Grounded By Terror

For all its failings, however, a jittery homeland defense may be better than a sleepy one. Despite strained relations between Washington and Paris over the war in Iraq, it was a French official who made the best case in defense of the Americans last week. "It's interesting how people still love to talk about missed signals before Sept. 11 and second-guess U.S. authorities' failures to see it coming. Yet the same people are now asking mocking questions about how unnecessary these ongoing measures may be," says the official. "That's the problem in the post — Sept. 11 world. The only certainty is that you can never be too careful."