By Elaine Shannon
The US Capitol is not secure.
It is safer than on Wednesday, when a crowd invaded him shortly after 1 pm. The Capitol complex was declared safe by the police at 5:40 pm.
And it’s safer after the U.S. Capitol Police discovered a red GMC Sierra 1500 pickup truck parked near the Capitol that, according to a statement by a U.S. Capitol police officer, contained a gun, an assault rifle with an M4 carbine. , ammunition clips and 11 mason jars filled with a mixture of gasoline-Styrofoam, which, when detonated, acted like napalm, adhering and burning fiercely any surface or human body where it landed.
At 6:30 pm on January 6, after the demonstrators dispersed, the truck’s registered owner, Lonnie Leroy Coffman, of Falkland, Alabama, appeared carrying a 9mm Smith & Wesson and a .22 caliber pistol. He told police that he was trying to leave the area and asked if they “had located the bombs”.
(Later, he amended his statement to say that by “bombs” he meant “perimeter.” You will understand.) He was arrested and charged with violations of firearms.
But other clusters around the Capitol and prone to violence may have been smarter – and much more stealthy.
That is why, when members of Congress met again in the House of Representatives at 8 pm to finish counting the Electoral College votes and declare Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the winners of the 2020 election, they did so at some risk. Those who entered and exited the Capitol complex since Wednesday night might well have found a cleverly disguised IED (improvised explosive device) or explosive trap.
The fact is that until the Capitol is swept much more carefully, no one can credibly guarantee that one or two violent protesters – or committed terrorists or enemy agents hidden between them – have not hidden some destructive devices in corners and crevices. According to law enforcement veterans, five to seven hours is simply not enough time to search the main Capitol, let alone the vast maze of Senate and House buildings connected by tunnels in the complex.
There are numerous potential hiding places for lethal devices that can be activated later, by a remote trigger, such as a cell phone, or by a vibration-sensitive device such as the one that sets off a car alarm when a vehicle snores or blows its horn. Or someone could have stuck a gun inside a hollow vase or lamp or behind a toilet, like Michael Corleone’s first coup, with the intention of returning later as a tourist, claiming the gun and murdering a lawmaker.
“To clean a 15 by 15 foot office, it would take four bomb technicians all day,” said Dave Williams, a former FBI bomb technician who investigated the Oklahoma City bombing, the World Trade Center bombing and others attacks. SpyTalk. “They would have to look under the carpets, at all fire alarms, light switches, lamps and even lamps. A lamp can be modified so that, when turned on, it explodes. If you have a five-drawer file, each drawer must be opened remotely. “
In courses for police bomb technicians, Williams routinely demonstrates how bombers can hide explosives and small detonators anywhere – for example, behind the plate of a standard electrical outlet. This small space can be crammed with half a standard block of C-4 military plastic explosive, measuring an inch by 2.5 inches by five inches and weighing three quarters of a pound, enough to kill anyone in the room.
It took 10 days to two weeks to clean the Capitol when, in September and October 2001, envelopes containing anthrax spores were sent to the Senator’s offices at the Capitol. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. and Thomas Daschle, DS.D., as well as for NBC’s New York headquarters, New York Post and American Media Inc. (then publisher of National Enquirer in Florida. According to a former FBI officer involved in the so-called Amerithrax case, the search mobilized dozens, perhaps hundreds of trained officers, including a US Coast Guard remediation squad, military personnel and HAZMAT teams of DC and Arlington, Virginia fire fighters.
“We had to walk every square inch, crawl to places, protect the air vents,” said the ex-FBI man.
Searching for standard explosives does not require as much effort as microscopic biological material, but it still requires a lot of work. According to bomb technicians, dogs trained to sniff out explosives are still the gold standard. No technology can match their noses.
Capitol Police officials have not said what they intend to do to investigate the possibility of traps left by troublemakers. SpyTalkThe Capitol Police’s request for comment remained unanswered.
On Tuesday, two bombs were found near the offices of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee. The FBI is now offering a $ 50,000 reward for information that leads to the person who planted it. The suspect’s photo on the FBI Wanted poster shows a slim, masked person in a sweatshirt, gloves and running shoes.
To bombard the experts’ eyes, the devices look old-fashioned and basic, reminiscent of how-to books for decades, like “James Bond of the Poor Man” and “The Anarchist Cookbook”.
But did they have a more sinister purpose?
“Anyone could do them,” says a former FBI anti-terror agent. “The question is, were they active devices designed to hurt someone or were they placed there to watch and see the police’s reaction?”
If they were probes, would they be the work of others – for example, Iranian agents on a mission to avenge the United States drone attack in January 2020 that killed the Iranian war hero, Major General Qassim Suleimani?
“There is a huge Iranian presence in the United States,” says a former FBI agent. “What perfect coverage – 10,000 people circulating. You are invisible. “
“There are serious implications for national security regarding the ease with which the Capitol has been breached,” former CIA chief of staff Larry Pfiffer tweeted as chaos unfolded on Wednesday. “Terrorist groups, foreign and domestic, are taking notes.”
It is also possible that the Capitol building is safe and protected because none of those who entered had a device that should be planted.
Whatever the case, professionals do not believe that the danger is over. Other batches may already be in progress. Some Trump supporter could watch TV or read an incendiary message from Trump and make the decision to start a new attack in Washington. This will not change with the possession of Joe Biden. Or Trump’s ban on Twitter.
“In any other circumstance, I would say no, but with this president, I don’t think anything is out of the question,” says the former FBI agent. “It’s as if the man has lost his mind.”
Then again, he adds, “I was paid to be paranoid.”
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