Its exceptionally long range, large payload and resilience to detection and attack by even advanced air defenses (like those fielded by Iraq) offer policy-makers the means to bring weapons to bear on distant targets with a minimum of delay or risk of loss of American lives.
In general, the signature-based security products used to defend enterprise networks, such as firewalls, anti-virus products and intrusion detection systems are increasingly blind to modern attack methods, which are increasingly embedded into application data or designed to self-mutate in order to evade detection.
An IP reputation service, once the NASDAQ site had been identified as compromised through either publication or detection by continual IPS reputation evaluation, would have given system administrators early warning of the attack.