The Change Mariner

Security Efforts Turning Washington, D.C. Into Armed Camp

New York Times:

Day by day, the nation's capital is becoming a fortress, turning a city known for graceful beauty into a virtual armed camp. In response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, federal security agents along with their counterparts in the Washington, Maryland and Virginia governments began a huge effort to build permanent safeguards for the capital area's most important buildings and monuments.

The effort that built slowly after the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City intensified after one jetliner slammed into the Pentagon and another jet crashed in Pennsylvania, presumably on its way to a target in Washington.

But more recently, security efforts have gained a new urgency as officials seek ways to stop truck bombs and other terrorist tactics that have been used in other countries, like suicide bombers.

Some of the biggest projects are under way at the most visible symbols of American democracy and might -- the White House, the Capitol, the Washington Monument and the Pentagon.

A result has been a surge of security construction at a cost, still being calculated, that is expected to reach several hundred million dollars within five or six years.