October
21, 2002, 9:00 a.m. Misleading
Americans
The State Department’s
travel warnings.
By Stephen
Bryen
he U.S. State Department issues travel warnings and advisories when the
State Department "decides, based on all relevant information, to
recommend that Americans avoid travel to a certain country." There
is a State Department-run website
where the information is available to the public. Unfortunately, the travel
advisories are not providing proper warnings, as the recent bombing in
Bali, Indonesia demonstrates.
The most recent travel
advisory on the State Department website for Indonesia prior to the Bali
bombing is dated August 10, 2001. The advisory states: "The tourist
destination of Bali has been largely free of the disturbances seen in
other parts of Indonesia. All tourist facilities are operating normally,
and to date foreigners have not been the specific target of any group."
Unfortunately the State Department was giving out advice it knew was wrong.
Writing in the New York Times, Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonner reported
on October 15 that the U.S. government had repeatedly warned the Indonesians
"a group linked to Al Qaeda was planning attacks to kill Americans
and other Westerners…." According to the Times, the "warnings
contained no details about where and when attacks might occur…"
However, the Sydney Australia Morning Herald reported: "The
Prime Minister, John Howard, yesterday admitted that Australia received
recent US intelligence identifying Bali as a possible target of a terrorist
attack on Western tourists but had decided not to change its advice to
Australian holidaymakers." The paper goes on to report that the prime
minister "told Parliament that Bali had been mentioned in recent
intelligence reports as a site, along with other tourist locations across
Indonesia, in which there was a risk of "possible terrorist activity
against United States tourists."
In fact, the U.S. had been passing warnings to the Australians, Singaporeans,
Malaysians, and Indonesians based on information gleaned from captured
al Qaeda-linked terrorists. The most important of these was Omar al-Faruq,
who was arrested in central Java, and extradited to the United States.
He provided credible and specific information about pending attacks against
U.S. citizens and other Westerners. Despite these warnings, the United
States was unable to persuade President Megawati of Indonesia to take
action.
The U.S. attempt to get Indonesia to clamp down on terrorism, and al Qaeda-linked
terrorists particularly backfired. America's ambassador to Indonesia,
Robert Boyce, closed the U.S. embassy for five days to protect embassy
personnel. He repeatedly warned Indonesian authorities, stepping up the
warnings when a car blew up close to the embassy itself. (The Indonesian
police, who at first declared that the car bomb was an act of terrorism,
recanted their story, and later claimed it was a local dispute over money
that had nothing to do with the U.S. embassy.) For his trouble Indonesian
government officials, including Indonesia's vice president, denounced
him roundly. While we can't be sure, it appears that the State Department
was trying to accomplish two conflicting goals in Indonesia — to
mollify the Indonesian government which complained that America's antiterrorist
crusade was stirring up Muslim resentment; to try and get across to the
Indonesian government the need to crack down on the terrorists. Such a
conflicted policy did not work.
On September 26 and October 10, just two days before the Bali bombings,
the U.S. embassy in Indonesia issued warnings to Westerners, advising
them to stay clear of "certain bars, restaurants and tourist areas."
The warning did not specify Bali, although Bali was known as a target.
Even worse, the embassy warning was not reflected in the State Department's
travel-advisory system. Americans heading for Bali would not have known
there was a specific danger.
In Australia the government disregarded messages coming through intelligence
channels and appear to have relied on official State Department guidance.
For example, on September 20 the Australian government, referring to Bali,
stated that tourist services were "operating normally." The
Australians used the same descriptive language for Bali found in the State
Department travel advisory.
It looks more and more that political and commercial interests took precedence
over terrorist warnings. How else to explain why warnings through intelligence
channels were disregarded both by the State Department and by the Australian
government. As a result, many have paid the price. Nearly 200 people probably
died in the explosion. The bulk of these were Australians, but there were
more than 30 British and others from friendly European and Asian countries.
The first duty of governments is to protect their own citizens from harm.
Indonesia was not a Conventry situation — that is, we did not need
to protect the source of the intelligence we had, which is what Winston
Churchill had to do when he allowed Coventry to be bombed in 1941. Nor
did we have to kowtow to Indonesia and keep private our concern about
a looming danger. American citizens, and the citizens of America's allies
need accurate and timely warnings of danger. When we have credible intelligence
we need to get it to the public without delay.
—Mr. Bryen previously headed the Department
of Defense’s technology-security program and is currently a managing
director for Aurora
Defense.
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he U.S. State Department issues travel warnings and advisories when the
State Department "decides, based on all relevant information, to
recommend that Americans avoid travel to a certain country." There
is a State Department-run 
