There’s some red faces today in Sydney and it has nothing to do with Foster’s.
A fake motorcade penetrated two security checkpoints in the midsts of heavy security today at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation conference (APEC) in Sydney Australia before being stopped near the Intercontinental Hotel where President Bush was staying. The fake motorcade was a stunt by members of an Australian comedy show. To add insult to injury, one of the cast members was dressed like Osama bin Laden replete with a white tunic, cap and sporting a long fake beard. The cast members were subsequently arrested and charged with “entering a restricted zone without justification.” At no time was President Bush in any danger but this is a major embarrassment for the Sydney Police in particular and the Australian government in general.
Police in Sydney had touted security for the APEC conference as the most extensive in the city’s history. Police had taken a page from the security playbook of the recent G-8 conference in Germany and had erected a fence to keep demonstrators away from the venue site. Other sources reported that the Australian government had deployed Special Forces to respond to any terrorist threats. Despite these measures, the ease with which the phony motorcade managed to penetrate the security perimeter is nothing less than alarming.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer attempted to deflect this major breach of security by indicating that security was working since the comedy crew was eventually stopped. With all due respect Mr. Minister, I beg to differ with you. If security was indeed working, the comedy crew would not have penetrated two checkpoints before being stopped. Secondly, an explosively laden vehicle would not have to get within the immediate proximity of a target to be effective. Look at the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as well as the Khobar Towers bombings to see how effective vehicle borne explosive devices can be from a distance. It’s called the “explosive footprint.”
To me, this incident also says something about awareness or lack thereof. Regardless how they managed to penetrated security and who it was that penetrated security, the mere fact that a group of amateurs figured out a way to do and managed to do it successfully is equally disconcerting. it’s not what you’d expect one week from the anniversary of 9/11.
Sham motorcade passes by APEC security – Yahoo! News
Technorati Tags: Executive Protection, bodyguard, Secret Service, President Bush, Sydney, Australia, APEC, Asian Economic Cooperation Cooperation, Chas Licciardello
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August 24, 2008 at 2:06 pm
7xI’ll thingk about it.0e I compleatly disagree with last post . ljf
паркет 2f
April 15, 2009 at 12:40 pm
The style of writing is quite familiar . Have you written guest posts for other bloggers?