Chaos, incompetence and dangerous drivel | the Daily Mail

Chaos, incompetence and dangerous drivel | the Daily Mail: "Chaos, incompetence and dangerous drivel
Last updated at 08:17am on 16th August 2006

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More polls » How depressing that some of the most inflammatory nonsense spouted since last week's terrorist alert should have come from a British police officer.

'What you are suggesting,' said Chief Superintendent Ali Dizaei on BBC2' s Newsnight, 'is that we should have a new offence in this country called "travelling whilst Asian".'

A catchy soundbite, perhaps. But dangerous drivel all the same.

Mr Dizaei was answering an advocate of 'suspect profiling', the system under which airport security staff concentrate their most rigorous checks on passengers whose appearance or behaviour patterns may give grounds for suspicion.

Of course, the Mail has qualms about the system, since it inevitably means innocent young male Asians having to suffer the greatest inconvenience.

But Mr Dizaei is utterly disingenuous when he says: 'Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, would have certainly gone through the security system because he was a white male.'

There is no 'certainly' about it. Mr Dizaei knows full well - or he damn well ought to have found out before opening his mouth - that profiling has become a sophisticated psychological science over the years.

Its practitioners are quite as aware as this preposterous policeman that terrorists come in all shapes, sizes and colours. By no means do they restrict their in-depth searches to members of only one race, sex or age group.

As for suggesting that profiling will 'alienate communities', isn't Mr Dizaei risking exactly that when he plants the idea in the minds of British Asians that they have reason to take offence? Isn't it a policeman's job to allay such fears, rather than fuel them?

Fair-minded Asians everywhere accept the logic behind profiling. They understand, too, that an effective security system will protect them as much as any other passengers.

True, profiling should be carried out with the utmost tact and courtesy. But David Cameron was right not to rule it out in his excellent speech yesterday on the Muslim fundamentalist threat to our way of life and the Government's woeful response to it.

What a pity Mr Dizaei - posturing for the BBC cameras in his police uniform, as if he speaks for anybody but himself - cannot show the same common sense. Can anyone come up with a safer or more effective way of ending the chaos at our airports?

Which brings us to another man who has been talking blatant rot since last Thursday's arrests. How could Stephen Nelson, chief executive of airport operator BAA, have the sheer brass neck to claim: 'For the most part we have had absolutely the right numbers of people. . . we have coped magnificently.'

The right numbers? When early yesterday only four of the 14 security stations for which he is responsible at Stansted airport were open, while passengers were made to endure endless queues?

Coped magnificently? When, seven days and thousands of disrupted holidays after the alert, flights are still being cancelled? When confusion still reigns over officious hand-baggage restrictions, described by Ryanair as 'nonsensical'? And when 20,000 items of luggage have gone missing at Heathrow alone?

Since 9/ 11, BAA has had five years to prepare contingency plans for times of heightened threat like these. Yes, five years. But still it seems to have been completely unprepared.

The company makes most of its profits from airport shops and car parks. Indeed, it has a strong vested interest in keeping passengers hanging around.

Isn't it time, for the sake of all frustrated holidaymakers and business fliers, to put airport security into more efficient hands?