Back Where We Started?

The reasoning behind the post-9/11 decision to move thousands of federal national security employees out of offices in close-in Washington suburbs was that their buildings were too vulnerable to terrorist truck bombs.

Now comes a new fear -- examined in today's New York Times business section -- that the move of 6,400 employees from Arlington, Va., to Alexandria's new Mark Center may leave them just as vulnerable.

For several years, the main complaint from locals championed by Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., was that the Army had underestimated the amount of new traffic that would swarm I-395 with the occupation of the new defense complex far from subway stops.

More recently, however, such interested parties as the mayor of Alexandria and the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight have warned that the new facility presents its own building security weaknesses because a bomb "could easily be detonated in close proximity" to it.

A nonprofit research group called CNA, which includes the Center for Naval Analyses and is a tenant at the Mark Center, has filed a suit against the local realty company asserting that its facilities "are now considered a magnet for terrorist or criminal activity."