A General Accounting Office review of the Defense Department's efforts to protect U.S. forces overseas has found that DoD has not placed enough emphasis on improving security at sites where the terrorist threat is not currently considered high.
After a terrorist bomb exploded near Dharhan, Saudi Arabia, last year, killing 19 U.S. military personnel, the Secretary of Defense appointed a task force to investigate the incident and determine how future atrocities could be avoided. The task force concluded that DoD lacked a "comprehensive, consistent approach to antiterrorism that is based on common guidance standards and procedures."
GAO visited 30 overseas sites to see how security efforts had changed and found that "Improvements were most evident where the risk of terrorism is the greatest, such as Turkey and the Middle East. DoD has placed less emphasis on addressing vulnerabilities in countries that are currently considered to have a lower threat."
Base officials at many installations identified numerous vulnerabilities they say DoD still needs to address.
For instance, base facilities were located in populated areas, sometimes only a few feet from public roads and privately owned land, offices or residences. Base officials said it would be very difficult to defend such facilities against a truck bomb.
Although the report states that DoD "has taken steps to improve the antiterrorism program," it says that the Pentagon "has not taken an active enough role in providing the antiterrorism tools commanders are requesting."
DoD officials described the report as a "snapshot using anecdotal evidence of an eight-month-old, rapidly evolving program."
"The DoD Combatting Terrrorism program has changed dramatically since the GAO team's visit and will change even more in the next year," officials noted in the comment section of the report.
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