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Military Coup Deposes Nigerian President Mamadou Tandja

Colonel Goukoye Abdul Karimou reads a statement signed by Colonel Salou Djibo, leader of a military coup that ousted Nigerian President Mamadou Tandja

The military coup that deposed Mamadou Tandja, the President of Niger, on Thursday, Feb. 18, could be seen as yet another putsch in a remote West African country, save for two things contributing to a growing instability in the region: cocaine and al-Qaeda. The coup is just the latest in a series in West Africa, making the region an increasing focus for Western governments in their ongoing battles against terrorism and drugs.

The coup itself was over just hours after it began Thursday, when shots were heard at the presidential palace in the dusty capital of Niamey, where Tandja was holding a Cabinet meeting. Late that night, a group of army officers calling itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy appeared on national television and announced the suspension of the constitution and dissolution of all state institutions. An unnamed uniformed officer asked the people of Niger to "remain calm and stay united around the ideals postulated by the council," which were to "make Niger an example of democracy and good governance" and to "save Niger and its population from poverty, deception and corruption." The whereabouts of Tandja were unknown.  

Hope is becoming more common across Africa. Armed conflicts are on the decline, democracy is spreading, and economic growth is healthy. But rebirths can be fragile. And after a few years of optimism in West Africa, instability has suddenly returned. The past two years have seen coups in Guinea and Mauritania and the tit-for-tat assassinations of the President and army chief in Guinea-Bissau. More recently, the regional superpower, Nigeria, endured three months of political uncertainty when President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua underwent medical treatment in Saudi Arabia but refused to hand over power to his deputy for three months. (The transfer was eventually forced by parliament.) And on Friday, two people were reported to have died in Ivory Coast during protests against President Laurent Gbagbo's decision to dissolve the government and electoral commission, once again delaying a presidential election originally scheduled for 2005.

Tensions have been simmering in Niger since last year, when the democratically elected Tandja, whose second term in office was about to expire, suddenly assumed emergency powers and changed the constitution to extend his term by three years. As is the habit of autocrats, he justified his actions by saying he wanted to continue his mission of serving the people. And they need serving: Niger's population of 15 million is growing at the fastest rate in the world (an average woman there gives birth to seven children). Nigerians are also among the world's poorest, subjected to periodic droughts and famine. But Tandja's claims were made hollow by his track record in office — his government has been accused of corruption and harassment of political opponents, journalists and aid workers. Among those unconvinced by his motives was the West African regional group ECOWAS, which suspended Niger last October over Tandja's moves to hold on to power. 

So why the new insecurity in the region? Two reasons are terrorists and drug smugglers, who have been attracted to West Africa by its weak governments and whose presence has weakened them further. First, the region has become a staging ground for operations by militant Islamists calling themselves al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a group largely made up of Algerian fighters who fled south in the late 1990s after losing a decade-long war against the government. AQIM specializes in the kidnapping — and occasional execution — of foreigners, something that prompted the Paris-Dakar rally to move to South America last year. In December 2008, AQIM kidnapped the U.N. special envoy for Niger, Robert Fowler of Canada, along with an aide and a driver. They were eventually released, together with three Western tourists — two Swiss and a German — reportedly after a ransom of $5 million was paid. But a Briton with the tourist group was executed.

Second, West Africa has become a key route for the trafficking of South American cocaine to Europe. Guinea-Bissau is now awash with the stuff, which is off-loaded along its coast and then transported by air, sea or land to Europe. The overland route across the Sahara is facilitated by Niger's Tuareg tribe, which has been staging a low-level rebellion in the northern part of the country since 2007. "In some cases, the value of the drugs being trafficked is greater than the country's national income," Antonio Maria Costa, director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, wrote in an October 2008 report on the situation. "[These countries] risk becoming shell states — sovereign in name but hollowed out from the inside by criminals in collusion with corrupt officials."

One of the world's poorest regions, West Africa already had its work cut out for it in trying to develop economically, fight the advance of the Sahara and establish rules of law. Now the world's largest terrorist group and biggest drug barons are in the mix — as in Afghanistan, only much larger. Niger adds an extra dimension to this worrying picture: it is home to Africa's largest deposits of uranium, needed to build nuclear power stations and weapons. And lawlessness is endemic. While I was reporting in Niamey last April, my car was attacked twice by mobs wielding steel poles and lumps of concrete, battering its side and smashing its windows. A senior civil servant who got into the car shortly afterward said such attacks happened every day and dismissed the rioters as "des gosses" — "kids" — as he carefully brushed broken glass off his seat.

Others are not so nonchalant. Last year, Jan Egeland, a U.N. special adviser on conflict resolution, said no place on earth was more deserving of international attention. Climate change, resource conflict and trafficking in drugs, arms and humans were combining to create "one lethal cocktail," he said. Speaking last year, a Western diplomat in Senegal concurred. "It looked like we'd turned the corner in West Africa," he told TIME on condition of anonymity, as per protocol. "Then suddenly it's coup here, coup there and cocaine everywhere. These things start spreading, and everything, everyone's interests, is down the tubes."

 

Top 10 Assassination Plots

Dubai officials issued arrest warrants for 11 suspects alleged to be behind the Jan. 20 murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a top official in the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The movements of the accused were caught on surveillance tape, which caused a sensation after it was released. We look back at past assassination plots that have gripped the world.

Mossad vs. Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh?

Authorities in Dubai have issued international arrest warrants for 11 suspects alleged to be behind the mysterious Jan. 20 murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a top official in Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.

The suspects, believed to be members of a hit squad, entered the country using fake European passports. They were then captured thanks to surveillance footage, which showed the group following al-Mabhouh around the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel where he was staying, disguised in wigs and false beards. After determining al-Mabhouh's room number, the assassins checked in directly across from him, broke into his room while he was gone and suffocated him on his return.

Hamas has accused Israel's secret service, the Mossad, of orchestrating the assassination. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman refused to comment on the incident, saying of the nation's intelligence matters, "Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies."

 

The One That Started a War

 

 

Homeland Security Loses 180 Handguns

Via:CNN

Nearly 180 Department of Homeland Security weapons were lost -- some falling into the hands of criminals -- after officers left them in restrooms, vehicles and other public places, according to an inspector general report.

The officers, with Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "did not always sufficiently safeguard their firearms and, as a result, lost a significant number of firearms" between fiscal year 2006 and fiscal year 2008, the report said.

In all, 243 firearms were lost in both agencies during that period, according to the January report from Inspector General Richard Skinner. Of those, 36 were lost because of circumstances beyond officers' control -- for instance, ICE lost a firearm during an assault on an officer. Another 28 were lost even though officers had stored them in lockboxes or safes.

But 74 percent, or 179 guns, were lost "because officers did not properly secure them," the report said.

Following a review of the draft report in December, Homeland Security took steps to implement its recommendations and overhaul its property management policy, according to a response in the report. A department spokeswoman did not immediately return a call from CNN Thursday seeking comment.

The report concluded the department did not have specific procedures and policies in place regarding firearms. "Instead, DHS relied on its components to augment its general property management policies and procedures with specific guidance for safeguarding and controlling firearms," it said. "Although some component policies and procedures for safeguarding firearms were sufficient, personnel did not always follow them."

The inspector general cited several examples of "inappropriate practices." A customs officer, for instance, left a firearm in an idling vehicle in the parking lot of a convenience store. The vehicle was stolen while the officer was inside. "A local law enforcement officer later recovered the firearm from a suspected gang member and drug smuggler," the report said.

In addition, an ICE officer left an M-4 rifle and a shotgun unsecured in a closet at his home. Both weapons were stolen in a burglary and later recovered from a felon, according to the report. Another officer left his firearm in the restroom of a fast-food restaurant, and it was gone when he returned.

"Other CBP and ICE officers left firearms in places such as a fast food restaurant parking lot, a bowling alley and a clothing store," the report said.

"Although our review focused on CBP and ICE, other components described similar incidents. For example, a TSA officer left a firearm in a lunch box on the front seat of an unlocked vehicle; the officer realized the firearm was stolen when he returned to the vehicle two days later," said the report. "Officers may have prevented many of these losses had they exercised reasonable care when storing their weapons."

Of the 179 lost because of laxity, 120 were reported stolen and 59 as lost, the report said. That resulted from the agencies' lack of guidance on a standard method for classifying and reporting lost firearms, as well as "a common perception among officers that reporting a stolen firearm was more acceptable than reporting a lost firearm.

"Although CBP and ICE reported 120 firearms as stolen, our analysis showed that these firearms were lost (stolen) because officers left the firearms unsecured," according to the report. "All 179 losses may have been prevented had the officers properly secured their firearms."

The department had about 188,500 weapons in its inventory as of last summer, the report said. The majority are assigned to Customs and Border Protection and ICE officers, but others are carried by agencies including the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

How Many Terrorists Has The U.S. Convicted?

Since Attorney General Eric Holder decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, in civilian court, Republicans have argued that a military trial would be a better solution. Administration officials respond by saying hundreds of terrorists have been convicted in federal court. But there is widespread disagreement on the specific number of terrorism convictions since the attacks.

In an interview Sunday on CBS, President Obama said the Bush administration "prosecuted 190 folks in these Article 3 courts and got convictions."

His number matches a report that the group Human Rights First issued in July. "We specifically looked at self-described Islamic or jihadist terrorists," says Human Rights First Senior Associate Daphne Eviatar. "So these are people who are generally linked in some way to al-Qaida or the Taliban."

The federal government's list of terrorist groups includes some organizations with no Islamic ties, such as the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the FARC in Colombia. When one includes those cases, the tally of terrorism convictions goes up.

Whose Numbers Are They, Anyway?

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in November, Holder said, "There are more than 300 convicted international and domestic terrorists currently in Bureau of Prisons custody."

Republicans have attacked that number as inaccurate. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the 300 figure "unsubstantiated." President Bush's former press secretary, Dana Perino, said the statistic is as "false as false gets." But the number actually comes from a Bush administration document. In 2008, the Justice Department submitted a budget request citing "319 convictions or guilty pleas in terrorism or terrorism-related cases arising from investigations conducted primarily after September 11, 2001."

The NYU Center on Law and Security conducted its own comprehensive study and came up with yet a higher number.

"If you had every single terrorism-related prosecution since 9/11 and you wanted to know the convictions, there would be 523," says the center's director, Karen Greenberg.

Her database includes everything from the smallest terrorism-related passport violation to the case against Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui. "The point," Greenberg says, "is to have a database that has everything in it so that you can crunch for all of the different things, and that's what we do."

Many tallies of terrorism convictions include cases the government labeled as "terrorism related" at the time of arrest, where the connection to terrorism was tenuous at best.

"Right after 9/11, the government was classifying people who in no way were terrorists," says David Burnham, co-director of Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. "A woman was on an airline, and she kept hitting her call button. She surely terrorized the flight attendants, but she was not a terrorist. And she got arrested and was classified as a terrorist."

Those sorts of cases have become less common in recent years, according to NYU's study. The report says that as the government has refined its approach to terrorism, prosecutors have brought fewer cases. The crimes have tended to be more serious, and conviction rates have gone up.

Still, says Burnham, any study of terrorism convictions inevitably relies on subjective decisions about which cases to include and which to omit. "Depending on how you count," he says, "you get different answers.

Security chip that does encryption in PCs hacked

Deep inside millions of computers is a digital Fort Knox, a special chip with the locks to highly guarded secrets, including classified government reports and confidential business plans. Now a former U.S. Army computer-security specialist has devised a way to break those locks.

The attack can force heavily secured computers to spill documents that likely were presumed to be safe. This discovery shows one way that spies and other richly financed attackers can acquire military and trade secrets, and comes as worries about state-sponsored computer espionage intensify, underscored by recent hacking attacks on Google.

The new attack discovered by Christopher Tarnovsky is difficult to pull off, partly because it requires physical access to a computer. But laptops and smart phones get lost and stolen all the time. And the data that the most dangerous computer criminals would seek likely would be worth the expense of an elaborate espionage operation.

Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat security conference and a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's advisory council, called Tarnovsky's finding "amazing."

"It's sort of doing the impossible," Moss said. "This is a lock on Pandora's box. And now that he's pried open the lock, it's like, ooh, where does it lead you?"

Tarnovsky figured out a way to break chips that carry a "Trusted Platform Module," or TPM, designation by essentially spying on them like a phone conversation. Such chips are billed as the industry's most secure and are estimated to be in as many as 100 million personal computers and servers, according to market research firm IDC.

When activated, the chips provide an additional layer of security by encrypting, or scrambling, data to prevent outsiders from viewing information on the machines. An extra password or identification such as a fingerprint is needed when the machine is turned on.

Many computers sold to businesses and consumers have such chips, though users might not turn them on. Users are typically given the choice to turn on a TPM chip when they first use a computer with it. If they ignore the offer, it's easy to forget the feature exists. However, computers needing the most security typically have TPM chips activated.

"You've trusted this chip to hold your secrets, but your secrets aren't that safe," said Tarnovsky, 38, who runs the Flylogic security consultancy in Vista, California, and demonstrated his hack last week at the Black Hat security conference in Arlington, Virginia.

The chip Tarnovsky hacked is a flagship model from Infineon Technologies AG, the top maker of TPM chips. And Tarnovsky says the technique would work on the entire family of Infineon chips based on the same design. That includes non-TPM chips used in satellite TV equipment, Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 game console and smart phones.

That means his attack could be used to pirate satellite TV signals or make Xbox peripherals, such as handheld controllers, without paying Microsoft a licensing fee, Tarnovsky said. Microsoft confirmed its Xbox 360 uses Infineon chips, but would only say that "unauthorized accessories that circumvent security protocols are not certified to meet our safety and compliance standards."

The technique can also be used to tap text messages and e-mail belonging to the user of a lost or stolen phone. Tarnovsky said he can't be sure, however, whether his attack would work on TPM chips made by companies other than Infineon.

Infineon said it knew this type of attack was possible when it was testing its chips. But the company said independent tests determined that the hack would require such a high skill level that there was a limited chance of it affecting many users.

"The risk is manageable, and you are just attacking one computer," said Joerg Borchert, vice president of Infineon's chip card and security division. "Yes, this can be very valuable. It depends on the information that is stored. But that's not our task to manage. This gives a certain strength, and it's better than an unprotected computer without encryption."

The Trusted Computing Group, which sets standards on TPM chips, called the attack "exceedingly difficult to replicate in a real-world environment." It added that the group has "never claimed that a physical attack — given enough time, specialized equipment, know-how and money — was impossible. No form of security can ever be held to that standard."

It stood by TPM chips as the most cost-effective way to secure a PC.

It's possible for computer users to scramble data in other ways, beyond what the TPM chip does. Tarnovsky's attack would do nothing to unlock those methods. But many computer owners don't bother, figuring the TPM security already protects them.

Tarnovsky needed six months to figure out his attack, which requires skill in modifying the tiny parts of the chip without destroying it.

Using off-the-shelf chemicals, Tarnovsky soaked chips in acid to dissolve their hard outer shells. Then he applied rust remover to help take off layers of mesh wiring, to expose the chips' cores. From there, he had to find the right communication channels to tap into using a very small needle.

The needle allowed him to set up a wiretap and eavesdrop on all the programming instructions as they are sent back and forth between the chip and the computer's memory. Those instructions hold the secrets to the computer's encryption, and he didn't find them encrypted because he was physically inside the chip.

Even once he had done all that, he said he still had to crack the "huge problem" of figuring out how to avoid traps programmed into the chip's software as an extra layer of defense.

"This chip is mean, man — it's like a ticking time bomb if you don't do something right," Tarnovsky said.

Joe Grand, a hardware hacker and president of product- and security-research firm Grand Idea Studio, saw Tarnovsky's presentation and said it represented a huge advancement that chip companies should take seriously, because it shows that presumptions about security ought to be reconsidered.

"His work is the next generation of hardware hacking," Grand said.

Can Intel Agencies Kill Americans?

The director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, shocked Washington last week when he told a congressional committee that U.S. spy agencies have the authority to assassinate American citizens abroad who are believed to be involved in terrorism. But he suggested that intel officials would have to follow special rules to do so: "If … we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," he told the House intelligence committee.

Blair's testimony left behind a pile of questions: By whose authority can intel agencies kill Americans? And who in the government has the power to grant or deny the "specific permission" to carry out such operations? In interviews with NEWSWEEK, current and former U.S. national-security officials—who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive information—filled in some of the blanks.

These officials say that, a few days after 9/11, George W. Bush signed a classified "intelligence finding" authorizing the assassination of suspected terrorists. By this order, which continues under Barack Obama, officials within the CIA and Pentagon can launch lethal strikes on suspected foreign terrorists without seeking permission from higher-ups. But, say the officials, strikes specifically targeting Americans must first be approved by a secret committee made up of senior intel officials and members of the president's cabinet (it's not known which ones). The president himself does not have to sign off on kill orders.

The sources say that committee approval is required only if the specific target of the assassination is an American—not if an American happens to be in the vicinity of a foreign target at the time of the strike. At least once, U.S. forces have killed an American this way. In November 2002 a missile attack targeting a Yemeni terrorist also killed Kamal Derwish, an American citizen associated with an alleged terrorist cell in Lackawanna, N.Y. U.S. forces almost did it again last Christmas Eve, with an airstrike against another Yemeni terrorist; he was believed to be hiding with Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born radical cleric who advised both the suspected Fort Hood shooter and the alleged Christmas Day bomber. Al-Awlaki is believed to have escaped.

Civil libertarians are already questioning the wisdom, and legality, of the U.S. government targeting its own citizens. Roger Cressey, a former National Security Council official, takes a different view, saying, "If you are stupid enough to be associated with known Al Qaeda operatives in a known Al Qaeda safe haven, you're putting your life at risk." Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, says, "The agency's counterterrorism operations are lawful, aggressive, precise, and effective." White House and Pentagon spokesmen did not respond to requests for comment.

6 ways crooks can get you online

Flash drives

Flash or thumb drives provide an easy way to infect machines with malware. It's no surprise that criminals are using them, particularly to target companies.

 

Criminals use a flash drive with a company's logo. They load it with malware and drop it in the company's parking lot. An unsuspecting employee picks up the drive and connects it to his or her computer. What happens next is the scary part. Criminals gain access to the company's network — and trade secrets.

Never use a flash drive that you find. If you find one at your company, alert the IT department. It can find the rightful owner or destroy the drive.

Criminals use a flash drive with a company's logo. They load it with malware and drop it in the company's parking lot. An unsuspecting employee picks up the drive and connects it to his or her computer. What happens next is the scary part. Criminals gain access to the company's network — and trade secrets.

Never use a flash drive that you find. If you find one at your company, alert the IT department. It can find the rightful owner or destroy the drive.

Facebook 'friends'

Everyone seems to be on Facebook. It can be exciting to find new Facebook contacts. But pay close attention to who you grant access to your profile.

If you use your account for business, it can be a gold mine for competitors. You may unknowingly post information about projects that would benefit competitors. Even your contact list says a lot. It can give hints about an upcoming merger or partnership. It can also give criminals inroads at other companies.

That's not the only danger. Information you post can be used for targeted phishing attacks. A criminal can post a link to a malicious site. It could be a phishing site or a site that installs malware.

Limit what others see and be careful about your posts. You may also prevent others from posting to your wall. Above all, be vigilant.

Clickjacking

Clicking on malicious links is known as clickjacking. It can happen anywhere online. Most notably, it threatens Facebook and Twitter users. A victim is lured to a malicious page. The victim's profile page is opened behind the malicious page. The victim has no idea any of this is happening.

In the case of Facebook, clicking on the malicious page causes the victim to sign in to Facebook. The victim could then perform actions that compromise the Facebook account. Or, victims might be tricked into turning on webcams and microphones. They might even delete their Facebook accounts.

There is no certain way to protect against clickjacking. Your best bet is to watch for suspicious links or sites. Be alert.

Smart phone apps

Smart phone apps are hot. Criminals are looking to them to get your information. Apple checks apps before offering them to users. But other app stores may be less thorough.

For example, one developer recently offered banking apps for Android phones. The developer had no ties to the banks. The apps may have been password-stealing tools.

Although it's less likely, apps could also infect a phone with malware. Even seemingly legitimate apps pose risks. They may collect location information or access information stored on the phone.

Watch out for unknown developers when installing apps. Read the developer's privacy statement to understand what is collected and how it's used. And understand the app store's approval process. Read reviews.

If it is a third-party app, contact the service to which it connects. Make sure the developer is an approved partner. If in doubt, skip the app.

E-mail messages

E-mail has long been a popular method of attack. And e-mail attacks are improving. Obviously, beware of attachments. If you're not expecting an attachment, call the sender. Verify that it is legitimate.

Watch out for links in e-mail messages as well. These can take you to attack sites. Links to videos are particularly popular. You may be prompted to download something to display the video. You can bet it's a Trojan.

Remember that e-cards can lead you to malicious sites. So can e-mail messages telling you to check out pictures of yourself. These malicious sites often use drive-by downloads, targeting holes in Windows. Keeping Windows updated will generally protect you from malicious downloads.

Criminals are also targeting their attacks. Malicious messages may be personalized with information about you.

Remember that it is surprisingly easy to find someone's e-mail address. Business addresses may be gleaned from company websites or directories. Marketing companies sell targeted lists. And, you can find personal e-mail addresses via Intelius.

A spam filter should stop most of these messages. But never underestimate the importance of vigilance.

Porn dialers

Porn dialers are making a comeback on cellphones. The dialers are Trojans posing as videos, software or utilities.

They affect phones that run Java. Many are found on porn sites. Once installed, they send premium text messages or call premium numbers without your knowledge. You're hit with a whopping bill. The criminals behind the Trojans share in the proceeds.

Be careful about downloading software. Don't download anything from unknown or untrusted sources. You could also receive links to premium numbers via text message. Be careful when texting or calling numbers sent to your phone.

Now that you are aware of the dangers, one thing should be clear. When it's all said and done, the responsibility of not falling for these scams is on your shoulders. Keep your guard up.

Lone Terrorists New Global Threat

We've got terrorists around the world on the run. It's where they're running to that's the problem.

By Christopher Dickey

Battles against terrorists are mostly fought in the shadows and far away. But they don't always remain there. And when the bad guys attack—or try to attack—closer to home, the public is shocked, then angered: What's happening? Why? One day there might be a minor news item: a vague report from Yemen that missile attacks have killed dozens of men loyal to a local affiliate of Al Qaeda. American forces, or at least American weapons, seem to have been involved. Some of the extremist leaders may be dead, or maybe not. It's all truly distant and deliberately obscure. Then a Nigerian kid who's been spending time in Yemen takes a Christmas Day flight to Detroit and tries to blow himself up along with everyone else aboard.

All he manages to do is ignite his chemical-packed underpants. But the attempt unleashes a firestorm in the American media. The story is not that the would-be bomber failed, it's that he almost succeeded and, regardless, should never have been allowed on the plane. Under heavy political pressure to address public anger, President Obama admits there's been a "systemic failure" in America's screening process.

Yet the surge in efforts to attack the United States over the last few months, including on Detroit-bound Northwest Flight 253, is in many ways a measure of our success on faraway battlefields no one is ever supposed to have heard of. America's ability to gather intelligence, to exploit the power of global law enforcement, and to launch special-operations missions around the world has never been greater. We can carry out remote-controlled attacks that hit Al Qaeda's core leadership and its followers like the wrath of a vengeful god. And that's exactly what we've been doing more aggressively than ever in the last year, blasting away at Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A helicopter-borne commando raid took out a notorious Qaeda organizer in Somalia in September, and U.S. counterterrorist officials have acknowledged embarking on an extensive and extended covert program in Yemen, including two major airstrikes in December.

The onslaught has put extremist groups under mounting pressure. Some could be obliterated. All have found themselves increasingly isolated in a Muslim world where the mainstream is weary of their destructive rhetoric and where even former sympathizers doubt the terrorists' ability to mount another 9/11-style spectacular.

All that, however, means we are entering an especially dangerous phase in which individual, amateurish, would-be terrorists like the 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are going to crop up more and more. At the widely respected Intelligence Division of the New York City Police Department, analyst Mitchell Silber divides the Qaeda threat into three categories: the core organization of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri that carried out the 9/11 attacks; the affiliates in Iraq, North Africa, Yemen, and elsewhere that want the prestige of the Qaeda connection but have less sophisticated capabilities; and "homegrown" terrorists who are inspired by Al Qaeda's ideology but don't have much access to training or support networks. The United States has made great progress in disrupting the first group: U.S. officials claim that Predator strikes along the Afghan-Pakistani border have killed roughly a dozen out of the top 20 Qaeda leaders in the past two years. But that's driving bad guys in the other two groups—who are more likely to pursue small-scale attacks—to assume a higher profile.

The Qaeda affiliates used to focus entirely on local agendas. But as those in Somalia and Yemen have become the target of mounting attacks by America's regional allies and sometimes directly by U.S. weapons and forces, they've started attracting and cultivating would-be jihadis from the United States itself. Young Somali-Americans who left a world of poverty and gangs in Minnesota to take up jihad in the land of their fathers have fallen in with groups like the Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab that turned some of them into suicide bombers. None have brought the shadow war in Mogadishu back to Minneapolis, but the potential is there.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, tried to take that next step in the skies over Michigan. "When you have an affiliate projecting itself into the U.S. environment, that's a big deal," says an American veteran of the intelligence wars against Islamic extremists who prefers that his identity and that of his agency remain anonymous. The group previously focused most of its energies on attacking the Saudi royal family and Saudi interests. "It had a very clear local agenda, but it also decided to move globally," says the intelligence officer. "To the extent that this idea takes root among other affiliates, the U.S. homeland will become more of a target."

At the NYPD, 2009 is now viewed as the most dangerous period since 2001–02, when Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was plotting his "second wave" of attacks against the United States. (Then, too, the terrorists established a long record of failures, bad judgment, and bad luck, as when "shoe bomber" Richard Reid couldn't manage to light the fuse on his explosive sneakers aboard a transatlantic flight in December 2001.) Several destabilizing factors are coming to a head all at once. As the Iranian regime is battered by internal dissent and external pressure, its Revolutionary Guards have increasing reason to look for ways to hurt the United States. The surge of 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan has given extremists propaganda material to argue that America is bent on the unending occupation of that country. And the continued stalemate in the Middle East is blamed on heedless U.S. support for Israel.

Those last two factors in particular greatly increase the chances of radicalization among Muslims in, or with access to, the West. "Lone wolves" like U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas, who killed 13 people in November, or Muslim convert Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who allegedly killed a soldier at a recruiting office in Arkansas in June, claim to have been driven to violence by the actions of the U.S. military abroad. Similar anger encouraged five young Muslim men from northern Virginia to move to Pakistan a month ago and seek training from extremist groups along the border with Afghanistan.

Part of the reason there have been no other Qaeda attacks within the U.S. homeland since 9/11, U.S. officials believe, is that Zawahiri may have rejected more than one plot for being insufficiently spectacular. Qaeda affiliates and individuals like Hasan are not so choosy: Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of the Qaeda faction in Yemen, has called on his followers to bring terror to "residential complexes and subways" in America. And some U.S. intelligence analysts are now concerned that even the core Al Qaeda may lower its standards. When and if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cronies come up for trial in New York City, any bomb or shooting spree in a public place—a shopping mall, say, or a subway car—would draw enormous attention. The New York police worry that David Headley, who was arrested in Chicago and accused of conducting surveillance in advance of 2008's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, may also have cased potential targets in Manhattan.

It's telling that the organizers of the Detroit plot decided to take credit even for a failed operation. They wanted to be seen doing something—anything—to retaliate against the United States. So the media arm of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed that "the martyrdom-seeking mujahid brother Umar Farouk" tried to blow up Flight 253 in retaliation for U.S.-backed strikes on terrorist targets in Yemen: "As you kill, you shall be killed."

Of course, that's not what happened. Their fighters were decimated on the ground in Yemen, while their aspiring death angel in the skies over Michigan merely succeeded in burning his crotch. But under the circumstances, a failed operation that garners this much media attention is as good as a victory for an aspiring extremist group. The publicity is a boon to recruitment. "Small events are important to them right now," says the veteran intelligence officer. "If you are sitting in a cave in Afghanistan or Yemen you can say, 'Not half bad—we scared the s--t out of them in America. We were able to get into the homeland. We knocked them back some.' "

Amid this fraught environment the challenge for President Obama is—and I use this phrase advisedly—to stay the course. Clearly, some of America's defenses are faulty. Once again, more efforts will have to be made to coordinate among agencies and to find more effective ways of making sure potential terrorists never get on American-bound airplanes to begin with. Counterterror officials will need to do a better job of engaging and deflecting young Muslims online, where most are now radicalized. But the best defense remains a smart, discreet, devastating offense, and that effort has to be relentless.

At the same time, it's essential to discredit Al Qaeda's ideology, which inspires the Abdulmutallabs and the Major Hasans of this world. Obama must not succumb to the old rhetoric of global confrontation and clashing civilizations. He needs to keep the focus on those small groups and individuals who present a real threat while engaging in the battle of ideas from the high ground of traditional American values. That is why, even though some Guantánamo graduates have wound up leading terrorist cells, as in Yemen, the closing of that not-quite-constitutional prison on the Cuban shore is imperative. The contagion of Al Qaeda's ideas feeds on the notion that Muslims everywhere are oppressed and under constant attack; that their lands are occupied; that their values are disrespected and their faith defiled. And whenever the United States can be lured into a situation that seems to prove those views true, any tactical victory will be outweighed by the strategic setback in the war for Muslim hearts and minds.

So, while the United States continues aggressive operations in the shadows, Obama has to keep the American profile as low as possible. And that will be difficult when his administration is under partisan attack for being soft on national security. He must resist the temptation to claim a covert victory overtly, as the Bush administration did before the midterm elections in 2002 when it scored a Predator hit against an earlier generation of Qaeda leaders in Yemen. No allies in the Muslim world want to be seen working with the United States to kill other Muslims. Obama must not let the United States get dragged into another overt war, and must continue extricating American troops from the occupations he inherited. And, toughest of all, he needs to find a way to calm American nerves at a time when hysterical rhetoric is the stuff of daily discourse.

We all have to understand that this is a very dangerous game—and more than ever when it gets close to being won. In the meantime, says the veteran intelligence officer, "don't flinch, and keep buying Predators."

How Americans Help Fund The Taliban

By: Aram Roston

On October 29, 2001, while the Taliban's rule over Afghanistan was under assault, the regime's ambassador in Islamabad gave a chaotic press conference in front of several dozen reporters sitting on the grass. On the Taliban diplomat's right sat his interpreter, Ahmad Rateb Popal, a man with an imposing presence. Like the ambassador, Popal wore a black turban, and he had a huge bushy beard. He had a black patch over his right eye socket, a prosthetic left arm and a deformed right hand, the result of injuries from an explosives mishap during an old operation against the Soviets in Kabul.

But Popal was more than just a former mujahedeen. In 1988, a year before the Soviets fled Afghanistan, Popal had been charged in the United States with conspiring to import more than a kilo of heroin. Court records show he was released from prison in 1997.

Flash forward to 2009, and Afghanistan is ruled by Popal's cousin President Hamid Karzai. Popal has cut his huge beard down to a neatly trimmed one and has become an immensely wealthy businessman, along with his brother Rashid Popal, who in a separate case pleaded guilty to a heroin charge in 1996 in Brooklyn. The Popal brothers control the huge Watan Group in Afghanistan, a consortium engaged in telecommunications, logistics and, most important, security. Watan Risk Management, the Popals' private military arm, is one of the few dozen private security companies in Afghanistan. One of Watan's enterprises, key to the war effort, is protecting convoys of Afghan trucks heading from Kabul to Kandahar, carrying American supplies.

Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.

In this grotesque carnival, the US military's contractors are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes. It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban. "It's a big part of their income," one of the top Afghan government security officials told The Nation in an interview. In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon's logistics contracts--hundreds of millions of dollars--consists of payments to insurgents.

Understanding how this situation came to pass requires untangling two threads. The first is the insider dealing that determines who wins and who loses in Afghan business, and the second is the troubling mechanism by which "private security" ensures that the US supply convoys traveling these ancient trade routes aren't ambushed by insurgents.

A good place to pick up the first thread is with a small firm awarded a US military logistics contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars: NCL Holdings. Like the Popals' Watan Risk, NCL is a licensed security company in Afghanistan.

What NCL Holdings is most notorious for in Kabul contracting circles, though, is the identity of its chief principal, Hamed Wardak. He is the young American son of Afghanistan's current defense minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, who was a leader of the mujahedeen against the Soviets. Hamed Wardak has plunged into business as well as policy. He was raised and schooled in the United States, graduating as valedictorian from Georgetown University in 1997. He earned a Rhodes scholarship and interned at the neoconservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. That internship was to play an important role in his life, for it was at AEI that he forged alliances with some of the premier figures in American conservative foreign policy circles, such as the late Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick.

Wardak incorporated NCL in the United States early in 2007, although the firm may have operated in Afghanistan before then. It made sense to set up shop in Washington, because of Wardak's connections there. On NCL's advisory board, for example, is Milton Bearden, a well-known former CIA officer. Bearden is an important voice on Afghanistan issues; in October he was a witness before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Senator John Kerry, the chair, introduced him as "a legendary former CIA case officer and a clearheaded thinker and writer." It is not every defense contracting company that has such an influential adviser.

But the biggest deal that NCL got--the contract that brought it into Afghanistan's major leagues--was Host Nation Trucking. Earlier this year the firm, with no apparent trucking experience, was named one of the six companies that would handle the bulk of US trucking in Afghanistan, bringing supplies to the web of bases and remote outposts scattered across the country.

At first the contract was large but not gargantuan. And then that suddenly changed, like an immense garden coming into bloom. Over the summer, citing the coming "surge" and a new doctrine, "Money as a Weapons System," the US military expanded the contract 600 percent for NCL and the five other companies. The contract documentation warns of dire consequences if more is not spent: "service members will not get food, water, equipment, and ammunition they require." Each of the military's six trucking contracts was bumped up to $360 million, or a total of nearly $2.2 billion. Put it in this perspective: this single two-year effort to hire Afghan trucks and truckers was worth 10 percent of the annual Afghan gross domestic product. NCL, the firm run by the defense minister's well-connected son, had struck pure contracting gold.

Host Nation Trucking does indeed keep the US military efforts alive in Afghanistan. "We supply everything the army needs to survive here," one American trucking executive told me. "We bring them their toilet paper, their water, their fuel, their guns, their vehicles." The epicenter is Bagram Air Base, just an hour north of Kabul, from which virtually everything in Afghanistan is trucked to the outer reaches of what the Army calls "the Battlespace"--that is, the entire country. Parked near Entry Control Point 3, the trucks line up, shifting gears and sending up clouds of dust as they prepare for their various missions across the country.

The real secret to trucking in Afghanistan is ensuring security on the perilous roads, controlled by warlords, tribal militias, insurgents and Taliban commanders. The American executive I talked to was fairly specific about it: "The Army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money." That is something everyone seems to agree on.

Mike Hanna is the project manager for a trucking company called Afghan American Army Services. The company, which still operates in Afghanistan, had been trucking for the United States for years but lost out in the Host Nation Trucking contract that NCL won. Hanna explained the security realities quite simply: "You are paying the people in the local areas--some are warlords, some are politicians in the police force--to move your trucks through."

Hanna explained that the prices charged are different, depending on the route: "We're basically being extorted. Where you don't pay, you're going to get attacked. We just have our field guys go down there, and they pay off who they need to." Sometimes, he says, the extortion fee is high, and sometimes it is low. "Moving ten trucks, it is probably $800 per truck to move through an area. It's based on the number of trucks and what you're carrying. If you have fuel trucks, they are going to charge you more. If you have dry trucks, they're not going to charge you as much. If you are carrying MRAPs or Humvees, they are going to charge you more."

Hanna says it is just a necessary evil. "If you tell me not to pay these insurgents in this area, the chances of my trucks getting attacked increase exponentially."

Whereas in Iraq the private security industry has been dominated by US and global firms like Blackwater, operating as de facto arms of the US government, in Afghanistan there are lots of local players as well. As a result, the industry in Kabul is far more dog-eat-dog. "Every warlord has his security company," is the way one executive explained it to me.

In theory, private security companies in Kabul are heavily regulated, although the reality is different. Thirty-nine companies had licenses until September, when another dozen were granted licenses. Many licensed companies are politically connected: just as NCL is owned by the son of the defense minister and Watan Risk Management is run by President Karzai's cousins, the Asia Security Group is controlled by Hashmat Karzai, another relative of the president. The company has blocked off an entire street in the expensive Sherpur District. Another security firm is controlled by the parliamentary speaker's son, sources say. And so on.

In the same way, the Afghan trucking industry, key to logistics operations, is often tied to important figures and tribal leaders. One major hauler in Afghanistan, Afghan International Trucking (AIT), paid $20,000 a month in kickbacks to a US Army contracting official, according to the official's plea agreement in US court in August. AIT is a very well-connected firm: it is run by the 25-year-old nephew of Gen. Baba Jan, a former Northern Alliance commander and later a Kabul police chief. In an interview, Baba Jan, a cheerful and charismatic leader, insisted he had nothing to do with his nephew's corporate enterprise.

But the heart of the matter is that insurgents are getting paid for safe passage because there are few other ways to bring goods to the combat outposts and forward operating bases where soldiers need them. By definition, many outposts are situated in hostile terrain, in the southern parts of Afghanistan. The security firms don't really protect convoys of American military goods here, because they simply can't; they need the Taliban's cooperation.

One of the big problems for the companies that ship American military supplies across the country is that they are banned from arming themselves with any weapon heavier than a rifle. That makes them ineffective for battling Taliban attacks on a convoy. "They are shooting the drivers from 3,000 feet away with PKMs," a trucking company executive in Kabul told me. "They are using RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] that will blow up an up-armed vehicle. So the security companies are tied up. Because of the rules, security companies can only carry AK-47s, and that's just a joke. I carry an AK--and that's just to shoot myself if I have to!"

The rules are there for a good reason: to guard against devastating collateral damage by private security forces. Still, as Hanna of Afghan American Army Services points out, "An AK-47 versus a rocket-propelled grenade--you are going to lose!" That said, at least one of the Host Nation Trucking companies has tried to do battle instead of paying off insurgents and warlords. It is a US-owned firm called Four Horsemen International. Instead of providing payments, it has tried to fight off attackers. And it has paid the price in lives, with horrendous casualties. FHI, like many other firms, refused to talk publicly; but I've been told by insiders in the security industry that FHI's convoys are attacked on virtually every mission.

For the most part, the security firms do as they must to survive. A veteran American manager in Afghanistan who has worked there as both a soldier and a private security contractor in the field told me, "What we are doing is paying warlords associated with the Taliban, because none of our security elements is able to deal with the threat." He's an Army veteran with years of Special Forces experience, and he's not happy about what's being done. He says that at a minimum American military forces should try to learn more about who is getting paid off.

"Most escorting is done by the Taliban," an Afghan private security official told me. He's a Pashto and former mujahedeen commander who has his finger on the pulse of the military situation and the security industry. And he works with one of the trucking companies carrying US supplies. "Now the government is so weak," he added, "everyone is paying the Taliban."

To Afghan trucking officials, this is barely even something to worry about. One woman I met was an extraordinary entrepreneur who had built up a trucking business in this male-dominated field. She told me the security company she had hired dealt directly with Taliban leaders in the south. Paying the Taliban leaders meant they would send along an escort to ensure that no other insurgents would attack. In fact, she said, they just needed two armed Taliban vehicles. "Two Taliban is enough," she told me. "One in the front and one in the back." She shrugged. "You cannot work otherwise. Otherwise it is not possible."

Which leads us back to the case of Watan Risk, the firm run by Ahmad Rateb Popal and Rashid Popal, the Karzai family relatives and former drug dealers. Watan is known to control one key stretch of road that all the truckers use: the strategic route to Kandahar called Highway 1. Think of it as the road to the war--to the south and to the west. If the Army wants to get supplies down to Helmand, for example, the trucks must make their way through Kandahar.

Watan Risk, according to seven different security and trucking company officials, is the sole provider of security along this route. The reason is simple: Watan is allied with the local warlord who controls the road. Watan's company website is quite impressive, and claims its personnel "are diligently screened to weed out all ex-militia members, supporters of the Taliban, or individuals with loyalty to warlords, drug barons, or any other group opposed to international support of the democratic process." Whatever screening methods it uses, Watan's secret weapon to protect American supplies heading through Kandahar is a man named Commander Ruhullah. Said to be a handsome man in his 40s, Ruhullah has an oddly high-pitched voice. He wears traditional salwar kameez and a Rolex watch. He rarely, if ever, associates with Westerners. He commands a large group of irregular fighters with no known government affiliation, and his name, security officials tell me, inspires obedience or fear in villages along the road.

It is a dangerous business, of course: until last spring Ruhullah had competition--a one-legged warlord named Commander Abdul Khaliq. He was killed in an ambush.

So Ruhullah is the surviving road warrior for that stretch of highway. According to witnesses, he works like this: he waits until there are hundreds of trucks ready to convoy south down the highway. Then he gets his men together, setting them up in 4x4s and pickups. Witnesses say he does not limit his arsenal to AK-47s but uses any weapons he can get. His chief weapon is his reputation. And for that, Watan is paid royally, collecting a fee for each truck that passes through his corridor. The American trucking official told me that Ruhullah "charges $1,500 per truck to go to Kandahar. Just 300 kilometers."

It's hard to pinpoint what this is, exactly--security, extortion or a form of "insurance." Then there is the question, Does Ruhullah have ties to the Taliban? That's impossible to know. As an American private security veteran familiar with the route said, "He works both sides... whatever is most profitable. He's the main commander. He's got to be involved with the Taliban. How much, no one knows."

Even NCL, the company owned by Hamed Wardak, pays. Two sources with direct knowledge tell me that NCL sends its portion of US logistics goods in Watan's and Ruhullah's convoys. Sources say NCL is billed $500,000 per month for Watan's services. To underline the point: NCL, operating on a $360 million contract from the US military, and owned by the Afghan defense minister's son, is paying millions per year from those funds to a company owned by President Karzai's cousins, for protection.

Hamed Wardak wouldn't return my phone calls. Milt Bearden, the former CIA officer affiliated with the company, wouldn't speak with me either. There's nothing wrong with Bearden engaging in business in Afghanistan, but disclosure of his business interests might have been expected when testifying on US policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. After all, NCL stands to make or lose hundreds of millions based on the whims of US policy-makers.

It is certainly worth asking why NCL, a company with no known trucking experience, and little security experience to speak of, would win a contract worth $360 million. Plenty of Afghan insiders are asking questions. "Why would the US government give him a contract if he is the son of the minister of defense?" That's what Mahmoud Karzai asked me. He is the brother of President Karzai, and he himself has been treated in the press as a poster boy for access to government officials. The New York Times even profiled him in a highly critical piece. In his defense, Karzai emphasized that he, at least, has refrained from US government or Afghan government contracting. He pointed out, as others have, that Hamed Wardak had little security or trucking background before his company received security and trucking contracts from the Defense Department. "That's a questionable business practice," he said. "They shouldn't give it to him. How come that's not questioned?"

I did get the opportunity to ask General Wardak, Hamed's father, about it. He is quite dapper, although he is no longer the debonair "Gucci commander" Bearden once described. I asked Wardak about his son and NCL. "I've tried to be straightforward and correct and fight corruption all my life," the defense minister said. "This has been something people have tried to use against me, so it has been painful."

Wardak would speak only briefly about NCL. The issue seems to have produced a rift with his son. "I was against it from the beginning, and that's why we have not talked for a long time. I have never tried to support him or to use my power or influence that he should benefit."

When I told Wardak that his son's company had a US contract worth as much as $360 million, he did a double take. "This is impossible," he said. "I do not believe this."

I believed the general when he said he really didn't know what his son was up to. But cleaning up what look like insider deals may be easier than the next step: shutting down the money pipeline going from DoD contracts to potential insurgents.

Two years ago, a top Afghan security official told me, Afghanistan's intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, had alerted the American military to the problem. The NDS delivered what I'm told are "very detailed" reports to the Americans explaining how the Taliban are profiting from protecting convoys of US supplies.

The Afghan intelligence service even offered a solution: what if the United States were to take the tens of millions paid to security contractors and instead set up a dedicated and professional convoy support unit to guard its logistics lines? The suggestion went nowhere.

The bizarre fact is that the practice of buying the Taliban's protection is not a secret. I asked Col. David Haight, who commands the Third Brigade of the Tenth Mountain Division, about it. After all, part of Highway 1 runs through his area of operations. What did he think about security companies paying off insurgents? "The American soldier in me is repulsed by it," he said in an interview in his office at FOB Shank in Logar Province. "But I know that it is what it is: essentially paying the enemy, saying, 'Hey, don't hassle me.' I don't like it, but it is what it is."

As a military official in Kabul explained contracting in Afghanistan overall, "We understand that across the board 10 percent to 20 percent goes to the insurgents. My intel guy would say it is closer to 10 percent. Generally it is happening in logistics."

In a statement to The Nation about Host Nation Trucking, Col. Wayne Shanks, the chief public affairs officer for the international forces in Afghanistan, said that military officials are "aware of allegations that procurement funds may find their way into the hands of insurgent groups, but we do not directly support or condone this activity, if it is occurring." He added that, despite oversight, "the relationships between contractors and their subcontractors, as well as between subcontractors and others in their operational communities, are not entirely transparent."

In any case, the main issue is not that the US military is turning a blind eye to the problem. Many officials acknowledge what is going on while also expressing a deep disquiet about the situation. The trouble is that--as with so much in Afghanistan--the United States doesn't seem to know how to fix it.

New Airport Body Scans Don't Detect All Weapons

The Obama administration's plan to protect air travelers from terrorists is counting on a technology that is powerful but imperfect, experts say.

The plan will place hundreds of full-body scanners in airports around the country. These scanners use a technology called backscatter X-ray to create images that can reveal weapons or explosives hidden beneath a person’s clothing.

But they don't detect everything, and they won't be in every airport.

President Obama announced the wide deployment of these scanners two weeks after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up an airplane using plastic explosives concealed in his underwear on Christmas Day.

X-Rays Penetrate Clothing

The scanners use X-rays, but they're not like the X-ray machines you see in a doctor's office.

Medical X-rays are powerful enough to pass all the way through your body. The airport machines rely on a much weaker beam, says Steven Smith, an electrical engineer.

Smith designed one of the first backscatter X-ray scanners 20 years ago. These days, he runs Spectrum San Diego, an electronic imaging company.

The backscatter machines use X-rays that penetrate through clothing and about an inch into a person's body, "where they ricochet or backscatter back in the same direction they came from," Smith says.

A sort of digital camera captures these reflected rays.

Backscatter X-ray devices are safe because they expose people to an insignificant amount of radiation, Smith says. But he says the images they produce can look a lot like a nude photograph.

"It shows everything under your clothing," he says. "And if you had something within a few millimeters of your skin's surface, it would show that also."

The government plans to use software that makes the images in airports less graphic.

Prisons have been using the backscatter technology for many years to find knives, guns and contraband, even though the machines cost more than $150,000 apiece.

More recently, the U.S. military has used the scanners in Iraq to protect bases there from terrorists.

"In general, body scanners are able to give you the same degree of detection capability as frisking someone would," Smith says. "But it is far less invasive."

Scanners Could Miss Some Contraband

Smith, a former police officer, says he doesn't want to talk about what the scanners might not find. He says that could help terrorists.

Other experts, though, say backscatter scanners would probably miss a weapon or explosive concealed in a body cavity.

And that apparent weakness has provided an opportunity for an Indiana company called Nesch LLC, which is developing another low-dose X-ray device that can find contraband where other scanners can't.

This machine is called DEXI, for Diffraction Enhanced X-Ray Imaging.

"To my knowledge it's the only one that very reliably can detect the presence of such substances, explosives or illegal substances that are hidden inside of a human body," says Ivan Nesch, the company's president and CEO.

'The Last Line Of Defense'

So can any of this X-ray technology really make air travel safer?

"Of course not," says security consultant Bruce Schneier. "It's sort of magical thinking."

Schneier sees a couple of big problems with the government's strategy.

First, he says, every technology has its limits. And he's not reassured by the government's new scanner.

"It doesn't detect low-density explosives," Schneier says. "It doesn't detect explosives that are thin. You know, it's really very limited as to what it detects. It may or may not have detected the underwear bomber. We don't actually know."

Another problem, he says, is that even hundreds of scanners won't be enough to protect every airport.

"The 9/11 terrorists didn't go through security in Boston," he says. "They went through security in places like Maine."

And once a terrorist has made it through security anywhere in the system, they're not screened again, Schneier says.

"So unless these machines are in every airport in the country," he says, "all we're doing is making the terrorists take another flight before they launch their attack."

The government's real problem isn't a lack of technology, Schneier says. It's a tendency to react to what has already happened, not what might happen next time.

"Airports are the last line of defense, and they're not a very good one," Schneier says.

He says taxpayers would get more for their money if the government invested less in hardware and more in investigations of potential terrorists and better intelligence.