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Assessing the Threat of WMD Terrorism

Introduction

Because of a number of developments over the past decade, the threat that terrorists might resort to chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has received increased attention from U.S. policymakers, the news media, and academic analysts. These developments include:

• the proliferation of WMD-related technologies, materials, and know-how;
• trends in terrorist incidents suggesting a growing tendency toward mass-casualty attacks for which WMD may be well suited;
• interest in WMD expressed by Usama bin Laden, the terrorist held responsible for masterminding the August 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania; and
• the March 1995 attack in the Tokyo subway by the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo with chemical nerve agent, demonstrating that WMD (at least chemical weapons) are within the reach of some terrorist groups.

At the same time, many analysts believe that there are significant technical hurdles to WMD acquisition and use, and that the Aum incident is the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, the lack of other major incidents of WMD terrorism in the years since the Aum attack suggests that the threat may be largely theoretical or at least is poorly understood.

Assessing the Threat of WMD Terrorism

Jason Pate, Senior Research Associate and WMD Terrorism Database Manager
Gary Ackerman, Research Associate CNS Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program
August 2001

In March 1995, the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin nerve agent in the Tokyo subway, killing 12 and injuring over a thousand. This incident, perpetrated by an apocalyptic group seeking to inflict mass casualties, demonstrated that at least some terrorist groups are capable of acquiring and using chemical weapons. One month later, in April 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and injuring more than 700. Perpetrated by a lone actor influenced by right-wing ideology, this unprecedented attack brought the threat of mass-casualty terrorism--albeit with conventional explosives--to the American heartland.

In the aftermath of these events, some analysts declared that a new era of terrorism had emerged, one involving a sea change in terrorist tactics and goals. With religion arguably replacing politics as the primary motivation for terrorist groups in the 1980s and 1990s, it was possible to envision terrorist groups relatively unconstrained by societal norms and seeking to inflict higher levels of violence than more "traditional" terrorist organizations. For example, Usama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the August 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, openly declared an interest in acquiring WMD for attacks against American targets. At the same time, the spread of dual-use technologies and materials relevant to WMD to state-sponsors of terrorism, and the lack of controls on weapons materials and know-how in the former Soviet Union, suggested that the barriers to terrorist acquisition and use of WMD had eroded.

Since 1995, the United States has allocated enormous resources to combating WMD terrorism. Numerous government programs have been created in an effort to prevent and deter terrorism or to mitigate the effects of a major attack should it occur. These efforts have focused largely on enhancing the ability of local first responders to decontaminate and treat survivors, augmented by additional capabilities at the state and federal levels. But analysts have criticized the significant overlap and redundancy among various federal counterterrorism programs, as well as the lack of a clear strategy for integrating these diverse elements into a coherent whole.

U.S. counterterrorism efforts have also been developed in the absence of a realistic assessment of terrorist motivations and capabilities for using WMD. The Aum Shinrikyo experience, in particular, does not appear to be widely applicable. Aum certainly represents a threatening type of group, but one that is so rare that it cannot serve as a reliable indicator of things to come. Critics have also pointed out the significant technical hurdles to WMD acquisition and use. Despite Aum's vast financial resources and scientific expertise, it was unable to perpetrate true mass-casualty attacks with either chemical or biological weapons. This observation suggests that terrorist acquisition and delivery of WMD are difficult to carry out effectively.

The threat of WMD terrorism remains poorly understood, however, suggesting the need for further empirical study based on the analysis of historical cases as well as an assessment of emerging threats. The following web-based resources offer insight into this ongoing debate.

Related Resources

Articles and Reports

Amy Smithson and Leslie-Anne Levy, Ataxia: The Chemical and Biological Terrorism Threat and the US Response, Stimson Center Report No. 35 (October 2000).
http://www.stimson.org/cwc/ataxia.htm

Jean Pascal Zanders, "Assessing the Risks of Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation to Terrorists," The Nonproliferation Review 6 (Fall 1999), pp. 17-34.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol06/64/zander64.pdf

Ehud Sprinzak, "The Great Superterrorism Scare," Foreign Policy (Fall 1998), pp. 110-124.
http://radiobergen.org/terrorism/super-1.html

Bruce Hoffman, "Terrorism and WMD: Some Preliminary Hypotheses," The Nonproliferation Review 4 (Spring-Summer 1997), pp. 45-53.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol04/43/hoffma43.pdf

Chronologies and Charts

2000 WMD Terrorism Chronology: Incidents Involving Sub-National Actors and Chemical, Biological, Radiological, or Nuclear Materials, Center for Nonproliferation Studies (April 2001).
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/cbrn2k.htm

Chronology of Aum Shinrikyo's CBW Activities, Center for Nonproliferation Studies (March 2001).
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/aum_chrn.htm

Resource Page for Agricultural Terrorism, Center for Nonproliferation Studies (September 2000).
http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/agromain.htm

Organizational Chart of US Terrorism Response, Center for Nonproliferation Studies (July 2000).
http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/domestic.htm#wmdchart

Op-Eds and Opinion Pieces

Jason Pate, "Better Plan Needed to Curb Epidemics," Newsday, November 29, 2000, p. A43.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/patend.htm

Jonathan B. Tucker and Amy Sands, "An Unlikely Threat," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Vol. 55 (July/August 1999), pp. 46-52.
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1999/ja99/ja99tucker.html

Ehud Sprinzak, "What Is The Real Threat, WMD or Car Bombs? Terrorism, Real and Imagined," Washington Post, August 19, 1998, p. A21.
http://www.infowar.com/class_3/class3_082498a_j.shtml

Jessica Stern, "Taking the Terror Out of Bioterrorism," New York Times, April 8, 1998.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/stern.htm

Official Documents and Reports

U.S. General Accounting Office, Combating Terrorism: Comments on Counterterrorism Leadership and National Strategy, testimony document no. [GAO-01-556T], March 27, 2001.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=gao&docid=f:d01556t.pdf

Assessing the Threat, First Annual Report to the President and the Congress, Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, [Gilmore Commission Report], December 15, 1999.
http://www.rand.org/nsrd/terrpanel/terror.pdf

Combating Terrorism: Need for Comprehensive Threat and Risk Assessments of Chemical and Biological Attacks, report to U.S. General Accounting Office [NSIAD-99-163] (September 1999).
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/multidb.cgi

Congressional Testimony

U.S. House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, Combating Terrorism: Federal Response to a Biological Weapons Attack, July 23, 2001.
http://www.house.gov/reform/ns/web_resources/briefing_memo_july_23.htm

U.S. House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, Testimony of James Clapper, Jr., April 24, 2001.
http://www.house.gov/transportation/pbed/04-24-01/clapper.html

U.S. House Committee on Government Reform, Transportation and Infrastructure, The Honorable Wayne T. Gilchrest Joint Hearing Testimony, April 24, 2001.
http://www.house.gov/transportation/pbed/04-24-01/gilchrest.html

U.S. House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, Combating Terrorism: In Search of a National Strategy, March 27, 2001.
http://www.house.gov/reform/ns/web_resources/news_release_march_27.htm

U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security, Veteran Affairs, and International Relations, Combating Terrorism: Assessing Threats, Risk Management, and Establishing Priorities by John Parachini, July 26,2000.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/paraterr.htm

U.S. General Accounting Office, Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Emergency Management, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Combating Terrorism: Issues in Managing Counterterrorist Programs by Norman J. Rabkin, April 6, 2000.
http://www.house.gov/transportation/pbed/04-06-00/rabkin.html

U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security, Veteran Affairs, and International Relations, Assessing the Threat of Bioterrorism by Ray Zilinskas, October 20, 1999.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/zilin.htm

Court Documents

Center for Nonproliferation Studies, WMD Terrorism and Usama bin Laden, March 7, 2001.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/binladen.htm

Books and Print Material

Jonathan B. Tucker, ed., Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (MIT Press, 2000).

Jessica Stern, The Ultimate Terrorists (Harvard University Press, 2000).

National Research Council, Chemical and Biological Terrorism: Research and Development to Improve Civilian Medical Response (National Research Council, National Academy Press, 2000).

Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (Columbia University Press, 1999).

Ian O. Lesser, et al, Countering the New Terrorism (RAND Corporation, 1999).

Simon Reeve The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism, (Northeastern University Press, 1999).

Richard A. Falkenrath, et al., America's Achilles' Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (MIT Press, 1998).

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Preparation of this material was supported by a grant from the Nuclear Threat Initiative. An updated version of this report will be published on the NTI web site in October 2001 at www.nti.org.