There was only one thing to consider when the nightmare began in Middle School No. 1 in Beslan. The extremists had hundreds of children as hostage. No doubt that was foremost in the minds of the government as it started negotiations, but the tragic end to the siege would suggest that the full implication of this one simple fact had not sunk in. It is astounding that the apparently smooth progress of negotiations had blinded the authorities to the fact that the victims were children, herded together without food or water in a gymnasium with its windows tight shut, in a heartless, terrifying incarceration that was running into its third day. Were the children, panicked and helpless, expected to weigh their chances of survival and escape, or would any normal adult expect them to make a run for it the moment they found their captors distracted? The complete disarray in which the Russian security forces found themselves when the unexpected happened shows that such a possibility had not been imagined. It is necessary to ask whether there were child psychologists and child trauma experts with the negotiators who felt they were doing such a good job.

And that is not all. The Russian president’s hard line regarding Chechnya, the recent terror attacks in Russia, the larger context of global terror, are surely reason enough for the security forces to be fully equipped from the point of view of precision planning, iron discipline and readiness in any emergency. But their role at the moment of disaster appeared for a while to be little better than that of the hundreds of civilians they allowed to overrun the scene. It was a high-risk, professional, security operation, and the situation had existed for two whole days already. What were civilians doing there? Were the decisions to return fire as the terrorists began shooting at the escaping children, and to blow holes in the walls of the gymnasium to help the hostages escape, reflex actions or planned ones? Had the fallout been anticipated? Not addressing these questions now will mean that the most unbearable tragedies in history, like that in Beslan, will occur every time terrorists choose soft targets in the future.