AMSTERDAM’S SCHIPHOL airport has made full-body scanners mandatory for US-bound passengers in a decision that will put pressure on other airports to adopt similar security measures in the wake of the foiled US terror attack.
The announcement followed US president Barack Obama’s admission that “a mix of human and systemic failures” led to a “potentially catastrophic breach of security” in the incident.
The Dutch interior minister, Guusje ter Horst, said the scanners would be used for people flying to the US within three weeks, after a Nigerian man boarded a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit at Schiphol with 80g of explosive in his underwear.
Schiphol is one of a number of airports in Europe and the US to have carried out trials of full-body scanners, which can detect anything hidden beneath clothing.
“If he had gone through a body scanner, he would not have got on the plane,” said Stephen Hogan, European government affairs director for California-based manufacturer Rapiscan, whose body scanners have been tested at Heathrow, Manchester and Helsinki airports. However, privacy campaigners’ concerns about the revealing black-and-white images which the equipment produces have been an obstacle to their widespread introduction at airports.
Intelligence agencies had received a warning as early as August of a plot being planned from Yemen that involved a Nigerian man, possibly containing parts of his name, US reports said.
This was even before Mr Abdulmutallab’s father told the US embassy in Nigeria on November 19th of his concerns about his son.
Mr Obama said that “there were bits of information available within the intelligence community that could have – and should have – been pieced together” before the attack.
Some Republicans have started calling for the resignation of Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, and blame has also been levelled at Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence who oversees the National Counterterrorism Center.
The Central Intelligence Agency yesterday defended its actions.
“In November, we worked with the embassy to ensure [Mr Abdulmutallab] was in the government’s terrorist database including mention of his possible extremist connections in Yemen,” said George Little, a CIA spokesman.
“We also forwarded key biographical information about him to the National Counterterrorism Center.”
Ms ter Horst said rolling out the technology to cover all flights would be impossible at Schiphol or other European airports without consent from the European Parliament.
Nigeria will equip its international airports with full-body scanners next year, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority chief Harold Demuren said. Nigeria had started the process of acquiring the machines: “This will be taking place in the new year. We plan to acquire them at all our international airports,” Mr Demuren said. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009)