New Year's Evil?

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Now investigators in at least three countries are scrambling to uncover Ressam's story. Washington moved swiftly to tighten the free-and-easy border crossings with Canada. Only a few days after Ressam was caught, alarm intensified when guards at the Vermont border detained a Canadian woman trying to smuggle another Algerian with a phony French passport into the U.S. Although bomb-sniffing dogs alerted border officials to possible traces of explosives in her car, FBI tests uncovered none in the vehicle. Despite the fact that investigators have no idea whether the woman, Lucia Garofalo, was abetting terrorism, and have found no connection to Ressam, they are taking no chances. They found enough other signs for concern: her car was registered to still another Algerian, Brahim Mahdi, and her cell phone was registered in his name until last summer. He is suspected of being a member of the violent Algerian Islamic League. Mahdi denies knowing anything about the league and having connections to any terrorists.

Garofalo's lawyer says she will plead not guilty to the passport and immigration charges. "Sometimes things are not what they appear to be," the lawyer said.

All these suspicious activities pushed the U.S. State Department to issue a second travel alert for the year-end, while cities playing host to huge outdoor New Year's Eve celebrations stepped forward to promise, to the contrary, that revelers would be safe. New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani disputed the precautionary urging of former FBI official James Kallstrom to stay away from Times Square's giant party--just the kind of gathering terrorists like. "I think everybody but Jim Kallstrom is coming," snapped the mayor. Some 10,000 policemen have been ordered to mingle with the crowd while bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol the city's underground tunnels. Israel plans to deploy 12,000 security people in and around Jerusalem and other cities on New Year's Eve weekend.

The flurry, veering from caution to calm and back again, bothered some officials who feared that pronouncements urging "vigilance" contributed to the terror phobia. "It's not that there's not a significant risk out there," said a senior Pentagon official. "It's just that running around setting your hair on fire--and putting it out with a hammer--is probably not the right approach."

So what is? The Administration wants to be seen doing something, but any real counterterrorism must of necessity be kept secret. Part of the noise is psywar to put terrorist wannabes on notice, part is Washington's habitual CYA--cover your you-know-what. Says a senior U.S. official: "We don't want to get caught with our socks down again [as in Kenya and Tanzania]. If we warn people and nothing happens, they may be a little ticked off, but that's better than saying nothing if there's a chance something bad is going to happen."