AMERICA AT WAR
At Salem the Soldier's Homepage ~
Posted on 04/17/2005 2:25:45 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
While the United States leads the world in the fight against terror, its law enforcement agencies have a great deal to learn from Israeli counter-terrorism, Steven Pomerantz – former Assistant Director of the FBI – told The Jerusalem Post while in Israel last week.
"Israel is the preeminent expert on terrorism in the world," Pomerantz said. "Not only is it a country that needs to fight terror but it needs to fight under democratic principles."
Pomerantz, who headed a delegation of acting US law-enforcement officials brought to Israel by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), also served as the head of the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Section before retiring from the service in the late 90s. The delegation, which included senior FBI, DEA and police officials, met with Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Israel Police officers, and visited sensitive security installations.
One of the weaknesses in the US law enforcement system which failed to prevent 9/11 is the lack of cooperation between the various law enforcement agencies, Pomerantz said. The point of the trip is to train the US officials in the art of "sharing information."
"Israeli police and intelligence services are very good at gathering information, analyzing it and getting it to the cop on the street very quickly," he said. "There have been numerous instances of bombers being dispatched within an hour of their target and Israel was able to intercept them. From an American perspective that is one hell of an accomplishment and we need to be able to do that ourselves."
JINSA, which has already brought three groups of senior US law enforcement officials to Israel to study counter-terrorism, can already count its successes, Pomerantz said. One police department, he said, changed the way it detected explosives based on a lecture the police chief heard in Israel regarding the use of explosives by Palestinian terror organizations.
In a post-9/11 era, Pomerantz said, one of the most difficult tasks for democratic countries such as Israel and the United States is finding a proper balance between law enforcement and the rule of the law while working to prevent terror attacks.
"We see here how another country with the same limitations and the same issues has been much more successful from a law enforcement perspective than we have been," Pomerantz said.
Israel and the United States, he said, face a common enemy – radical Islamic fundamentalist terror. While he predicted terrorists would continue using classical high-powered explosives in future attacks, the day is not far when either Israel or the US will experience a terror attack with more "sophisticated weapons," such as chemical or biological warfare.
Can terrorism be defeated? Of course, Pomerantz answers, but not before terror havens such as Iran disarm themselves of weapons of mass destruction.
"We will never win the war on terrorism until Iran stops being the principal sponsor of terrorism in the world," he said. "We need to change Iran's behavior through diplomatic pressure, internal changes or through military actions since at some time Iran will have to stop its behavior in support of terrorism."
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bttt
Israel leads in counter-terrorism because it has never had a choice; as the Israelis put it in 1948, ain brera.
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