12 March 2002

U.S. Goal: Keep Weapons of Mass Destruction Out Of Terrorists' Hands

Washington -- A primary U.S. goal in the war against terrorism is to ensure -- as President Bush told the corps of cadets at the military college of South Carolina last year -- that "the authors of mass murder" are "never allowed to gain or use the weapons of mass destruction (WMD)."

During his December 11 speech at the Citadel in Charleston Bush said the great threat to civilization "is that a few evil men will multiply their murders and gain the means to kill on a scale equal to their hatred."

"America's next priority [in the campaign] to prevent mass terror is to protect against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them," the president said, thereby announcing the establishment of a broad, clear goal -- the fulfillment of which will reach to all corners of the globe.

In his State of the Union address on January 29, Bush warned that countries such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea, and their terrorist allies, constitute "an axis of evil" posing "a grave and growing danger" for their pursuit of WMD. He said the United States "will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver" WMD.

The need for such action is urgent. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet says WMD programs "are becoming more advanced and effective as they mature and as countries-of-concern become more aggressive in pursuing them." Because of the dual-use nature of chemical and biological agents and the inherent difficulty in distinguishing legitimate commercial ventures from offensive weapons programs, he said, there is "a significant risk within the next few years that we could confront an adversary -- either terrorists or a rogue state -- who possess them."

Evidence of terrorists' intentions -- uncovered in their training camps, safe houses, caves and tunnels in Afghanistan -- has included instructions for making chemical weapons, diagrams of U.S. nuclear power plants and public water facilities, descriptions of key American historic landmarks, and maps of U.S. cities. Other al-Qaeda stashes in Afghanistan have included documents ranging from fake identity papers to bomb-making instructions, and the weapons caches included tons of ammunition and artillery as well as armored tanks and anti-aircraft guns.

While no evidence has yet surfaced that al-Qaeda members were building a nuclear weapon, it is clear that they were accumulating relevant information. A recent CNN report referred to a 25-page document about nuclear weapons and design found abandoned in Afghanistan. Two Pakistani scientists are also thought to have shared their knowledge with the al-Qaeda network, according to the account.

The CIA believes that the network may have been seeking a radioactive dispersal weapon, or "dirty bomb" as it is also known. In addition, a former member of al-Qaeda provided testimony in a New York federal court in 2001 that he had set up meetings in Khartoum in the 1990s to help the network try to acquire uranium. Radio Free Europe also reported last year on a failed al-Qaeda attempt to acquire nuclear warheads from Chechen rebels in Russia in 1998.

Tenet told members of Congress that al-Qaeda "was working to acquire some of the most dangerous chemical agents and toxins," and he provided documents showing that a sophisticated biological weapons (BW) research program was being pursued. While much of the evidence outlined above has been accumulated as a result of the coalition military engagement in Afghanistan known as "Operation Enduring Freedom," al-Qaeda operatives are also said to have been active in 67 other nations.

Whatever progress has been made by al-Qaeda or a host of other WMD aspirants, terrorists have demonstrated "suicidal tendencies and are beyond deterrence," according to Senator Richard Lugar (Republican, Indiana). "We must anticipate that they will use weapons of mass destruction if allowed the opportunity. The minimum standard for victory in this war (against terrorism) is the prevention of any of the individual terrorists or terrorist cells from obtaining" these weapons.

In the absence of prevention, the world may face a horror like the one experienced by the citizens of Tokyo when the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo group attacked the subway system with the chemical nerve agent Sarin in 1995. Aum Shinrikyo also reportedly made several botched efforts to conduct attacks using biological agents.

The war against terrorism is being prosecuted in a world which Lugar describes as being "awash with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and materials of mass destruction stored principally in the United States and Russia but also in India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Israel, Great Britain, France, China and, perhaps, other nations."

A 2002 CIA report on proliferation states that "the threat of terrorists using chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials appears to be rising -- particularly since the September 11 attacks." It cites a senior Osama bin Laden operative as claiming during a trial in Egypt in 1999 that his group possessed chemical and biological weapons. The report also refers to bin Laden's 1988 statement that acquiring WMD is a "religious duty" and points to crude nuclear weapons diagrams discovered in a suspected al-Qaeda house in Kabul.

September 11 and the havoc spread by terrorists in New York and Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. is etched in everyone's mind as an illustration of what can happen when commercial airliners are converted by terrorists into aircraft bombs. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has cited the nexus of terror and WMD. Turning jetliners "into missiles and driving them into buildings and killing thousands of people -- we know roughly the effect of that. It was thousands," the secretary said, referring to the innocent citizens of 80 nations who were killed in those attacks. Biological, nuclear, radiological dispersal, or chemical weapons in the hands of terrorists, could, for example, "kill tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands, not simply thousands," he added.

Defense Department officials are particularly concerned about the potential of al-Qaeda to acquire and use chemical or biological weapons because, unlike other terrorist groups backed by a state-sponsor that might place restrictions on their use, al-Qaeda doesn't have any state behind it that might stop them.

Bush's State of the Union message focused attention on WMD and turned up the heat on certain countries which National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said "are a clear and present danger" to the United States and the rest of the civilized world. Why? "Because the Iranians, who spread and support terror around the world, the North Koreans, who proliferate these weapons, and the Iraqis, who make a region of great importance to us unstable, clearly are a clear and present threat to America, America's interests, and America's allies."

While the spotlight of the moment may be on these three nations, there are other state-sponsors of terrorism. According to "Patterns of Global Terrorism," published by the State Department in 2001, these include Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Cuba.

Syria and Sudan have been faulted for providing safehaven to groups such as the Palestine Islamic Jihad. According to another 2001 report published by the Pentagon on proliferation, Syria is likely to maintain and improve its missile programs, as well as its chemical and biological weapons capabilities. While Sudan has been reportedly interested in chemical weapons acquisition and use in the past, this report suggests Khartoum's desire to moderate its image internationally "will cause Sudan to proceed with its chemical warfare program with caution." A 2002 CIA report on proliferation states, however, that Sudan may be interested in a BW program.

Libya reportedly still maintains contact with the Palestine Islamic Jihad and other groups and has yet to comply fully with UN Security Council requirements related to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The Pentagon report states that Libya continues to pursue an indigenous chemical weapons production capability and wants to buy long-range missiles.

Cuba allegedly has ties with Latin American insurgents and has provided safehaven to some Basque terrorists, but is not a proliferator.

Rumsfeld said the terrorist list includes a number of countries that "are active, developing weapons of mass destruction, and ... have relations with terrorist networks. And we must not sit idly by as a country, as a world, and accept that outcome -- that eventually, if we wait long enough, eventually it's reasonable to expect that terrorist nations will provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorist networks."

In the end the issue is accountability. President Bush put it this way: "For states that support terror, it's not enough that the consequences be costly; they must be devastating. The more credible this reality, the more likely that regimes will change their behavior, making it less likely that America and our friends will need to use overwhelming force against them."