Obama taps former US Army major general to head TSA

US President Barack Obama yesterday announced that he will nominate retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Harding to head the Transportation Security Administration.

Harding most recently served as CEO of Harding Security Associates, an intelligence and defense consultancy he founded in 2003 and sold last year. He spent 33 years in the Army before retiring in 2001 and from 1996-2000 was the Defense Intelligence Agency's director of operations.

"I am confident that Bob's talent and expertise will make him a tremendous asset in our ongoing efforts to bolster security and screening measures at our airports," Obama said. "I can think of no one more qualified."

Airports Council International-North America President Greg Principato said, "Aviation will benefit from General Harding's extensive career in intelligence. Airports have long advocated that intelligence must be the cornerstone of effective aviation security." US Air Transport Assn. stated that it was "pleased" with Harding's selection.

Los Angeles World Airports security chief Erroll Southers, Obama's previous nominee to head TSA, withdrew from consideration in January following controversy surrounding false testimony to Congress in the late 1980s regarding improper access of legal records and concerns by some Republicans that he would not oppose unionization by TSA screeners (ATWOnline, Jan. 22).

TSA has been criticized for treating all passengers as potential terrorists and focusing too much on searching for objects and preventing identical repeats of past attacks rather than using intelligence to spot potential attackers. Obama's appointment of an agency head with an extensive intelligence background but little transportation experience may be an indication that the administration wants to reorient TSA.

"We need to walk a mile in [potential attackers'] shoes to anticipate what they may do next," University of Southern California Aviation Safety and Security Program Director Thomas Anthony, a former federal security director at three US airports, told ATWOnline in a recent interview. "The [airport security] ideas that we have used are a little bit outmoded . . . We need to be looking at shortcomings in the system and thinking like a terrorist. We need people [at the high levels of TSA] who can be creative and insightful to be more forward-thinking."