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Cri�cal Infrastructure

What is a cri�cal infrastructure? It is defined as anything, physical or virtual, so vital that its incapacita�on, exploita�on, or destruc�on, through terrorist a�ack, could have a debilita�ng effect on security and economic well- being (U.S. President, 2003, p. 1). The Homeland Security Presiden�al Direc�ve (HSPD) – 7 is the essen�al services that underpin American society. The Na�on possesses numerous key resources, whose exploita�on or destruc�on by terrorists could cause catastrophic health effects or mass casual�es comparable to those from the use of a weapon of mass destruc�on, or could profoundly affect our na�onal pres�ge and morale. The cri�cal infrastructure of the U.S. is set forth in the Na�onal Infrastructure Protec�on Plan which iden�fies sixteen sectors within the U. S.

The security of America’s cri�cal infrastructure requires the partnership of the public and private sectors. In fact, it requires a whole-of-community approach. The use of a government only approach ignores that 85% of the Na�on’s cri�cal infrastructure is owned or operated by the private and non-profit sectors (Execu�ve Office of the President, 2007, p. 4). This fact likely influenced former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, who observed that a government only approach to preserving CI/KR was not as desirable as that of making the business community an equal partner in the effort (Chertoff, 2008).

Even employing a whole-of-community approach to iden�fying and hardening targets against a terrorist a�ack, there are certain lessons that have been learned, one of which is that some targets are inherently difficult to harden. There is a twofold reason for this: first, there are so many of them, and; second, they are so accessible (meaning that people can get into and out of them very easily, not merely get to them easily). In other words, forget about making every single one of these targets hardened to the point where they could absolutely, posi�vely, guaranteed, stop 100% of the possible terrorist a�acks using 100% of all weapons available. What you CAN do is making the target APPEAR to be hard to such an extent that it deters a par�cular a�ack on a par�cular loca�on. Knowing that the community will not be able to protect the Na�on’s cri�cal infrastructure against all a�acks, the government’s strategic plans call upon the community to engage in ac�vi�es that “. . . reduce or eliminate long-term effects to people and their property from hazards and to respond to and recover from major incidents” (U.S. President, 2010, p. 18). The next sec�on will talk to this concept of resilience.

In the past century in this country, there has been a very definite move for people to move closer to other people. The result has been a concentra�on of the popula�on. In fact, almost half of the popula�on lives in only nine states. And, in terms of infrastructure, that infrastructure has also become just as concentrated. This is bad, per se, but

rather a logical a�empt to move the infrastructure as close to the popula�on centers as possible. Some of the figures are rather startling. 6.8% of all community water supplies serve 45% of the popula�on and the propor�ons are similar for wastewater treatment systems. Of 225 petroleum refineries, 54% are located in only four states – Texas, California, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. Of 2,776 electric power plants, 51.4% are located in 11 states. What this all means is that there are some very lucra�ve infrastructure targets for terrorists and increase the vulnerability to a�ack. Therefore, our homeland security effort must include plans to recover if a cri�cal infrastructure is a�acked.