LAS VEGAS: A year ago, just before taking office,
Las Vegas' freshly elected sheriff committed a major faux pas:
He gave an honest assessment of southern Nevada's terror risk.
"Being America's playground, we have to be a prime target
for fundamentalists whose beliefs are radically different from
ours," Sheriff Bill Young told a hotel security conference in
December 2002. "If we have a terrorist attack here, we're done
as a community. We have only one industry - - importing people
to come here to have a good time. And it's entirely predicated
on people feeling safe and secure to come here.''
Those remarks -- for which Young incurred the ire of Nevada's
political and tourism leaders -- echoed with renewed resonance
last week after a Washington Post report identified this symbol
of Western hedonism as the possible focus of a feared Christmas
Day terror attack that led to the cancellation of six Air France
flights.
While law enforcement officials, including Young, insisted
the Post was merely speculating when it named Las Vegas as the
most likely crash target for the would-be hijackers of a Paris-to-Los
Angeles flight, the news brought to the forefront this tourist-dependent
economy's sensitivity to even rumors of its vulnerability. There
have been no arrests stemming from any alleged plots.
Local officials have gone to great lengths to reassure the
public, with Las Vegas FBI special agent Todd Palmer saying
the agency "has no specific information to corroborate the claims
asserted in the Washington Post." And a furious Las Vegas Mayor
Oscar Goodman took the paper to task for "picking these rumors
out of thin air and writing a major story about them." Still,
this isn't the first time Las Vegas has had a brush with possible
terrorist activity. Images of the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino were
seen on a videotape seized from members of an alleged al Qaeda
sleeper cell in Detroit in 2002. And five of the hijackers in
the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks met here in June 2001, including
ringleader Mohamed Atta, the FBI has said.
'A soft target'
Few, including Young, would be so frank these days as to acknowledge
the city's security vulnerabilities, but it's commonly understood
that any incident could devastate the economy of the entire
state. Gamblers left $7.6 billion in the county's casinos in
fiscal 2002, more than 85 percent of Nevada's $8.9 billion in
total gambling revenue.
"Everybody knows that Las Vegas is something of a soft target
because there are so many outdoor attractions on the Strip that
can never be secured," said a board member with the Las Vegas
Convention and Visitors Authority who asked not to be identified.
"A truck bomb at a busy intersection is almost impossible to
prevent, and bam -- our economy's dead."
Goodman and others downplayed the town's vulnerability, noting
that an estimated 7,000 private security officers work in Las
Vegas resorts and that some hotels have security forces as large
as small-town police departments. Steps have been taken since
Sept. 11 to enhance security, including a requirement that all
deliveries go through delivery docks. Before, a florist could
park out front to make a quick drop-off, for example.
At the six casino-hotels owned by the MGM Mirage conglomerate,
officials are using "Non-Obvious Relation Assessment" software
that cross-references a flood of data gathered on guests and
job applicants -- Social Security numbers, phone numbers, driver's
license numbers and addresses among them -- with information
on the FBI and other law agencies' wanted lists.
"We also now have a hotel security directors association in
Las Vegas," MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman said. "It existed
for quite a while, but it has just become incredibly relevant
in the last year and a half. They used to focus on passing information
on pickpocket rings, things of that nature. But since 9/11,
their mandate has become so much more serious."
Peak season
The Post report came as the city roars into its peak season
and expects a 3.5 percent increase in visitors compared to last
year. The week between Christmas and New Year's Day is typically
the city's busiest tourist crush, with more than 297,000 people
expected to ring in 2004 on the Las Vegas Strip. That one night
alone will bring in an estimated $178.7 million in nongambling
revenue, according to the tourism board.
But it takes more than an elevated threat status to dent people's
desire to visit Las Vegas. Tourism agency spokeswoman Marina
Nicola said the latest alert had had no effect on the average
call volume to the city's main reservation service. And the
MGM Mirage had seen "only a handful of cancellations -- less
than 10 -- because of the terrorism threat," said company spokeswoman
Yvette Monet.
"Visitors are calling to book for the holidays and for next
month's conventions," Nicola said. "It's business as usual.
I think it's all systems go until government officials tell
people to stay home for the holiday."
Indeed, it's difficult to find any tourists alarmed by the
news. Neil Frankel, 23, of Boston, shrugged off the prospects
of terrorism here even as he perused a Sept. 11 memorial outside
the New York-New York casino.
"It could be here, it could be in Boston, it could be anywhere,"
Frankel said. "I can't stay home. It won't make me any safer."
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