Of course it can, by waging an offensive war against Islam, the perpetrators of the attacks. No one has ever won a defensive war.
Bruce Can a sprawling transport system like London's be defended from attack? Experts pessimistic By LEYLA LINTON Associated Press Writer LONDON Experts looking for lessons from the London attacks will be asking whether more needs to be done, and whether Londoners will accept tighter security in their daily lives. Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed the British lifestyle will not change _ but in an atmosphere of increased threat, authorities could very well feel compelled to tighten surveillance and limit some personal freedoms. Experts say, however, that even if it were possible to screen every passenger for explosives in a London public transit system heavily used by the city's 8 million residents, that still still wouldn't eliminate the terrorist threat. Even Israel, which has the world's tightest security, "has not been able in every case to prevent suicide bombers," said Alex Standish, editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest. "It is absolutely impossible to prevent a determined terrorist _ particularly a suicide bomber," he said as police worked to track down the attackers who bombed subway cars and a bus in central London. "The best scenario we can hope for is that the intelligence services are able to infiltrate terrorist groups or intercept their communications and foil their plots," Standish said. "In the event that somebody gets through that, loss of life and the panic factor is minimized." In March, Britain's Parliament passed a sweeping Prevention of Terrorism Act which allows authorities to place terror suspects under house arrest and impose travel bans without trial. Blair is now pressing for the legislation to authorize national ID cards. But no capital can shield itself completely from such attacks, said Charles Blackmore, who heads Vance International Ltd., a security and intelligence company. "Any society, no matter how well prepared, is vulnerable to a sophisticated terrorist with good intelligence," he said. The al-Qaida terrorist attack on the rail network in Madrid last year prompted Sir John Stevens, then the Metropolitan Police commissioner, to warn that a terrorist attack in the British capital was "inevitable". Blackmore said the London attacks seemed to be the work of someone with good intelligence, reconnaissance and planning. "The series of attacks today demonstrated that we have a sophisticated terrorist," he said. "They clearly had a very specific intent that was to disable the public infrastructure of London, freeze all movement and have maximum commercial impact." Intelligence and public awareness are the keys to preventing future attacks, Blackmore said, predicting an increase in the number of police on the streets to reassure the public. But he added: "If we are facing suicide bombers, it is a very different threat and no one has the answer to that. If this is a suicide bombing, then there is a level of threat we have not faced before." Standish, who is also a senior research fellow at Durham University, said police and emergency services appeared to have responded efficiently to Thursday's attacks and that the wounded were quickly brought to hospitals. "Compared with how we would have reacted before 9/11, there has been progress in terms of integration and communication between various emergency services, the police and the anti-terrorism branch," Standish said. Although the loss of life was "appalling," the death toll could have been even higher considering the bombs were timed to coincide with the morning rush hour, he added. London is not the only European capital to see its subway system targeted by terrorists. A decade ago this month, Algerian militants lauds a series of bloody bombings of the metro in Paris, killing eight and wounding about 150 others. French authorities reacted with a series of pragmatic measures including welding shut trash cans at subway station, key monuments and museums, and instituting a vigilance campaign _ "Operation Vigipirate"_ that remains in place today. During the worst of the bombing attacks on London by the Irish Republican Army, bus passengers were not allowed to leave bags in luggage racks while they sat elsewhere on the vehicle. Trash cans were also sealed. British Prime Minister Tony Blair made clear in a televised statement Thursday that government policy would not be affected by the attacks. "They are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, of trying to stop us going about our business as normal as we are entitled to do. They should not and they must not succeed," he said. "When they try to change us, we will not be changed ... our values will long outlast theirs," he said in an emotionally charged speech. He did not mention Iraq, but it seemed unlikely the bombings would prompt Britain to pull out troops. In a debate at the House of Commons, lawmaker George Galloway, who was elected on an anti-war platform, said the war in Iraq had created a "whole army of people out there that want to harm us." He accused MPs of living in a "consensual bubble" of denial and said that unless action was taken, there would be repeats of the atrocity in the capital. "There was nothing unpredictable about this attack this morning. Despicable, yes, but not unpredictable. Entirely predictable and, I predict, not the last, either," Galloway said. The human rights organization Liberty said it hoped the British government would not respond to the attacks with draconian measures. 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