If terrorists attack the airport, who do you want protecting you?
Posted on 08/11/2006 8:27:50 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's activation of the California National Guard to bolster airline security began seamlessly at some airports on Friday, appeared haphazard at others and was rejected at Oakland International - one of three airports the governor said was most important to protect.
With 640 activated troops, the Guard's first airport deployment since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was to begin costing about $128,000 a day in anti-terror funding.
The scattershot nature of the deployment was evident throughout the state, with troops helping ease long lines at security checkpoints in Southern California but being relegated to distant fields in San Francisco.
Dozens of troops who had reported for duty Thursday night for Oakland International Airport instead waited for hours at a sweltering Northern California base before they were told Friday afternoon they were not needed at the airport.
Oakland airport officials said they didn't need the troops because the airport had the necessary security and law enforcement officers in place to respond to this week's elevated terror threat.
Airports were placed on high alert after British authorities foiled a plot to blow up as many as 10 planes bound from Britain to the U.S. using liquid explosives hidden in the containers of everyday items.
On Friday, Bush administration officials said federal investigators have so far found no evidence of terrorist activity in the U.S.
Schwarzenegger activated the California National Guard to protect San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles airports. The troops were to start arriving by 10 p.m. Thursday night, but deployments were delayed at Oakland and San Francisco as officials debated ways to use the units.
At San Francisco International, federal security officials delayed the deployment for more than 14 hours while they struggled to decide where to put the troops. Mayor Gavin Newsom said he did not want Guardsmen toting rifles through airport terminals.
In the end, security officials decided to scatter San Francisco's allotment of 50 troops through the airport's rental car facility and along a remote fence surrounding its runways.
The scene was different at Los Angeles International Airport and in San Diego, where troops were unarmed and blended into terminals. They also conducted random, secondary searches of carryon bags and helped herd crowds through security checkpoints.
"We're getting our rhythm," said Larry Fetters, the Transportation Security Administration's federal security director at LAX.
Fetters said the deployment of about 200 California National Guard troops to LAX - the world's fifth-busiest passenger airport - will help decrease any remaining backlogs.
"The assistance of the California National Guard is going to be instrumental in flexing us back into our normal operations and our normal pace of business," Fetters said.
Fetters' counterpart in Oakland, Fred Lau, said the situation was different at the airport that's typically clogged with Southwest Airlines passengers.
"We told the National Guard we would not require the deployment," said Lau, the airport's federal security director, a post created at the nation's busiest airports after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "I have a lot of respect for the Guard, and I wasn't going to bring them in unless we had something legitimate for them to do."
On Thursday, Schwarzenegger said that even though the uncovered terror plot contained no specific threats to the U.S., it was appropriate for him to jump in and do everything possible to protect the flying public. He said that was especially true at the state's three airports with nonstop, trans-Atlantic flights: Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland.
Why Oakland was included with San Francisco and Los Angeles remained somewhat of a mystery, even to the airport's security officials and the National Guard soldiers who were initially asked to protect it.
State homeland security officials said they added Oakland to the list in the pre-dawn hours when they were planning the deployment Thursday because it had a direct flight to "continental" Europe.
But Oakland does not provide nonstop service to the European continent. Its closest flight is to the Azores, an archipelago stretching 1,000 to 1,300 miles off the coast of Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean.
Arrivals and departures are once a week - on Mondays.
"I don't think that's right for one flight," said Jen Clemens, 34, who was waiting near the Azores Express ticket counter Friday morning watching for her baggage to arrive from a flight from Seattle. "If the National Guard is needed to check bags, I can see it. But if they're not, what are they doing here? Are they here?"
In a conference call Friday, Matthew Bettenhausen, director of the state's office of homeland security, defended the planned deployment to Oakland.
"We had brought out and called up the National Guard in light of the first time that part of the aviation sector had gone red," Bettenhausen said.
He was referring to federal officials issuing the highest-level threat warning on the Department of Homeland Security's color-coded system.
Adam Mendelsohn, Schwarzenegger's communications director, disputed that Oakland had "rejected" the National Guard troops. He said the governor's office had been working through the office of homeland security and National Guard to best determine what each airport needed. Mendelsohn noted that Ontario and Orange County also requested troops Friday. Neither has trans-Atlantic flights.
The California Guard's deployment neared 640 active troops Friday, 200 short of its peak airport deployment in the state following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Some 110 troops were either at or on orders to report to San Francisco airport; 90 for San Diego; 230 for Los Angeles; 30 for Ontario. The Guard also anticipated sending 30 to Orange County. Sacramento airport officials said they would not request troops.
Schwarzenegger said he would use homeland security grant money to pay for the deployment, but it was unclear how long the funds would last.
Lines and other hassles related to Thursday's elevated terror alert appeared to ease Friday at most California airports. Travelers at San Diego's airport faced long security lines in the morning, but by midafternoon delays had tailed off and passengers were able to clear security with little or no waiting.
The same was true in Los Angeles, where lengthy delays evaporated and wait times in security lines at San Francisco rarely topped eight minutes.
San Jose also refused the NG troops per a local news report.
Crap, why in hell did I answer the phone?
Quite clearly their role is to make their Governors appear to be engaged in the war on terrror.
The officials missed the election coming?
---Dozens of troops who had reported for duty Thursday night for Oakland International Airport instead waited for hours at a sweltering Northern California base before they were told Friday afternoon they were not needed at the airport.---
Yeah, piss on the troops. Recently, one California professor was telling me he could see no purpose for an Army in a modern democratic state! If you get whacked at Oakland airport call the ACLU!
They didn't get the gubbies memo? They're needed, really!
Look, when the governor sends out the guard, the freaking airport officials should not just say no. What the heck is the matter with these people? There is a threat you idiots!
I expected nothing less from Mayor Sissie. His voters would have the vapors if they observed uniformed men with big bad guns at the airport (unless the uniformed men were the Village People).
what would you have them do? you want maybe they should
point weapons meanacingly about at the travelers (all
of whom, I guarantee you, feel that this is all a massive
PITA)?
LAX had the right idea to use them to help shorten the
wait time for passengers. airports already have plenty
of self important uniformed busybodies making nuisances
of themselves.
security at the airport is best left in the hands of professional police and security people and the TSA,
not amateurs.
If terrorists attack the airport, who do you want protecting you?
---Look, when the governor sends out the guard, the freaking airport officials should not just say no. What the heck is the matter with these people? ---
Maybe they feel there's nobody really worth killing in their domain and that the jihadis will just pass them by.
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