Mumbai attacks: How could this have happened?

The horrific carnage in Mumbai could have been prevented, said Praveen Swami in The Hindu. Government sources say that Indian intelligence services delivered “at least three precise warnings” over the past two months that “a major terrorist attack on Mumbai was imminent.” All the intelligence pointed to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani terrorist group, and one tip even identified the main target, the Taj Mahal Hotel. Authorities beefed up security in Mumbai for a while, but astoundingly, they abandoned the effort a week ago, saying they did not have the police manpower to continue. We paid an unspeakable price for this incompetence when 10 gunmen, who arrived by boat from Karachi, Pakistan, opened fire at 10 locations around the city. They killed at least 175 people before their siege was finally put down after almost three days.

The scale and longevity of this assault were indeed shocking, said P.K. Vasudeva in The Statesman. But in some respects, we shouldn’t be all that surprised. India has been targeted by terrorists time and time again, yet we have never developed a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. It’s time to “make combating terrorism an obsession with all of us.” Intelligence agencies need more resources—and more powers. India could use its own version of the Patriot Act, which the U.S. passed after 9/11. We can’t let too much “solicitude for civil liberties” keep us from protecting ourselves.

“What kind of a new law do we need to stop people who land up in boats carrying bags full of ammunition?” said Rahul Bose in Tehelka.com. Last time I checked, it was already illegal to march up to a hotel and open fire. If we rush to add new laws, “we will be making the same mistakes that the American state made after the 9/11 attacks.” Wounded and fearful, the U.S. overreacted, and it came up with “Guantánamo Bay, legalized torture, and the Patriot Act—all of which contributed to making it the most hated nation in the world.”

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There’s one thing we can learn from the Americans, said Vijay Oberoi in the Deccan Chronicle. They created a single agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to be responsible for all aspects of the response to a terrorist attack. The worst part of the Mumbai crisis, for those watching it unfold on TV, was the chaotic response by Indian authorities. “No one was apparently in command for coordinating the various operations.” There was “no formalized communication arrangement,” either among the police, army, and other authorities or with the press. News briefings “were impromptu and only when media persons managed to corner a passing official.” Before the next attack comes, India should set up a “unified command, which is fully autonomous and headed by only one person or entity.”

The sight of one person truly in charge certainly could have calmed the terrified city, said Jaithirth Rao in the Indian Express. “The enduring image of 9/11 remains the brilliant and publicly confident way New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani took charge. It is this response that Indians are looking for, that Indians deserve, and that hopefully we will have, the next time it happens.”