When the Target Is America : World Trade Center case: a credit to the investigators and prosecutors

One year and six days after a 1,200-pound bomb killed six people, injured more than 1,000 and did $550 million in damage to New York’s World Trade Center, a federal jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts against the four defendants in the case. That verdict, which could result in life sentences, was a credit to the painstaking work done by investigators and prosecutors. At the same time the verdict is a reminder that this country, because of its proud tradition of openness and its international leadership, remains vulnerable to acts of violence inspired by politics, ideology or religious fanaticism.

There is no sure way to immunize the country against imported terrorism. At best, life can be made harder for would-be terrorists, to begin with by looking closer at visa applications to screen out those with criminal pasts. But no security measures are foolproof. Tens of millions of foreign visitors are welcomed each year. Meanwhile, our laws, or lack of them, make it easy for those bent on terrorism to obtain weapons and the materials for explosives.

It removes nothing from the efficient police work in the World Trade Center case to recall that the conspirators, described by the government as Muslim fundamentalists, did some truly stupid things before and after their crime, sowing an evidentiary trail that led straight to their convictions. Others might not be so accommodatingly self-incriminating. Will other terrorist acts be attempted? It would be foolish not to expect so. And it would be foolish in the extreme not to do everything possible to tighten security at those sites--government buildings, power plants and the like--that could be the most inviting targets.