Abstract
The lives of more Britons were lost in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11 than in any other terrorist attack, despite more than 30 years of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other terrorist actions. Initial press reports forecast that the number killed would be in “the middle hundreds” or worse; the final toll was 87.
Britain was gripped by the enormity of the tragedy unfolding on its television sets. Canary Wharf, London's tallest office block, which was bombed by the IRA in February 1996, was immediately evacuated, as were other offices. All aircraft were grounded, and extra security measures were put in place at airports, public buildings, and nuclear sites.
Shoulder to shoulder
Almost immediately after the disaster, British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared that Britain stood “shoulder to shoulder” with the American people against the “new evil of mass terrorism,” and he has since rallied other European leaders behind U.S. reactions.
Britain has consistently supported President George W. Bush since then. In early July, Blair stressed the importance of the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States as “a strategic partnership of immense importance,” forming the “foundation stones” of British foreign policy, even while serious rifts were emerging between the two countries over the Israel-Palestine conflict, U.S. opposition to the Kyoto Agreement and the International Criminal Court, and the U.S. imposition of tariffs on steel.
Overall, Blair came across as closer to the American position than any other G8 leader. But Britain's supportive role for the U.S. war on terrorism in Afghanistan has been criticized by even the most gung-ho Conservatives—who said in March that Britain was being sucked into an open-ended commitment when a 1,700-strong commando force was sent into Afghanistan to help U.S. troops root out remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But by the end of July, all 1,560 members of the 45 Commando battle group and most of the 1,300 British peacekeepers based in Kabul were brought home.
Please come back: The British Tourist Authority says “UK OK” on the Tower of London, January 23, 2002.
A report by a parliamentary foreign affairs select committee published in July concluded that, without better intelligence, Britain was “appallingly vulnerable” to attack, with the growing risk of terrorists acquiring nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. It added, “The war against terrorism is an unplanned and unsought conflict. But when the first hijacked airliner struck the World Trade Center, war became necessary and, once entered upon, war must be pursued vigorously and with all appropriate means.”
The report also cautioned, however, against Britain being drawn into military action against Bush's “axis of evil,” fearing the loss of European support and failure to “win hearts and minds in the Islamic world.” It called for the government to state clearly whether Britain shares Washington's goal of “regime change” in Baghdad. Some ministers have threatened resignation if Britain supports a U.S. invasion of Iraq. There are calls for a parliamentary and public debate on the British stance on Iraq. A Guardian-ICM poll conducted in March found that 51 percent of British voters were against British intervention.
Many British MPs angrily criticized Bush's contingency plans for a preemptive nuclear strategy against seven “rogue states,” considering those plans a threat to the stability of the NATO alliance. But Geoff Hoon, Britain's defense secretary, has suggested the government would now be prepared to fire a nuclear weapon in a preemptive strike against non-nuclear states suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction. A senior defense official admitted Hoon had “gone further than people have before.” An extra £3.5 billion is to be spent on defense, to fund future Afghanistanstyle operations and update military surveillance and other technologies. Hoon said, “The armed forces' ability to operate alongside U.S. forces is essential to future success.”
A further indication of the increased similarity between British and U.S. nuclear strategy surfaced with leaked reports that the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Alder-maston, in Berkshire, will be vastly expanded. Officials admit the plant could produce “mini-nukes” or nuclear warheads for cruise missiles if the government gave the go-ahead.
New measures
The Anti-Terrorism, Crime, and Security bill was rushed through Parliament with cross-party support in November. A “state of emergency” was declared, enabling the government to opt out of Article Five of the European Convention on Human Rights. One measure gives the government the right to detain indefinitely foreign nationals whom officials suspect of being involved in terrorism. This measure—internment— was used by the British government in the 1970s in Northern Ireland, but was abandoned when it was found to be counterproductive.
A London memorial in support of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The bill's other measures include giving police the power to freeze funds under investigation, monitor accounts, and seize assets; tougher obligations on banks and other financial institutions to report suspect transactions; obliging Internet service providers and mobile phone companies to keep records of mobile phone calls and e-mails; requiring airlines and ferry services to keep and provide records of passengers and freight; and closing legal loopholes on the possession of materials usable for weapons of mass destruction.
Tony Blair admitted there had been huge Western intelligence failures. Britain's spy networks knew last July that Al Qaeda was planning a major attack, but failed to understand the threat. According to U.S. intelligence reports, British security services knew of links between shoe bomber Richard Reid and a September 11 hijack suspect late last year, but failed to track Reid before he tried to blow up an airliner bound for New York from Paris.
On top of this, MI5 has acknowledged that, on September 11, terrorists from India planned to fly an aircraft into the Houses of Parliament. Mohammad Afroze, a Bombay resident, was arrested in India in October. Afroze had learned to fly in Australia and Britain, and underwent flight simulator training in Texas. He said that he, along with seven other Al Qaeda cell members from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, had booked themselves on two London-to-Manchester flights on September 11. They planned to hijack the aircraft and crash them into Parliament and the Tower Bridge, but news of the attacks on the World Trade Center panicked him and his companions, and they all fled the airport and went their separate ways.
With intelligence remaining the principal defense against terrorism, Britain, with its long experience of the IRA, should boast considerable counter-terrorism expertise. MI5, the super-secret British Security Service, is responsible for combating domestic terrorism and will receive a budget increase, from about £198 million to £217 million. MI6, which is responsible for gathering intelligence overseas, is seeking to double its recruitment of front-line officers. They say their first trawl of more than 16 tons of terrorist documents seized in Afghanistan has revealed the frightening scope of the Al Qaeda threat.
Ministers and senior intelligence officers are alarmed by MI6's inability to conduct effective counterterrorism operations following the decade of cuts since the end of the Cold War. At the time of the attacks, only 30 of MI6's 1,600 officers were working in counterterrorism, in contrast to 600 officers in the CIA's Counterterror-ism Center.
In June, Scotland Yard admitted to “growing, darkening” concerns over the unwitting part Britain played in the development of Al Qaeda. There was no evidence to show the plot to attack the United States was hatched or supported in Britain, but Britain had been a base for terrorist communications, recruitment, propaganda, and logistical support dating from the mid-1990s. As many as 200 British-based supporters of Osama bin Laden could pose a significant threat if they answered a call to arms.
Reacting to the terrorist threat
A recent security review reassessed threats to key buildings and installations, including London ministries, the Stock Exchange, oil refineries, nuclear power stations, defense companies, the chemical defense agency at Porton Down, Aldermaston, and vital communications centers. While the IRA's bomb attackers had built-in escape routes, Britain has not had to face suicide bombers, but this is now seen as a possible mode of attack should Al Qaeda seek to retaliate for the British government's support of the United States.
To protect Britain's poorly defended nuclear installations, a new, armed, independent police force, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, will be tasked with protecting seven sites and guarding transported nuclear materials. Ministers are considering creating a “home guard” of civilians trained to support the nuclear police in exceptional circumstances. These “civilian support officers” would undertake searches of people and vehicles in or just outside critical nuclear sites. The powers of the Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary have been increased, allowing it to mount patrols and stop-and-search operations up to three miles from nuclear bases. It can also make arrests at ports, railway stations, and airports to prevent terrorists seizing nuclear materials in transit.
The government plans to develop a 6,000-strong reaction force, formed from 50,700 volunteer reservists drawn from the armed forces, which would assist the police and civil authorities in the event of a major attack. This force would help guard sites and assist in site search and clearance, transport, communications, the operation of water and feeding points, and the movement of “large numbers of the public.”
Meanwhile, a parliamentary report released in late July questioned why so many different groups were responsible for defending key security sites and whether many of the privatized defense research establishments are secure from terrorist attack. The MPs said they would press to give higher priority to long-promised emergency legislation requiring local councils to plan and prepare for emergencies. Some 500 people are employed by local councils to work on reactive emergency planning, but the councils are not now required to plan how to deal with an emergency, or to practice emergency planning. The military told the committee it was extremely difficult to coordinate planning, most of which is still modeled on Cold War threats.
While Britain grew wearily accustomed over the years to IRA bomb attacks, bioterrorism would be unprecedented. In the wake of anthrax sent through the U.S. mail, Britain's general practitioners and pharmacists got worried calls from patients. By late last year pharmacists reported shortages of the two drugs used in the treatment of anthrax— ciprofloxacin and doxycycline.
In March 2000, Department of Health guidelines for dealing with bioweapons were circulated to hospitals, and many major hospitals now have decontamination units. Each health authority now has access to a specialist laboratory with vaccines and antibiotics. The Department of Health will only confirm that unspecified supplies have been secured. Vaccines exist for anthrax, bo-tulinum toxin, tularemia, plague, Q fever, and smallpox. There is no talk of mass vaccination.
The Public Laboratory Service, Britain's equivalent to the Centers for Disease Control, has 49 laboratories that would provide information during an outbreak. But emergency health planning is the responsibility of local authorities, which have limited budgets and resources and receive little help from the central government. In the case of bioattack, emergency rooms could burst at the seams. Even a naturally occurring winter influenza epidemic in Britain would stretch services to the limit.
While it could be argued that, since September 11, Al Qaeda and other terrorists are succeeding as much through creating fear as through actions, especially where weapons of mass destruction are concerned, Londoners in particular are more aware than most that Britain is second to the United States as a terrorist target.
Still stoic?
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, I wondered what Britain's psychological response would have been to a similar attack in London, say on the Houses of Parliament. When I was in New York in April, at Ground Zero and everywhere else, I saw a multitude of photographs and souvenirs of the Twin Towers. Would we in Britain have reacted the same way? The IRA's biggest bomb destroyed Bishopsgate in the City of London in 1993, exploding with the power of 1,200 kilograms of TNT, but that target did not have any of the same resonance or sheer size. We are several generations on since the wartime bombing of London, and I cannot say whether the old British “stiff upper lip” would have prevailed after anything resembling the September 11 attacks. •