Worst-Case Strategizing
A new study on plans to protect the White House from terrorist attack.

November 1, 2001 5:30 p.m.

just-released report on security in Washington provides a grim look inside the worst-case-scenario planning that is going on as federal authorities search for ways to protect the nation's landmarks against terrorist attacks.

The study, by the National Capital Planning Commission, was begun seven months ago, well before the terrorist assaults in New York and Washington. Much of the work involved the issue of whether Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, closed since 1995, might be reopened to traffic. Although there was some momentum in favor of that prior to September 11, the question is moot today. "There's a good reason why it's closed," vice president Dick Cheney said last month. "If somebody were to detonate a truck bomb in front of the White House, it would probably level the White House."

The new report dramatically underscores Cheney's point. The experts concluded that only "stand-off distance," meaning a large space separating the White House from traffic, offers adequate protection from a car or truck bomb. "The Task Force could identify no currently available technologies, including blast walls, remote detection sensors, or other countermeasures, other than sufficient stand-off distance, that could provide a practical means of protecting the White House from a catastrophic vehicular bomb attack," the report says. For example, the study found that to be effective, a blast wall would have to be built about 50 feet from the north wall of the White House and rise to a height of 50 feet. No possibility of that. But experts did recommend a study of the possibility of "hardening" the White House itself, citing new "structural composite materials...that can significantly improve blast resistance." But commissioners admit that hardening would be an enormous task. Calling it the "last line of defense," the report says a hardening project would involve "major construction and the temporary displacement of the First Family and the White House staff."

The study says that federal law enforcement, military, and independent researchers conducted tests to find the "stand-off distance necessary to provide a reasonable blast-effect mitigation zone" around the White House. The commission concluded that the safe zone is bordered on the north by the far side of Lafayette Park, and on the south by the curve of E Street. "Although some consider the existing stand-off distance to be excessive, practical experience indicates differently," the report says, "the Oklahoma City bombing resulted not only in the catastrophic collapse of the Murrah Federal Building, but also caused extensive structural damage to many other buildings 1,000 feet away."

The only real alternative to keeping the road closed, the study concludes, is to build a tunnel underneath the old Pennsylvania Avenue. "The tunnel would be strengthened to withstand any blast that might occur within that portion of the tunnel located within the required stand-off distance from the White House," the report says. But even that idea has problems; the report concedes that "if an explosion were to detonate in the tunnel, the blast effects, including ground shock, would likely result in damage to foundations and utility infrastructure," a possibility that requires still more study.