Bruce Schneier: Wrong About Katrina, Wrong About Terrorism

Posted 9/15/05 

By Dan Verton

 The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently ran an editorial by Bruce Schneier, the chief technology officer at Counterpane Internet Security Inc., in which the esteemed technologist blamed the failure of federal, state and local officials to respond effectively to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on a lack of funding for emergency responders. He also implies that America’s homeland security community can prepare for both natural disasters and terrorist attacks in the same way because, according to Schneier, large-scale terrorist attacks and natural disasters “are very similar in aftermath.”

Schneier, a technologist with no known formal training and education in military operations or traditional security, is wrong on both accounts. 

First off, no amount of money could have made up for the leadership failure at all levels of government that led to the post-Katrina response disaster. Money cannot fix a broken decision cycle or the inability of federal, state and local officials to properly plan for a disaster. More money would not have pre-deployed the appropriate number of National Guard troops, generators for hospitals, buses for evacuees who had no transportation, or critical supplies, such as food, water and medicines. All of those necessities existed prior to Katrina making landfall. What prevented the effective use of those assets was a failure of leadership and imagination.

 If you want to know how federal, state and local leaders failed, seek answers to the following questions:  

1.                  Why didn’t Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco order the pre-positioning of adequate forces and first-responders? Could it be that she was betting the storm would turn at the last moment and that the levees would hold?

2.                  Why did New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin fail to use all of the transportation assets at his disposal to bus people out of the city days before Katrina hit? And if he was not given appropriate resources by the state, why didn’t he approach the federal government for direct assistance?

3.                  Why didn’t the federal government, specifically Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and the now former director of FEMA, Michael Brown, question what was clearly an inadequate pre-disaster plan in New Orleans? Isn’t that a key responsibility of those overseeing the nationwide homeland security mission? 

So please, Mr. Schneier, don’t tell America or the people of New Orleans that money could have prevented their suffering. It is not only preposterous to blame the response failure on money (although funding for first responders and the oversight of how those monies are used have been issues that the Bush administration has failed to address) but such ill-informed statements threaten to distract attention from the real issue of failing leadership and a lack of imagination in disaster planning. That brings me to my second point. 

Mr. Schneier wants Americans to believe that terrorists and hurricanes are alike, and that if we can properly prepare for one we will be prepared for the other. This is perhaps the most preposterous claim made in his editorial and one that clearly shows the limit of Mr. Schneier’s homeland security expertise. This is not a personal attack. But Mr. Schneier is a technologist and has spent his entire career doing things like writing encryption algorithms. He has not spent any time to my knowledge in the trenches managing military or government homeland security initiatives.

What Mr. Schneier fails to understand is that while terrorist attacks and natural disasters may in fact lead to a comparable amount of confusion — what is known in military parlance as the fog of war — they differ significantly in many critical aspects. 

First, natural disasters are random events that can leave one facility in shambles while a neighboring facility remains unscathed. In addition, natural disasters, particularly hurricanes, are known events that give ample indications and warning as to their intended target area and potential for destruction. A hurricane should be a homeland security or emergency manager’s dream scenario — because if you have to experience a disaster, you might as well experience one that you have days to prepare for.

Terrorists, on the other hand, are not the mindless forces of nature that hurricanes are. Terrorists plan their attacks, sometimes years in advance. They also carefully select their targets — there is very little randomness to terrorist attacks, particularly the new terrorism as characterized by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Hurricanes do not care if they damage critical infrastructures. Al-Qaeda trains its operatives in the most effective ways to destroy or damage critical infrastructures. Hurricanes do not care about the financial toll that follows their powerful blow. Osama bin Laden is on film trying to assess the cost to the U.S. economy of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. 

Likewise, hurricanes do not intentionally target symbols of American government and economic power. Terrorists have made those symbols a primary target. Hurricanes do not conduct surveillance of their potential landfall areas and produce targeting packages designed to ensure the greatest chance of success. Terrorists, particularly al-Qaeda, do. Hurricanes do not time their landfall with the morning or evening rush hour, they do not target specific economic sectors of the economy, and they do not seek out population centers. Terrorists do. 

Finally, hurricanes are not gathering in far away places conspiring to acquire weapons of mass destruction and planning ways to smuggle those weapons into the United States. Al-Qaeda is doing just that. And when they get here, they will not provide us with advance indications and warning that we are so lucky to receive from our natural enemy, the hurricane. 

About The Author 

Dan Verton is the author of three books on security and terrorism, and has advised the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service. He currently serves as the executive editor of Homeland Defense Journal and IT*Security Magazine, and is a former intelligence officer in the United States Marine Corps. Visit him online at www.danverton.com