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New Delhi. Mumbai. Chechnya. Madrid. London. The question isn't whether America will suffer a jihadi attack on our passenger rail lines, but when. So, why has President Obama neutered the nation's most highly trained post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism rail security team?

All signs point to business-as-usual cronyism and pandering to power-grabbing union bosses.

Amtrak's Office of Security Strategy and Special Operations (OSSSO) grew out of a counterterrorism and intelligence unit developed by the Bush administration in the wake of global jihadi attacks on mass transit systems. The office was staffed with Special Forces veterans, law enforcement officers, railroad specialists, other military personnel and experts who collectively possessed hundreds of years of experience fighting on the front lines against terrorism. Each member underwent at least 800 hours of rail security-related training, including advanced marksmanship, close quarters combat and protective security exercises.

OSSSO's mobile prevention teams acted as "force multipliers" working with local, state and federal authorities across the country to detect, deter and defend against criminal and terrorist attacks on mass transit. They conducted hundreds of show-of-force, uniformed and rail marshal rides.

OSSSO also provided security services for President Bush, the pope, the 2008 Democrat and Republican conventions, then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign events and then-Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden's Amtrak whistle-stop tours. The counterterrorism unit's push to conduct random passenger and baggage screening earned predictable criticism from civil liberties absolutists, but also garnered bipartisan praise on Capitol Hill. Even Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas hailed the rail security team's work last year.

"Let me congratulate them for being aware" of the threat to rail passengers, the chairman of a House homeland security subcommittee on transportation security told USA Today in July 2008. "(But) this has to be the new standard for Amtrak."

How will Congress react to the news that this high standard has been obliterated?

According to multiple government sources who declined to be identified for fear of retribution, OSSSO's East Coast and West Coast teams have not worked in a counterterrorism capacity since the summer. Their long arms were put under lock and key after the abrupt departures of Amtrak Vice President for Security Strategy and Special Operations Bill Rooney and Amtrak Inspector General Fred Weiderhold.

Weiderhold played an instrumental role in creating OSSSO's predecessor at Amtrak, the Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTU). He tapped Rooney to oversee the office. But Rooney was quietly given the "thank you for your service" heave-ho in May, and Weiderhold was unexpectedly "retired" a few weeks later -- just as the government-subsidized rail service faced mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes.

As I reported in June, Weiderhold had blown the whistle on intrusion of Amtrak's Law Department into his financial audits and probes. A damning 94-page report from an outside legal firm concluded that the "independence and effectiveness" of the Amtrak inspector general's office were "being substantially impaired" by the Law Department -- which happens to be headed by Eleanor Acheson, a close pal of Vice President Biden.

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