ANTI-TERRORIST TRAINING 
SECURITY SERVICES
                         
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PAULA ZAHN NOW

Aired August 2, 2004 - 20:00   ET

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS (voice-over): From Baghdad to Bali to Beirut, it's been a favorite tool of terrorists time after time, delivering deadly results. Few Americans would have worried about something like a car or truck bomb until October 23, 1983, the day a truck carrying a ton of explosives drove into a U.S. Marine Corps compound in Beirut, Lebanon. The explosives went off; 241 Americans were killed. One decade later, a truck bomb was used in the first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can see thick, black billows, smoke billowing from the federal court building downtown.

COLLINS: Perhaps taking a cue from terrorists overseas, Timothy McVeigh chose a truck bomb to bring down Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building in 1995, killing 168 people in the process.

The list goes on, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, 1996, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, Bali in 2002, and now it seems almost every day in Baghdad. Experts say, besides delivering deadly results, they're a cheap, low-tech way to cause a lot damage. And with more than two million trucks on American highways, a rolling bomb would be frighteningly inconspicuous.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Our next guest knows quite a bit about truck bombs, including the most effective ways to stop them. Aaron Cohen is president of IMS Security. He's also a former counterterrorist commando with the Israeli Defense Forces. Mr. Cohen is joining us from Toronto tonight.

Thanks for being here, Mr. Cohen. We do appreciate your time, as always.

Israelis lived with the threat of these types of bombs against their troops in Lebanon since the '80s and never really thought that this would happen on their streets, but it did. Are Americans next? AARON COHEN, FORMER ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES COUNTERTERRORISM COMMANDO: It's definitely a possibility.

And the reason why is because we had several planes crashing into the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon. Everything is possible now, and everything needs to be looked at. It's definitely a possibility.

COLLINS: You said that, even in the face of all of this heightened security, as we have at least experienced today, that's for sure, for the terrorists, were there's a will, there's a way. And in that case, why haven't there been any attacks, at least in the past three years, here in the United States?

COHEN: Well, I think it's a combination of different things.

I think, one, it has a great deal to do with the amount of troops potentially that we have abroad. The reason why is because there's plenty of targets over there. Getting paperwork isn't as easy as it used to be. The borders have definitely tightened up. The fact is that our security here has gotten a lot better, so it is more complex. We're not a wide-open society. We're a little more aware of our surroundings.

And then another important one is obviously the fact that, by doing nothing, it has also created a certain amount of psychological awareness. And that's really what terrorism -- it's important to remember that. We're dealing with a psychological war. Doing nothing also has an effect, because it keeps us sort of wondering what can happen next.

COLLINS: You mentioned overseas. Wouldn't just one terror attack right here in the United States produce much more terror than it would if something were to happen in Iraq?

COHEN: I don't think it's really fair to compare a loss of life overseas that's American fighting terror on an operational level to losing an American here in this country in a defensive way. I think they're both equally tragic.

But, unfortunately, there's a lot of things going on right now and

(CROSSTALK)

COLLINS: What makes you say that, though, Mr. Cohen?

COHEN: Well, I just think that a life is a life. You can't weigh and balance the scales of lives. Everything has to be taken very seriously. And, at the end of the day, everything has to be done in order to reduce risk, regardless of where we are.

COLLINS: Well, let's talk a little bit about logistics, if we could.

What exactly are some of these things that these high-profile companies are doing and are going to have to continue to do to reduce this threat?

COHEN: I think the key is going to be, again, multilayered systems.

What does that mean? That means putting as many levels between you and a potential terrorist, which would mean, the more layers, the more levels that you have, the more things would have to go wrong for the terrorist to be successful. What does that mean? It means literally having a multifailure event.

It's not unlike protecting your house. The only difference now, in this case, specifically, based on the details of the planning of the terrorist audit that has been released, we're talking about looking at trucks and different measures to protect a specific building.

COLLINS: But not every building and not every potential target has that multilayer system in place. So wouldn't these potential terrorists just go somewhere else that's an easier target?

COHEN: Absolutely. Absolutely.

And it's known with terrorists that they will take the path of least resistance, just like a straight line. One of the interesting things that was pointed out about this audit, from the terrorists on to our security for these buildings, the Prudential building, the IMF building, the World Bank, etcetera, is that one of the things that they were looking at -- and it wasn't specifically operational information or intelligence that they got about a planned attack. They were just auditing us.

What was interesting was them looking at the reduction of security on the weekend. Terrorists will go where there is no security. And it's not unlike any other criminal or gangster or thud, which means that it's not enough to just take specific intelligence and apply it toward one place. It's important and it helps, but we have to look at the places that, like, we were discussing a second go, are really, really dear to us.

What does that mean? Wherever there's groups of people, there needs to be eyes watching. Otherwise, in the end, ultimately, you're going to fail.

COLLINS: So you're saying that every commercial building, every governmental build, every school, every -- anywhere that people gather, every stadium. I mean, the list could go on and on and on. None of them can afford for one single second to be less than highly vigilant.

COHEN: If you do not take the appropriate measures to reduce risk and to at least have some type of security layering, you're going to be open or more open to a potential attack. At the end of the day, again, it's about reducing risk. The more eyes watching in a defensive measure is going to reduce the chances of us being attacked.

And that's also just -- you know, again, that's one part of the counterterrorism game. There's the defensive, there's also the operational, and there's also the punitive. So everything, you know, is just sublayers of larger layers.

But the more we have between us and them, the more things have to go wrong for them to get to us, so you have to do everything that's possible. Otherwise, in the end, you're going to have a problem.

COLLINS: Quickly, before I let you know, how easy is it for these terrorists to get a hold of explosive devices in order to make a truck bomb in the United States?

COHEN: Well, it -- you know, explosives and suicide vests and packing -- I mean, we saw Timothy McVeigh. It wasn't that difficult for him to get his hands on this stuff. I think today it's more difficult than it was, let's say, you know, two years or three years ago and then, obviously, after what happened 10 years ago.

But it's not as easy as people think it is to be able to get these materials and to be able to assemble them properly, but, with the right amount of money, it can be done, and that's why, again, everything needs to be looked at -- because it is a definite risk.

COLLINS: All right. A step in the right direction with many more steps to go.

COHEN: Absolutely.

COLLINS: Aaron Cohen, we appreciate your time tonight so very much. Thanks again.

COHEN: Thank you for having me.

COLLINS: Next, an old problem, a new danger. Heightened concern about what crosses the border into America when we come back.

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