Tea Time for the Traditionally Built: The speedy motors
marika
By Jonathan Beale
BBC News, Washington
There was a time when a US president could travel from his
inauguration in an open-top car.
Secret Service agents will mingle with the crowds
John F Kennedy was the last president to do that.
He was also the last president to be sworn into office without the
protection of a bullet proof screen.
Those days have long gone.
Secret Service agents now swarm a new president's blast-proof
limousine as it travels along Pennsylvania Avenue.
But the inauguration still presents a security nightmare.
And Barack Obama's inauguration on Tuesday will provide the biggest
challenge yet.
Biggest fear
There have already been painstaking preparations, with rehearsals for
security officials - not just for the military precision of the
ceremony and the parade.
At a US military base in Washington they have been planning for any
eventuality for the past six months.
On the day itself they will be able to track the new president's every
move - and the huge crowds expected to watch.
They are hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
Major General Richard Rowe takes me through the possible scenarios: a
major power failure, a car bomb or multiple ones, a cyber attack, the
collapse of a bridge, and panic among the crowd.
He says his biggest fear would be a biological, chemical or
radioactive attack.
But they are ready for anything.
Outside the control room, members of the US coastguard show off the
latest sensors to detect such a device.
This is only the second inauguration to take place since the attacks
on 11 September 2001.
And Major General Rowe reminds me that America is still at war.
In the skies above Washington there is already a sober reminder -
helicopters on patrol.
If you are hoping for a glimpse of the new president, get ready for
suffocating security and a long wait in the cold
On the big day they will be joined by fighter jets.
Along Washington's waterways the coastguard will be watching from high
speed boats.
Snipers will be positioned on the rooftops near the Capitol building
and along the parade route.
Roads and bridges into Washington will be closed to traffic, with
sniffer dogs on the subway and thousands of armed police, soldiers and
plainclothes agents on the streets.
Elite organisations
In total, there will be 4,000 Washington police, reinforced by another
4,000 officers from all over the country.
Thousands more National Guard members have been called in.
That is on top of the 5,000 professional soldiers and sailors who will
be on the ground.
The new presidential limousine will get its first outing
There are 57 different government agencies involved in what has been
declared a "National Special Security Event".
And overseeing the entire operation is the US Secret Service.
It describes itself as "one of the most elite law enforcement
organisations in the world", and has had the task of protecting the
president ever since William McKinley's assassination in 1901.
Its most visible agents are the ones who will be running beside the
presidential car.
But there will also be hundreds of others mingling in the crowd.
The Secret Service has already been shadowing Barack Obama for a year.
But since his victory it has been stepping up his protection.
It has also ordered a new presidential limousine.
Dubbed "the beast", it looks more like a tank than a car.
So far it has only been seen in photos, but the public will get a
chance to see it for real on inauguration day itself.
When I asked Ed Donovan - the assistant special agent in charge -
about the car's features, all he could say was that: "It's made by
Cadillac".
Clearly, it is called the Secret Service for a reason.
Banned items
Agent Donovan says his organisation recognises the "historical
significance" of protecting the first African-American president.
It too has rehearsed for any eventuality - whether it is a lone sniper
or a terrorist attack.
Preparations for this day have been going on for more than a year,
with officials looking at every detail right down to the credentials
needed to enter the dozens of inauguration balls.
And then there are the crowds.
Nobody is sure exactly how many people will turn up - estimates vary
wildly from the hundreds of thousands up to four million.
Anyone hoping to get near the parade or the swearing-in ceremony will
have to go through a security screen, while umbrellas, pushchairs and
large banners are among the long list of items that have been banned.
Inauguration Day 2009 may well be the biggest show on earth.
But if you are hoping for a glimpse of the new president, get ready
for suffocating security and a long wait in the cold."
marika
Missile defence
A damp squib
Nov 20th 2008
From The Economist print edition
American missile-defence plans falter in eastern Europe
IRAN'S new medium-range missile, the Sajil, which was test-fired on
November 12th, marks something of a technological breakthrough. It is
fast and has a claimed range of 2,000km (1,250 miles). It might reach
Moscow or southern Italy, say. Yet both Russia and Italy are opposed
to American plans to place ten interceptor rockets in Poland and an
anti-missile radar in the Czech Republic. The Italian prime minister,
Silvio Berlusconi, has criticised the plan because it "provoked"
Russia. The Kremlin has threatened to put short-range Iskander
missiles in its Kaliningrad exclave (or possibly in Belarus, a close
ally) if the missile-defence deployment goes ahead.
Raising the temperature even higher, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French
president who (until the end of December) also presides over the
European Union, said on November 14th that the American plan "does
nothing to bring security and complicates things". That infuriated his
Polish and Czech counterparts, who noted that France signed up to a
decision at the NATO summit in April in support of missile defence.
They also questioned what business a French president had pronouncing
on other countries' security ties with America. Mr Sarkozy issued a
partial retraction, saying merely that nobody should put new missiles
in Europe pending talks with Russia about new security arrangements
for the entire continent.
The incoming administration of Barack Obama seems unenthusiastic about
missile defence as well. The president-elect says that he will support
the programme "if it works". That marks a big shift from the Bush
administration's policy, which is to deploy and develop in a "spiral"
(meaning that bits would be deployed as and when they are ready).
All this leaves the Poles and Czechs who pushed for missile defence
(against unenthusiastic public opinion) somewhat exposed. The Polish
president, Lech Kaczynski, a strong supporter of the plan, claimed
that Mr Obama had told him that missile defences would go ahead. But
the Obama team issued a denial, leaving Mr Kaczynski, not for the
first time, looking out of his depth. Radek Sikorski, Poland's foreign
minister, who clinched the original deal with America, flew to
Washington this week to sound out potential Obama administration
appointees in more detail.
Poland is interested not only in the tacit American security guarantee
that a missile-defence base implies (important if NATO's value to
Poland frays because of German ties with Russia). It also won promises
of American help with Polish military modernisation and of a battery
of advanced air-defence missiles to protect Warsaw. If the Obama
administration freezes missile defence (quite easy, given
congressional hostility to the programme), other parts of the deal
will be in doubt.
That is more galling since public support in Poland for missile
defences has risen from 27% at the start of August to 41% after the
Georgian war, when Condoleezza Rice, America's secretary of state,
came to sign the deal and toast it in Georgian wine. Some Poles feel,
crossly, that Mr Sarkozy is speaking for Russia, not for them.
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