — Federal investigators smuggled the components of liquid-based bombs past screeners in 19 airports nationwide in secret tests earlier this year, showing that a terrorist could thwart the latest U.S. security regulations.
"Our tests clearly demonstrate that a terrorist group, using publicly available information and few resources, could cause severe damage to an airplane and threaten the safety of the passengers," concludes a Government Accountability Office report that was released Wednesday night by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Using cheap, easily available components, GAO investigators made an explosive device and a firebomb that, when tested, exploded with sufficient force to cause significant damage. Investigators then used public information on the Transportation Security Administration's screening procedures to devise ways to carry the bomb components through airport checkpoints without being challenged.
The oversight committee, headed by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), will hold a hearing today on the weaknesses identified in the 6-year-old agency's operations. It will be the second hearing in two days called to highlight TSA's shortcomings.
"The situation is unacceptable," Waxman said. "There are too many vulnerabilities and we've got to fix them. It's disappointing that after all the years we've had TSA in place and all the money, billions of dollars, that we have put into the problem, it's still not fixed."
In testimony today, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley is expected to tell the committee that his agency will adopt some of the GAO's recommended changes and take a more aggressive, visible and unpredictable approach to security. But he also is expected to stress that TSA's defenses are multilayered -- including measures such as canine teams in airports, hardened cockpit doors, special self-defense training for airline crews and thousands of armed pilots.
"Relying solely on security at the checkpoint or focusing all of our resources to defeat one threat is counterproductive and detracts from our overall mission," Hawley is scheduled to say in written testimony obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
James Jay Carafano, a domestic security expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said TSA critics might have unrealistic expectations. "The system is never going to be perfect, it's never going to stop everything," he said. "The point is that screening was always meant to be largely a deterrent to definitely take amateurs off the field and deter the pros."
