Editorial: A poor plan of attack

Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006 | 12:32 p.m.

A month after the Homeland Security Department dropped Las Vegas from its list of U.S. cities most likely to be terrorism targets, department officials are still mum about the reasons why.

According to a Las Vegas Sun story published Thursday, Homeland Security officials say the information revealing why Las Vegas was not included among the 35 urban areas on the department's list is classified.

Inclusion makes cities and metropolitan areas eligible for a portion of the $765 million that is set aside for the department's Urban Area Security Initiative. Local agencies obtain grants from the fund to prepare for terrorist attacks, natural disasters and health crises.

Las Vegas, which was included on the list in 2005, received $8 million for extra security measures last year. Homeland Security officials have said Las Vegas will receive its 2005 amount again this year to sustain or complete projects started last year. But it will not be eligible for future grants.

Homeland Security officials told the Sun's Benjamin Grove that, because there is so much money at stake, the department is trying to curtail politicking by using an objective, mathematical formula to determine which cities would be included.

The data explored a city's vulnerability to attack, the human and financial consequences of an attack and assessed the likelihood of a threat or attack aimed at a city's vital elements - such as a Strip casino.

But experts pointed out that the process still contained subjectivity and information gaps. For example, Philadelphia, New York and Washington were included, in part, for economic, historic and politically significant symbols. Somehow, the government's formula missed the fact that the Las Vegas Strip is the world's leading symbol of Western hedonism.

And similar calculations, such as one performed by Rand Corp., a think tank that analyzes U.S. government policies and programs, failed to include in population density analyses the 300,000 people who visit the Strip each weekend. High-profile tourist destinations need special consideration when looking at population density, security experts said.

It is shocking that Las Vegas - a tourist destination that five of the Sept. 11 hijackers visited before their 2001 terrorist attacks - was dropped from the federal list of cities at risk of terrorist attack. Las Vegas "definitely should be ranked higher than Cleveland," a former FBI counterterrorism agent told the Sun, adding that attacking Las Vegas "is going to make a much bigger statement than attacking Cincinnati."

In a poorly executed effort to avoid the perception of playing politics, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff abdicated his job of securing U.S. cities and handed it over to computers and bean counters.