Obama to become president amid tightest security ever

[babylonsister]

Obama to become president amid tightest security ever

By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — Barack Obama will be sworn in as America's first African-American president under the tightest security ever, shielded by a new, heavily armored Cadillac limousine, bullet-resistant glass, fighter planes overhead and Secret Service SWAT teams toting automatic weapons.

The level of protection is no surprise, given that the throng stretching two miles from the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial could reach a worrisome 4 million, quadruple the usual turnout, and that Obama already has been the target of numerous threats.

Days before he was elected the nation's 44th president, federal agents broke up an alleged plot by two neo-Nazi skinheads to kill him. Then, on Tuesday, al Qaida's No. 2 leader issued a tape blaming Obama for Israel's recent attacks on the militant Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

U.S. counter-terrorism officials — boasting a daunting array of high-tech defenses, some of them developed since Sept. 11 — say they've received no intelligence identifying a specific, credible threat that someone will attack during the inauguration.

Still, the event poses a massive challenge for the Secret Service and some 10,000 officers from more than 100 federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies, "in part because of the large numbers of people converging on the nation's capital,'' retired Secret Service agent Robert Rodriguez said.

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[Dervill Crow]

1. Good! nt