You’ve probably heard already about yesterday’s big anti-terror news, the foiled JFK plot:
Federal authorities announced Saturday they had broken up a suspected Muslim terrorist cell planning a “chilling” attack to destroy John F. Kennedy International Airport, kill thousands of people and trigger an economic catastrophe by blowing up a jet fuel artery that runs through populous residential neighborhoods.
WCBS explains that “the suspects believed explosives could ignite the pipeline at JFK and destroy the airport and parts of Queens, where the line runs underground.” But the key phrase there, it turns out, is “the suspects believed.” According to at least one expert, that belief was flat wrong:
Richard Kuprewicz, a pipeline expert and president of Accufacts Inc., an energy consulting firm that focuses on pipelines and tank farms, said the force of explosion would depend on the amount of fuel under pressure, but it would not travel up and down the line.
“That doesn’t mean wackos out there can’t do damage and cause a fire, but those explosions and fires are going to be fairly restricted,” he said.
Now, look, I don’t go out of my way to assume that the government is “hyping up” terror plots… but um, isn’t U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf being a little too credulous here? She says “the devastation that would be caused had this plot succeeded is just unthinkable,” but that statement isn’t very meaningful if the plot could not have succeeded as envisioned. She echoes the terrorists’ own claims that the attack would have caused “greater destruction than in the Sept. 11 attacks,” calling this “one of the most chilling plots imaginable.” But isn’t that all dependent on the fire and explosion going “up and down the line,” which apparently would not have happened?
If I hatched a “plot” to kill thousands of people using fairy dust, a magic wand, and a Harry Potter spell, it wouldn’t be “chilling” so much as ridiculous. And the mere fact that I might have believed the plot would succeed, doesn’t make it so. [UPDATE: Likewise in commenter Doc’s alternate analogy, if I hatched a “plot” to kill thousands of people with a knife. It’d be good to catch me, obviously, but it would be rather idiotic to uncritically repeat my own assertions that the knife attack would have been “worse than 9/11.”]
Now, perhaps the government has its own expert advice that differs from Mr. Kuprewicz’s. If so, I’d like to hear it. But as it stands now, this seems like much ado over not very much.
That said, of course it’s a very good thing that these men, who clearly intended to harm America (and who could certainly have killed at least a good handful of people), are in custody. I congratulate the authorities for busting up this plot, and I am grateful for their efforts. I just don’t think we should be throwing around “worse than 9/11″ rhetoric unless it’s, you know, actually true.
P.S. There’s also this: “Since Defreitas [one of the plotters] has worked at the airport, security has tightened, and his knowledge of the operation was severely outdated.”
As I said, I’m glad we got these guys, but for me, this just doesn’t pass the sniff test as a terribly serious plot. Between the apparent physical impossibility issue, the outdated expertise issue, the plot’s silly code-name (”Chicken Farm”), and the ridiculous statement that blowing up JFK Airport would be especially traumatic because “[Americans] love John F. Kennedy like he’s the man… it’s like you can kill the man twice” (huh?), I’m just not that impressed.
UPDATE: I found Mr. Kuprewicz’s e-mail address online, and on a lark, shot him an e-mail, asking for a bit more detail and whether he agreed with my conclusions here. To my surprise and delight, he wrote back almost immediately:
You are correct in that a pipeline explosion will not move up or down a pipeline. One can get a serious explosion depending on the pipeline at the point of release, usually a big rupture where the dynamics forces in the pipeline cause the pipe to shrapnel, but the burning front remains at the general site of the release. Depending on several factors which are pipeline specific…a pipeline fire and/or explosion can be quite large, but no where as large as suggested by various commentators who appear to be very uninformed about this important infrastructure (both pipelines and terminals). …
Reviewing your blog, I would not disagree with your posted opinions and observations on the overstatements concerning this threat.
He also suggested this Yahoo group, a “pipeline safety discussion list,” which contains some more reactions to the JFK plot coverage. Among other things, it includes a link to an ABC News article quoting an unnamed official as saying that the plot “was not technically feasible”:
The pipeline snakes more than 100 miles from Pennsylvania through New Jersey to JFK. Once they learned of the plot, authorities investigated at what points the pipeline could be accessed and found that even if those points were bombed, there would be little to no impact — and no ignition — and that the only way to wreak havoc at JFK would be to
detonate bombs at the airport itself.But, a source said, “They never let go of the idea,” and seemed determined to find a way to execute it regardless.
Another post on the Yahoo group wonders “if the plotters got the idea of a fire traveling down a pipeline from Hollywood.” It links to a UPI article on the impossibility of the plot:
Blowing up a jet-fuel pipeline at New York’s Kennedy airport might not have produced the chain-reaction inferno the accused plotters allegedly imagined.
An examination of safety documents and scientific studies by UPI Saturday indicated it would be virtually impossible for flames to travel through the line and ignite at other points along the line.
Commercial airliner fuel, known as Jet-A, is a form of kerosene and requires a mix with air before it becomes explosive. Because pipelines are under pressure, the fuel would be forced out through the hole in the pipe where it would likely catch fire. The flames, however, would not travel back through the line.
Explosions along petroleum pipelines carrying jet fuel in the San Jose and Seattle areas in recent years caused casualties; however, the blasts were limited to the original breaches.
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Categories: Terrorism & Homeland Security, New York City
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June 3rd, 2007 at 1:58:00 am
Your analogy is flawed. Your spell wouldn’t do anything. What if you hatched a plan to kill a thousand people with a knife? You probably wouldn’t get near that many. It would still be a good thing if you were stopped.
How much fuel flows through those pipes? It’s probably on the order of a shitload, at high pressure. So it wouldn’t blow up the tank farm - they’d still light a residential neighborhood on fire.
9/11 was supposed to be worse than 9/11. I’m sure if it had been stopped, people would point out that crashing a jet into the towers wouldn’t bring them down. I think that’s a valid assumption given the number of people who still don’t think that’s possible.
June 3rd, 2007 at 2:02:01 am
It would still be a good thing if you were stopped.
I think I acknowledged that. Repeatedly, even. :)
My analogy is intended to be somewhat humorous, not extremely precise. Your knife analogy is good, though. And if I hatched a plan to kill a thousand people with a knife, and the U.S. Attorney called it “one of the most chilling plots imaginable” simply because I believed it would be “worse than 9/11,” I would say the same thing I’m saying here: that she’s being overly credulous, blowing it out of proportion, etc.
I’m not demeaning the government’s efforts in catching these people. I think I made that clear. I just don’t think they should throw around “worse than 9/11″ rhetoric lightly. It’s misleading in this case, or seems to be, and I don’t think the authorities should mislead us about the reality of the plots they unravel. That’s all.
Interesting point about 9/11, though.
June 3rd, 2007 at 2:07:13 am
P.S. And of course you’re right. Fire can’t possibly melt steel.
;)
June 3rd, 2007 at 3:46:52 am
We had a train derail and break a high pressure fuel line near my house. The resulting fire destroyed most of a neighborhood, and the houses out here were much more dispersed than Queens.
June 3rd, 2007 at 4:22:19 am
Yes, and no one is denying that that sort of damage can occur. What can’t occur is a chain-reaction explosion/fire running down an entire fuel line, destroying multiple neighborhoods and the airport, all from a single explosion. That’s the “worse than 9/11″ scenario that officials are talking about, and it is apparently utter hogwash.
June 3rd, 2007 at 5:46:47 am
Even if they couldn’t ‘blow up JFK’ (which I’m willing to stipulate), it would still be pretty bad. Their thinking was muddled, probably by too many Bruckheimer movies. What could they have done, realistically?
Shut down JFK for as long as it takes to repair the pipeline. Also, other airports at risk. Raise alert level to Red, which adds other stresses to the system. Kill a few people, cause some property damage. Maybe a lot of people and a lot of damage. I’m sure we could come up with more repurcussions.
So, the US Attorney says “unthinkable” levels of damage. Clearly, she’s wrong, since the terrorists thought about it. And “one of the most chilling plots imaginable”? Clear hyperbole. Except for the “one of the” hedge, or maybe she’s not very imaginative. The “worse than 9/11″ rhetoric wasn’t hers, it was the bad guys.
Back to analogies, let’s combine the two for synergy! Suppose you plan on killing people with a spell that only works when you kill people with your knife. That’s not going to happen, but you’re still going to be sticking people.
Is it more or less frightening if you’re doing something like this because you wrongly believe it will cause more damage than it will?
June 3rd, 2007 at 6:24:07 am
[…] for Brendan Loy, who saw through the alarmism and asked some hard questions. Brickbats to headline-hungry U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf. […]
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:48:00 am
That was my first thought when I first heard about the plot: it wouldn’t have worked, liquid fuel in a pressurized pipeline doesn’t burn that way. Chalk up another one to the frightful stupidity of the average terrorist.
However, as far as the US Attorney’s reaction goes — in reading the linked AP story, I noticed that the two quotes that you’re annoyed about are fragments, not even complete sentences. Having had all-too-much experience with the way AP writers routinely butcher quotes by taking them out of context, I’d like to hear what Mauskopf actually said — full, unedited, in context.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:14:12 am
scare tactics.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:36:01 am
You’ll recall that the danger posed by the airliner liquid-bomb plot, the one that even now prevents us from taking a bottle of water onto a plane, was similarly overstated.
June 3rd, 2007 at 5:25:25 pm
That’s very interesting, Aaron. I had seen some websites and articles questioning the technical feasibility of the liquid explosive plot itself, but I also had seen conflicting reports suggesting that such an attack is not only possible, but has been done successfully in the past. So I wasn’t sure what to make of all that. In any event, though, I hadn’t seen anything about the overhyped description of how far along the plot had evolved, etc. So, thanks.
June 3rd, 2007 at 7:43:56 pm
When confronted with the unfeasibility of the plan upon further police questioning the terrorists stated that they were ‘disappointed’ that things purported to ‘blow up real good’ in Bruckenheimer movies didn’t actually ‘blow up real good’. One of the suspects was later heard saying, “this sucks more than the time DeFreitas planned to vapourise the water supply of New York with a machine he’d made out of a car battery and his home microwave cooker. Or possibly his plan to drive a car at 85mph, get hit by lightning, travel back in time and kill Abraham Lincoln before Wilkes Booth, whilst at the same time detonating a bomb at the Lincolm memorial statue - thus having ‘da man’ killed an effective three times.”
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:58:48 pm
I don’t really think the pipeline snaking (not snaking) fire up and down Queens is the real damage–the major effect would be the disruption to JFK and thus to NYC due to the lack of airline travel between NY and other places. Newark and LGA would not be capable of handling the load, and I think an economic hit in the millions if not billions would be possible from the airport shutdown (assuming it lasted a few weeks)
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:19:49 pm
Outstanding report
June 4th, 2007 at 12:00:08 am
I wish I had mentioned it first, but I’ll just have to second Wobbly. Good job with the original reporting.
June 5th, 2007 at 10:18:53 am
Expect these guys to be released in six months. You have a bunch of pissy old men who hated the place one guy worked. This thing was never going to get off of the ground.