BY COLIN MINER

- Israel-style suicide bus bombings are headed to New York.

That’s the word of Metropolitan Transportation Authority security chief Louis Anemone and Port Authority police chief Joseph Morris who made their assessments after a five-day trip to Israel.

“This stuff is going to be imported over here,” Mr. Anemone said. “It already has, and I want people to sit up and take notice.”

The two chiefs had gone to Israel to learn about that country’s counter-terrorism programs. Their comments were originally reported in the Jerusalem Post.

The MTA declined to make Mr. Anemone available for further discussion and the Port Authority cited “security concerns” when it chose not to make Mr. Morris available to discuss his comments.

Mr. Anemone said the lack of cooperation between agencies allowed Al Qaeda to get a foothold in America. He said Israel is the model of interagency cooperation. “If they can do it,” he said, “why the hell can’t we?”

A senior law enforcement official said that while some problems have been corrected — more communication between the police and fire departments, for instance — there’s only so much that can be done.

“There are only so many people we can keep our eyes on, only so many cars and trucks we can check,” this official said. “It really is not a question of if but of when.” The official went on to say that the recent attack in Bali just adds to the concern.

“We’ve always looked beyond the obvious targets like Wall Street,” the official said. “But what this attack did was remind us that we need to look at places like Lincoln Center and Broadway as possible targets.”

A federal law enforcement official agreed. “It’s not like softer targets like entertainment centers were being ignored,” the official said. “But the attack in Bali reminded everyone that anything is possible, so you have to be prepared.”

Part of that, the officials learned on their trip to Israel, is keeping the public aware. “There has to be the resolve that the people over there have about the problem,” Mr. Morris said. “This is not a short-term problem here. It’s ongoing.”

And there is concern that the attacks overseas are a harbinger of things to come.

“Today’s terrorists appear to be using Israel as a testing ground to prepare for a sustained attack against the U.S.,” Mr. Anemone said.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said he disagrees that an attack is inevitable, but says everything possible must be done to be prepared.

“We are doing everything we can to guard against terrorism,” he said. “While at the same time we are preparing to respond effectively in the event that there is another attack.”

He has appointed two deputy commissioners to assist in the fight against terrorism: Frank Libutti, a former general in the Marine Corps and David Cohen, a 35-year-veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency.

General Libutti has described his job as making sure that when the bad guy drives up to New York he turns around, thinking: “New York City is too difficult.”

A spokesman for Commissioner Kelly pointed out more than a dozen steps the commissioner has taken recently.

The Intelligence Bureau has been beefed up and its officers now speak 40 languages including Urdu, Pashtun, Fukienese, and Arabic, according to the spokesman, Michael O’Looney.

The department has also: set up a terrorism tips hotline; sent the executive staff to the Naval War College for training; conducted counterterrorism training for the business community; and established “Hercules Teams” of emergency response officers to conduct random patrols across the city.

Also, officials are in the process of outfitting each patrol sergeant with a radiation detector.

Mr. O’Looney said the department has reorganized so that in the event of a large-scale emergency each borough command could function as “its own mini-NYPD.” And, he said, the Commissioner issued an order creating “A,B, and C teams” that would respond to specific duties in the case of an emergency.

The department has also greatly expanded its efforts to work with other organizations.

Besides having a full-time liaison at the Fire department headquarters, the NYPD has two detectives full-time at FBI headquarters in Washington, one detective working full-time at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, and one detective full time working with Canadian authorities in Toronto.

The department has also expanded its representation on the Joint Terrorist Task Force it has operated for more than 20 years with the FBI from 17 detectives to more than 100.

Despite the preparations, some still think another attack is inevitable.

“It’s not just them crying wolf,” Michael Cherkasky, a former prosecutors who is now the chief executive of Kroll Associates, an international security firm that counts the Port Authority as a client, said of the comments by Mr. Anemone and Mr. Morris.

“I think they’re right,” he said. “I don’t think we’re immune anymore, I think we’re going to catch the same cold that the rest of the world has.”

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2002