 Dick
Coffman is an international business and security
consultant and media commentator on intelligence,
homeland security and terrorism. He is managing
Director of Odysseus
Group International, which provides risk
management and security solutions to the transportation,
basic infrastructure and manufacturing industries.
Mr. Coffman specializes in ports and maritime
security and homeland defense. He is founder
and President of Coffman
Global Group, which leverages worldwide
networks for business development and marketing
in high technology, basic materials and capital
construction.
Mr. Coffman has conducted assessments of intelligence
operations for the U.S. Customs Service and
the Office of Naval Intelligence and for a
major defense contractor.
Mr. Coffman served 31 years in the Central
Intelligence Agency where he formed and managed
the Agency's first counterterrorism analytic
organization and served as Chief of Station,
chief of staff to the Director of the Clandestine
Service, coordinator of major worldwide covert
intelligence programs and CIA representative
to the NATO Commander.
He also served four years in the U.S. Marine
Corps, including duty in Vietnam in 1965 and
1966. Mr. Coffman remained in the Marine Corps
Reserves retiring in 1992 at the grade of
Colonel. Mr. Coffman is a student of military
history and an authority on the U.S. Civil
War.
Coffman
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March 16, 2004
The synchronized bombing attacks March 11 against commuters, trains, and stations in Madrid have altered the strategic landscape in the war on terrorism.
They are driving a new wedge in the already uneasy counterterror alliance between the US and Europe and emboldening al Qaeda and its friends flush with political success in Spain.
Al Qaeda's apparent involvement and the sophistication, coordination and audacity demonstrated in the 3/11 attacks have badly shaken a Europe grown smug by the virtual absence of terrorism.
With hundreds of vulnerable targets and a heavy al Qaeda and Islamicist radical presence, the hope seemed to hang heavy in Europe that sympathy with the Palestinians, and antipathy if not downright opposition to US policy in Iraq inoculated the continent from damaging Islamist terrorism.
The Europeans also believed - correctly - that US success in destroying al Qaeda's bases in Afghanistan and Iraq and a very large percentage of its core leadership left the organization in a weakened condition.
But, as CIA Director George Tenet warned Congress earlier this month, al Qaeda's increasingly decentralized structure and desperation to regain strategic credibility made the terrorist group dangerous on the local level and less susceptible to national-level countermeasures.
What Tenet didn't point out was the increased political sophistication of al Qaeda and its local affiliates in timing operational activity for optimal political advantage and leveraging the hunger of the international press for news on bin Ladin and al Qaeda. For example, al Qaeda's attacks against British financial and diplomatic interests in Turkey last November coincided almost to the hour and cast a shadow over President Bush's visit to Prime Minister Blair in London.
The 3/11 actions in Spain may have even exceeded al Qaeda's expectations for political impact not only there but also on the wider European scene.
Three days after the attacks, which killed 200 and injured 1500, intimidated Spanish voters surprisingly swept out of office the conservative, pro-US government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and voted in the Socialists under Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. The latter immediately announced Spain would pull its 1300 troops out of the Iraq Coalition and called the Iraq war a "disaster."
How many other Europeans will similarly lose heart and backbone is uncertain, but even before 3/11, ruling parties not only in Spain, but also in Italy and the UK had been widely criticized and their grip on power jeopardized for supporting the US and sending troops to Iraq.
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At a minimum, Europe has been psychologically damaged by how quickly and decisively al Qaeda's audacity and effectiveness buckled Spain's knees.
Many European countries, like Spain, live with Islamic populations embedded with radical and al Qaeda cells, as well as ubiquitous and dense infrastructure and transportation systems that are virtually impossible to defend.
The Polish intelligence chief three days after 3/11 expressed concern that his country, a major US supporter in Iraq, could withstand a concerted terror campaign.
The Dutch Justice Minister proposed toughening the country's terrorism laws, and the German Interior Minister, in whose country much of the 9/11 plotting took place, proposed an early conference of EU interior ministers. But, the head of the EU issued a very weak statement betraying caution and concern.
What will be important in the weeks and months ahead will be European actions rather than the rhetoric of nervous politicians searching for safe political ground.
The following would appear to be prime targets should al Qaeda expand its front continent-wide:
France, which has enflamed its substantial Muslim population by banning Islamic head scarves, and which has a long tradition of molly-coddling resident terrorist groups to discourage attacks against French interests. The French rail system was already on guard against a crude extortion scheme, and police and security services have increased their profile at transportation hubs.
Italy, with a large resident Islamic population and concentrated transportation and infrastructure and whose support for the US in Iraq has bestirred its dormant violent left, is facing national elections in several months, which are likely to tempt al Qaeda action.
Belgium, which hosts many of Europe's and the Atlantic Alliance's high profile institutions and whose lax attitude toward security is legendary, presents a particularly inviting target for terrorists.
Greece, a congenial host and transit point for Islamic and other radicals for decades will host the Summer Olympics around the third anniversary of 9/11. It was only because of concerns that the Olympics might be moved elsewhere have the Greeks cracked down on their indigenous terrorists, including a particularly murderous group which has been assassinating westerners for years with virtually no government interference.
Turkey, already struck in November, is Europe's only majority Muslim country and deploys an effective military and security apparatus.
One potentially inviting target, the UK, the US' strongest supporter, may well escape al Qaeda action despite a large indigenous urban Islamic population. Having tasted the bitter fruit of IRA terror, the British have maintained the continent's tightest internal security for decades and, unlike their European neighbors, characteristically take a no-nonsense approach to counterterrorist security, investigations and intelligence.
It would indeed be ironic if European countries, whose cooperation and support is essential, undermined the US war on terror, which has badly crippled al Qaeda.
We simply cannot afford another Spain and have to stop immediately the bleeding from Madrid 3/11.
The situation calls for two measures, one near-term and the other strategic, but both requiring significant US input.
One, early apprehension and exposure of those involved in Madrid 3/11 to remove a bit of the sheen of invulnerability from the operation. This will require substantial and immediate US intelligence and law enforcement assistance.
Two, a significant and public US commitment to aid European counterterrorism, which may require the transfer of substantial resources and focus from the Middle East and Central Asia to the European front. Painful as it may be to Washington, the US will simply have to move funds, manpower and even sensitive intelligence and technology to Europe to underscore the seriousness of US resolve and commitment to European security.
Even more difficult, Washington may have to face up to the need to make some political concessions in order to make an assistance package more acceptable to a very skeptical European public.
The alternative is to leave Europe open to almost certain al Qaeda attempts to buckle more knees and peel away more support.
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© 2004 Richard Coffman. All opinions expressed in this article
are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.
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