(2004-12-10) — More than three years after terrorists crashed commercial airliners into the World Trade Center, most skyscrapers still the lack armor plating that could help reduce casualties in a future attack, according to a report released by Congress.
“The Bush administration has devoted almost zero resources to up-armoring our nation’s tallest buildings,” said an unnamed official who had seen parts of the report. “We have anecdotal evidence of stock brokers dragging dumpsters into their offices and actually working inside the dumpster to get that extra layer of protection.”
The report’s release comes just days after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld faced a spontaneous question from a soldier in Kuwait about the difficulty of securing armor for Humvees.
“If each tall building were blanketed with steel, America would finally be safe,” the official said. “The terrorists would have to give up, just like they would be stymied if all military vehicles were up-armored. There’s nothing they could do to hurt us then.”
