Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Experts: Dyess not target for terrorists
By Jerry Daniel Reed
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Students in Neal Coates' American foreign
policy class got a stark dose of relevancy that everyone would
just as soon have foregone.
The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
raised questions among Coates' students at Abilene Christian University
whether Dyess Air Force Base, an Air Combat Command base housing
40 B-1B bombers, might be a plum target in terrorists eyes'.
But Coates doesn't think so.
Terrorists choose their targets for their symbolic value in the
eyes of the world, said Coates, an assistant professor of political
science. Although Dyess is one of the nation's more important
military bases, other targets are more inviting, he said.
Retired Air Force colonels Bill Ehrie and Michael Whitehorn echoed
Coates' sentiments, though each cautioned they are not up-to-date
authorities on the topic.
Predicting what terrorists will do, Whitehorn said, "is a
very iffy business.'' But typically, he said, "terrorists
pick targets of opportunity.''
Crippling the United States' military might is beyond the capability
of terrorists, so they choose targets based on other criteria,
he said.
"You fly a plane into a building, that's pretty hard to stop,''
said Whitehorn, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who served
in intelligence and counterintelligence. He is the vice president
for student development at Hardin-Simmons University.
Ehrie, a former Dyess commander who is president of the Abilene
Industrial Foundation, said terrorists seek to maximize impact.
"Historically, terrorists are trying to make a statement,''
he said.
Coates said he asked himself aloud why the terrorists chose the
World Trade Center rather than the nearby Statue of Liberty as
the symbol of America's inclusive democratic ideals. He concluded
that the terrorists had cold-bloodedly reasoned they could kill
many times more people working and visiting the twin 110-story
towers than the mere hundreds of tourists who would be strolling
through the Statue of Liberty at a given time.
Taylor County Sheriff Jack Dieken recalled that a speaker at an
anti-terrorism conference last year told him Abilene would rank
"pretty far down" as a terrorist target, well below
major population centers such as New York, Washington, Dallas,
Chicago, St. Louis and Los Angeles.
An attack here would cause much consternation locally, but wouldn't
deliver the message terrorists would want to send the world, Dieken
recalled being told by a veteran intelligence official.
Ehrie warned, though, that a base's ranking as a potential target
is relative and provides no reason for complacency.
"The issue is, we can never be too diligent,'' he said.
Tuesday morning, Dyess initiated the highest security alert possible,
a condition the military calls "delta.''
Only people who live and work on base are allowed in and out of
Dyess. The base has instituted a 100 percent identification check
for everyone entering the main gates.
The base's fleet of B-1's and C-130 transport planes were grounded.
"We are sitting tight and monitoring the situation like the
rest of America," said Capt. David Honchul, head of Dyess'
public affairs. "We're trying to operate as normally as possible
while taking all the precautionary measures we can.''
Military writer Sidney Schuhmann contributed to this report.
Contact public affairs writer Jerry Reed
at 676-6769 or reedj@abinews.com
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©2001, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps.
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