The US to fight "clean-skin" terrorists from Europe

The US has expressed apprehension that the next September 11-style attack on America could be launched by Muslims from Britain or Europe who feel like "second-class citizens" alienated by a "colonial legacy".

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Michael Chertoff, the US Homeland Security chief, told The Daily Telegraph before his visit to Britain commencing tomorrow that the US was determined to build extra defences against so-called "clean-skin" terrorists from Europe, meaning those who travel with completely legitimate documents.

"We need to build layers of protection, and I don't think we totally want to rely upon the fact that a foreign government is going to know that one of their citizens is suspicious and is going to be coming here," he said.

Chertoff rejected the idea that the Iraq war had made the world more dangerous, hindu.com reports.

Mr. Chertoff insisted that America required additional information, including e-mail addresses and credit card details, to vet European passengers and rejected "the idea that we're going to bargain with the European Union over who's going to come into the United States" under the visa waiver scheme, hindu.com reports.
"We have an absolute right to get this, in the same way that if someone wants to be a guest in my house, I have a right to ask them who they are and get identification."

The July 7 bombings nearly two years ago had shown that Britain had a problem with its Islamic immigrant population that America did not share, he argued.

"Our Muslim population is better educated and economically better off than the average American. So, from a standpoint of mobility in society, it's a successful immigrant population. To some degree, the whole country is a country of immigrants, and therefore, there's no sense that we have insiders or outsiders. In some countries [in Europe], you had an influx of people that came in as a colonial legacy and may have always have felt, to some extent, that they were viewed as second-class citizens, and they've tended to impact and be kind of clustered in some areas."

Mr. Chertoff, a former federal prosecutor, said one of his biggest worries was that "unknown terrorists" — such as most of the July 7, 2005, bombers, who were British citizens with no criminal record or intelligence traces — could use the visa waiver scheme to enter and attack America, mrt.com reports.

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