On Wednesday, a new report revealed that prominent security insiders have sounded the alarm about a “terrorist target” President Donald Trump is building in Washington D.C. According to Politico, military and security experts warn that one of the president’s much-touted vanity projects may not only draw terror attacks, but would impede the emergency response should one occur.
“President Donald Trump’s declaration that his proposed Washington triumphal arch, replete with drones and a weapons arsenal, will protect the city is coming under heavy fire from experts in munitions and terrorism,” writes Politico. “The arch is more likely to become a high-value target for terrorists on the scale of the 1983 Beirut bombing of U.S. soldiers or the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, a former brigadier general told a federal judge in a court declaration Tuesday.” This assertion from Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson, seconded by other security experts, contradicts the claims of Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who portray the planned military arch — a looming, 250-foot monument planned in a traffic circle on the edge of Washington’s National Mall – as a necessary installation for protecting the capital from terrorism and other attacks.
While Hegseth has insisted that it offers “generational national defense opportunity,” a barrage of court filings Tuesday from opponents of the arch, including from the attorneys general of Virginia and the District of Columbia, disagree. These opponents are asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to extend an injunction currently preventing the administration from starting construction. Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, temporarily blocked construction of the arch last week just before the Trump administration broke ground, but she’s considering a longer-term stay.
Politico reports that according to a declaration from Georgetown University homeland security and terrorism expert Donell Harvin, the arch creates a “hardened military target” that could draw attack. To make matters worse, he argued that the plan to store munitions and explosives at the monument complicates emergency response in the event of a terrorist attack. “Emergency services would struggle to reach civilians in need if the military were actively defending the Arch during an attack,” Harvin wrote. Arch construction would also impede a vital emergency evacuation route from the city, in addition to being costly for state and local governments, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones (D) and District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb (D) told the court, while other state and local experts argued that the administration has neglected to plan for the scale of disruption and risk the construction and monument would create.
The administration has until Friday to deliver its justification for lifting the injunction against the arch, which Trump has made a centerpiece of his vanity project obsession. While delivering his Veterans’ Day address at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday, Trump declared, “Soon we’re going to dedicate a magnificent triumphant arch to our veterans.” But commentators were quick to point out the irony in his statement. “Not if the Veterans have any say,” noted legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold. “They are actually suing to stop the monstrosity.” Indeed, veteran groups are part of the effort to block the construction, arguing that it would loom over the cemetery. According to one commenter, “Putting Cadet Bone Spurs’ name on the Arc de Trump is a slap in the face to all veterans.”