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02/22/2004: "Living On The Edge of Disaster"

Security Efforts Turning Capital Into Armed Camp
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
A huge effort to build safeguards for buildings and monuments is turning Washington into a fortress.
The New York Times Sunday February 22, 2004
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Please click on the link "more" below to see how your ideology is destroying America's freedom!


Realist Comment: The ideological violence caused by atheism and theology is turning Washington D.C. into an armed camp, and placing Gestapo style check-points at all of our transportation centers. Those who truly love America will admit that their atheistic / religious ideology is destroying the freedom on which it was founded.

"We went out to face the enemy, and found that it was us." Pogo



Security Efforts Turning Capital Into Armed Camp
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

Published: February 22, 2004


ASHINGTON, Feb. 21 — An antiaircraft missile, ready for use, sits atop a federal office building near the White House. Devices that test the air for chemical and biological substances are positioned throughout the city. Subway stations are now equipped with "bomb containment" trash bins. A major highway that runs by the Pentagon is being rerouted several hundred yards away. A security wall is going up around the Washington Monument.
Day by day, the nation's capital is becoming a fortress, turning a city known for graceful beauty into a virtual armed camp. In response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, federal security agents along with their counterparts in the Washington, Maryland and Virginia governments began a huge effort to build permanent safeguards for the capital area's most important buildings and monuments.
The effort that built slowly after the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City intensified after one jetliner slammed into the Pentagon and another jet crashed in Pennsylvania, presumably on its way to a target in Washington.
But more recently, security efforts have gained a new urgency as officials seek ways to stop truck bombs and other terrorist tactics that have been used in other countries, like suicide bombers.
Some of the biggest projects are under way at the most visible symbols of American democracy and might — the White House, the Capitol, the Washington Monument and the Pentagon.
A result has been a surge of security construction at a cost, still being calculated, that is expected to reach several hundred million dollars within five or six years. Barely 20 percent of the security measures planned for the region have been designed, let alone completed, which means construction is certain to continue for years.
"I'm not sure we ever reach a point where everything has been done; it's an ongoing process," said Kenneth E. Wall, an official with the Department of Homeland Security who oversees activity in the capital region. "As threats evolve and information evolves, we have to make adjustments accordingly."
But even at this early stage, the security efforts have transformed large parts of Washington, creating a slightly ominous feel for the city's 572,000 residents and the million more people who work here and visit daily. Tony Bullock, an aide to Mayor Anthony A. Williams, called it "the uglification of Washington." Unlike New York and other cities that have fewer federal buildings and, thus, a less concentrated security presence, Washington has a dense core of buildings that house every department of the federal government and venerated monuments that honor the country's greatest leaders.
"It's sad to see this, but the reality is we are very vulnerable," said Peter McBirnie of Huntsville, Ontario, who was visiting the Washington Monument the other day with his wife, Linda. They stood before temporary construction walls that encircle the monument grounds and obscure work on a new permanent 30-inch-high security wall designed to stop a vehicular attack.
By now, most federal buildings and monuments have prodigious security measures in place, with enhancements planned or under way.
Police officers with dogs trained to find explosives are stopping cars before they drive past the Capitol. Plans have been approved to build a security perimeter around the 10 buildings of the Smithsonian Institution and the Department of Agriculture on the Mall. The interiors of most government buildings have taken on aspects of an airport, with magnetometers at every entrance and a greater presence of law enforcement officers. The entrance to the Washington Monument has metal detectors and X-ray machines, as does the front door of the Botanical Garden greenhouse at the foot of Capitol Hill.
Even the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., a Washington suburb, has been newly fortified with an electrified fence.


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