Debbie Schlussel: No Surprise: Interpol Chief Says Europe Not Fighting Terror
Interpol Secretary-General Ron Noble said Europe is not fighting terrorism on the most basic levels:
"I am saying there is an international failure to fight terrorism at the most basic level -- that no rational citizen of any of our countries would accept if they were made aware of how significant the failure is and how easy it would be to correct."Noble said Interpol had a database of more than 13 million stolen and lost passports. But apart from Switzerland, which uncovered 100 people carrying stolen documents every month, no country comprehensively checked passports against its list.
He said the public would find it hard to understand why a measure which could prevent a terrorist attack and was "obvious to do, easy to do and a modest cost" was not being done. He said heads of state and senior ministers would be to blame.
"After September 11, if a citizen were to learn that a terrorist attack occurred by someone having entered their country with a stolen passport that was registered with Interpol but their country wasn't regularly checking it, I say governments would fall," he said.
Glad he's talking, but it won't change anything in Europe. Or here. Wake up, world.
Posted by Debbie on November 17, 2006 03:40 PM to Debbie Schlussel