[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING TERRORISM: ASSESSING THE THREAT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 20, 1999
__________
Serial No. 106-109
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
63-765 WASHINGTON : 2000
______
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
Carla J. Martin, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida TOM LANTOS, California
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
JOHN L. MICA, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
Carolina BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
LEE TERRY, Nebraska (Independent)
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
Michele Lang, Professional Staff Member
Robert Newman, Professional Staff Member
Jason Chung, Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on October 20, 1999................................. 1
Statement of:
Hinton, Henry L., Jr., Assistant Comptroller General,
National Security and International Affairs Division,
General Accounting Office, accompanied by Deborah A.
Colantonio, Senior Evaluator; and Davi M. D'Agostino,
Assistant Director......................................... 9
Jenkins, Brian M., senior advisor to the president, RAND;
John V. Parachini, senior associate, Center for
Nonproliferation Studies, Monterrey Institute of
International Studies; and Raymond Zilinskas, senior
scientist in residence, Biological and Toxin Arms Control,
Monterey Institute of International Studies................ 37
Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:
Blagojevich, Hon. Rod R., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Illinois, prepared statement of............... 6
Hinton, Henry L., Jr., Assistant Comptroller General,
National Security and International Affairs Division,
General Accounting Office:
Information concerning the Chemical Weapons Convention... 30
Prepared statement of.................................... 13
Jenkins, Brian M., senior advisor to the president, RAND,
prepared statement of...................................... 40
Parachini, John V., senior associate, Center for
Nonproliferation Studies, Monterrey Institute of
International Studies, prepared statement of............... 49
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 3
Zilinskas, Raymond, senior scientist in residence, Biological
and Toxin Arms Control, Monterey Institute of International
Studies, prepared statement of............................. 77
COMBATING TERRORISM: ASSESSING THE THREAT
----------
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1999
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans
Affairs, and International Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher
Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Shays, Souder, Terry, and
Blagojevich.
Staff present: Lawrence J. Halloran, staff director and
counsel; Michele Lang and Robert Newman, professional staff
members; Jason Chung, clerk; David Rapallo, minority counsel;
and Earley Green, minority staff assistant.
Mr. Shays. I would like to call this hearing to order.
We are going to be having a vote, but I will see if I can
get some of the preliminaries done.
This is our fifth hearing on Federal efforts to combat
terrorism at home and abroad. In previous sessions, we examined
governmentwide spending coordination and specific programs to
train first responders, deploy National Guard rapid response
teams and strengthen public health capabilities to deal with
weapons of mass destruction.
Underlying all that testimony was one question: How should
we fix spending priorities and establish programs to meet an
inherently unpredictable, constantly changing threat?
To address that question, we asked the General Accounting
Office [GAO], to examine one dimension of the threat: the
scientific and practical aspects of terrorists carrying out
large-scale chemical or biological attacks on U.S. soil. Their
report discusses the degrees of difficulty terrorists face when
trying to acquire, process, improvise and disseminate certain
chemical and biological agents to inflict mass casualties of
1,000 or more. GAO recommends using that type of information to
improve systematic threat assessments and refine Federal
program targeting.
That will not be easy. By its nature, terrorism partakes of
the irrational and will not always succumb to rational
dissection by the tools of threat assessment and risk
management. Any rigid ranking of terrorists' histories,
capabilities, and intentions appears to equate likelihood with
lethality, understating the threat posed by low probability,
yet highly consequential, chemical and biological attacks.
But the threat can just as easily be overstated.
Vulnerability alone is an inadequate measure, drawing scarce
resources in 1,000 directions. Preparing for every worst case
scenario is neither practical nor affordable and carries the
additional risk we terrorize ourselves by starving other fiscal
priorities and surrendering civil liberties.
As the threat of biological and chemical terrorism evolves,
so should our response. Just as we learned to assess, and to a
degree accept, the nuclear threat in the 1950's and 1960's, our
assessment of the risks posed by terrorism will need to adapt
to the changing world environment of the next century.
Federal programs, not known for flexibility or
adaptability, will need to change as well. What will guide
those changes? Increasingly sophisticated judgments or
generalized fears? Prudent planning or budgetary momentum?
These are the issues we will confront today, and in future
hearings, as our oversight continues.
Our witnesses this morning bring significant expertise and
insight to our discussion of an important national security
issue. We appreciate their time and look forward to their
testimony.
At this time, I ask if Mr. Souder has any comments he would
like to make.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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Mr. Souder. No.
Mr. Shays. Let me take care of unanimous consents. I ask
unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be
permitted to place an opening statement in the record and that
the record remain open for 3 days for that purpose, and without
objection, so ordered.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Rod R. Blagojevich
follows:]
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Mr. Shays. I ask further unanimous consent that all
witnesses be permitted to include their written statements in
the record and, without objection, so ordered.
As our first witness, we have Henry Hinton, Jr., Assistant
Comptroller General, National Security and International
Affairs Division, General Accounting Office; and Deborah A.
Colantonio and Davi M. D'Agostino. And would you state your
titles?
Ms. Colantonio. I am a Senior Evaluator.
Ms. D'Agostino. I am an Assistant Director.
Mr. Shays. Why don't you start your testimony? I think you
will be able to finish, and then we will have a vote.
Mr. Hinton. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Souder----
Mr. Shays. Excuse me, we do swear everyone in, including
yourself.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. For the record, everyone has responded in the
affirmative.
We will do 5 minutes and then roll the clock over for
another 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF HENRY L. HINTON, JR., ASSISTANT COMPTROLLER
GENERAL, NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS DIVISION,
GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY DEBORAH A.
COLANTONIO, SENIOR EVALUATOR; AND DAVI M. D'AGOSTINO, ASSISTANT
DIRECTOR
Mr. Hinton. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Souder, I am pleased to be
here this morning to discuss our recent report on combating
terrorism that you referred to.
I will first discuss the ease or difficulty for terrorists
to conduct large-scale chemical and biological attacks.
Second, I will cover the extent to which the threat of such
attacks have been assessed.
But before I begin, Mr. Chairman, I want to clarify for you
what we did and what we did not do in our work.
We consulted with experts in numerous fields to look at the
scientific and practical aspects of terrorists successfully
carrying out large-scale chemical or biological attacks that
might cause mass casualties of at least 1,000. We also
considered the fact that the terrorists would be operating
illegally and outside a state-run laboratory or weapon program.
We did not address the possibility of a rogue scientist or
official from a state program providing agents or their weapons
from their programs to a terrorist organization, nor did we
examine the ease or difficulty for states to successfully
produce these weapons.
Overall, Mr. Chairman, we found that terrorists trying to
make chemical or biological weapons would have to overcome a
number of significant technical challenges to cause mass
casualties. Some people might be surprised because this
conflicts with the many suggestions that have been made in the
media and elsewhere that it is easy to prepare agents in your
kitchen, your bathtub and your garage.
Chemical and biological experts and intelligence agency
officials believe that ease or difficulty for terrorists to
cause mass casualties with an improvised weapon or device
depends on the agent selected. Experts from the scientific
intelligence and law enforcement communities told us that
terrorists did not need sophisticated knowledge or
dissemination methods to use toxic industrial chemicals such as
chlorine. In contrast, terrorists would need a relatively high
degree of sophistication to successfully cause mass casualties
with some other chemical and most biological agents.
Specialized knowledge would be needed to acquire the right
biological agent or precursor chemicals, process the chemical
or biological agent, improvise a weapon and disseminate it.
Throughout the different stages of the process, terrorists
would run the risk of hurting themselves and being detected and
would have to overcome these challenges.
Let me break these down further, Mr. Chairman, and call
your attention to this chart that is before you. It gives you
an idea of some of the stages and the challenges that go into
making these types of weapons.
Note the cloud in the upper left-hand corner. A terrorist
would need to possess certain technical skills. Experts in the
various fields, including those formerly with state-sponsored
weapons programs, told us that many skills are required to
successfully research, develop, produce and disseminate weapons
of this type. For example, knowledge and expertise in the
fields of physics, meteorology, microbiology and chemistry
would come into play.
Also, when dealing with biological weapons, experts agree
that only those individuals who work on weaponizing agents in a
state biological warfare program are likely to possess the
specialized knowledge.
Next as shown in the top box, a terrorist would need to
acquire basic chemicals or infectious biological seed cultures.
Basic chemicals necessary for the production of some chemical
agents are controlled by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.
Chemical experts told us that illegal acquisition of large
quantities of precursor chemicals would raise red flags, and
most nerve agents like sarin have to be delivered in large
quantities. The critical exception to this and other challenges
for making a chemical attack is toxic industrial chemicals.
Chemicals like chlorine or phosgene are ready available. They
don't require any mixing. They are dangerous just the way that
they are.
A hurdle for terrorists trying to make biological weapons
is to get sufficiently deadly or infectious seed stocks of the
bacteria or virus, especially since controls over these stocks
have improved. In our former biological warfare program the
United States investigated numerous strains of biological
warfare agents before finding ones that were highly infectious.
In the second box, terrorists would need to synthesize
chemical agents or grow biological agents. For some chemical
agents, a terrorist must mix the right amounts of different
types of chemicals together in an appropriate container.
Biological agents are relatively easy to grow, but a terrorist
has to be very careful not to contaminate them with other
bacteria or viruses that might kill or interfere with the
agents' effects.
Even if a terrorist goes through this stage, there are more
stages to complete. As shown in the third box, a terrorist
would need to process the agents into a form that can be
effectively delivered. Specialized knowledge is needed because
some steps in the production process of nerve agents are
difficult and hazardous. A technical challenge includes
containing highly toxic gases. For biological agents, a
terrorist has to make a wet or dry product with the right
particle size to form a stable aerosol so that the particles
reach the small air sacs deep in the lungs. And if a terrorist
is trying to make the dry product, special precautions would
need to be taken to avoid killing the biological agent in the
process.
As depicted in the fourth box, a terrorist would have to
improvise an agent delivery device to cause mass casualties.
Even if the chemical agents can be produced successfully, they
must be released effectively as a vapor or as an aerosol to be
inhaled.
Another method for certain chemicals is to spray large
droplets for skin penetration, and for biological agents a
terrorist would have to use the right equipment with the right
speed to disseminate the agent effectively. If the biological
agent is not stabilized and disseminated with the proper energy
rate, then the biological agent can lose its ability to cause
injury.
Last, in the fifth box, and the remaining cloud, a
terrorist would have to effectively release the selected agent
to cause mass casualties. Both chemical and biological agents
need to maintain their strength during release. This is a
challenge posed by the very nature of the agents themselves.
Terrorists must also deal with additional hurdles. For
example, outdoor delivery of agents can be disrupted by
environmental and meteorological conditions. If wind conditions
are too erratic or strong, the agent might dissipate.
Terrorists risk capture and personal safety in acquiring
and processing materials, disposing of by-products and
releasing the agents. Many agents are dangerous to handle. In
some cases, the lack of an effective vaccine, antibiotic,
antiviral treatment or antidote poses the same risk to the
terrorist as it does to the targeted population.
Let me turn now to the second issue regarding the extent to
which threat and risk assessments have been done. As you know,
numerous Federal agencies--and you have made reference to that
in your remarks--are spending billions of dollars and
initiating several new programs to prepare for the possibility
of a terrorist attack. It is not clear that these investments
are targeted toward the right program solutions in the right
amounts.
We have found that the intelligence community has assessed
the more likely chemical and biological threat agents to be
used by foreign terrorists, but there is no comparable formal
assessment that has been done by the FBI for domestic origin
threats.
Also, we determined that there is need for a national level
assessment that would enable the Nation to focus on the more
likely chemical and biological threats. If done properly, this
risk assessment would also target our programs and resources
more effectively and economically.
In our report we recommended that the Attorney General
direct the FBI to perform these assessments to help establish
and prioritize program requirements. The Justice Department
agreed with us on the need for these assessments, as did the
Department of Defense and the CIA.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my summary remarks. My
colleagues and I will be pleased to respond to your questions.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hinton follows:]
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Mr. Shays. I just want to note for the record that Lee
Terry is here as well.
I am going to recognize you, Mr. Souder, first, but that is
after I ask one question. Mr. Hinton, do you believe a nuclear,
biological or chemical attack will take place in the United
States sometime in the next 20 years?
Mr. Hinton. Based on what we have seen in our work, Mr.
Chairman, we are being advised by the intelligence community
that the likelihood that this could happen, an attempt of this
sort, is growing.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Mr. Souder.
Mr. Souder. Pardon my voice. I don't have much of one
today.
In the bulk of your presentation you were talking about the
difficulty of terrorists kind of having the ability to execute
an attack that I believe you said in your opening paragraph,
defined as at least 1,000 deaths. Does this change if you lower
that? Could there be less than a mass catastrophe?
Mr. Hinton. Just going through the process, it is very
difficult to successfully pull that off--to cause casualties at
levels of 1,000 or a couple hundred. I think, as we saw in
Japan not too long ago, it wasn't a quality effort. It did
affect a small population. That event, even though small, was
serious. What was larger was probably the psychological impact
that resuslts from such an incident regardless of the number of
casualties.
My answer is, as you look at whether 1,000, several
hundred, I think the steps that we have talked about, the
operational and technical parts have to be done in such a way
as to be effective before you can have that level of casualty.
Mr. Shays. Would the gentleman just suspend? I am going to
vote quickly and have you carry on, and just leave with 5
minutes to go, and then we will reconvene when I return.
Mr. Souder [presiding]. In the difficulty of delivery
systems, the knowledge that this requires and so on, would that
not suggest on the surface that foreign threats are probably
more serious than domestic threats?
Mr. Hinton. I think, Mr. Souder, until we see an analysis
of the various threats, both that have been done by the
intelligence community and those that we have asked the FBI to
undertake, and that using that information and going through a
risk assessment process which isolates scenarios, which might
have as their base the different types of agents that would be
involved, to look at the likelihood of these events occurring
and if they did occur, what would be the criticality of the
events, I don't know which part of those threats are more
serious than the other.
I think this is very important as part of the process that
governmental agencies that are working this issue need to go
through. And in doing that and in coming to those solutions it
gives them a way to manage the most serious risk that they see.
It might not alleviate all of the risk, but it puts us into a
position to come up with countermeasures to go after the higher
order of risks that are out there. I don't think that there is
any substitute for having good intelligence and contingency
planning along these lines.
Mr. Souder. It has been hard to get a handle around the
different types of threat. By showing the difficulty, it
narrows it. This is especially true when you are talking about
a domestic situation and American citizens and trying to
analyze this without getting into overly classified and high-
risk information. We have had public testimony here that most
of the foreign threat to American citizens have come from Osama
bin Laden and his network because they had some of the delivery
systems, at least in a regional way, and then Japan, the FARC,
but very few networks have done that.
When you start to get into domestic, it starts to get
really hairy. I have talked to Mr. Blitzer a number of times
about what kinds of groups do you target. Do you say, we have
had some pro-life protesters protest at clinics; therefore, any
of them at this time could theoretically do this. What about
people who are part of the Montana group or whatever, the
citizen rights groups? And all of a sudden you are speculative.
How would you start to apply some of what you have here to
a domestic analysis, because you have raised that? And given
the type of technical things that you say here, for example,
would people who have worked at a biological or a chemical lab
who have been fired or who have been unstable, would you start
tracking those kinds of people? You are saying that there are
technical things that are needed and it is not just an
ideological anger. You need technical people. How do you bring
that together along with the question of their American
citizenship?
Mr. Hinton. One, getting the FBI to be supportive of the
recommendation that we made to move domestically in this regard
is a good first step. It starts dealing with the question of
who/what might be the type of threat that is out there.
This is evolving. It is not quick and easy, and it is
something that we constantly have to come back to revisit, and
update as events around the country change or change overseas.
I think that a first step, then allows you to identify what
that threat might be and then start putting that threat along
with other information from the law enforcement community, the
intelligence community that we have and other sources together
to start assessing each of those threats from where they might
come. Then look upon what is the likelihood that you might have
an event and come up with countermeasures against various
dependent scenarios.
That threat might be multiple things that you have to look
at, chemical and biological agents being a part of it, as well
as any threats along conventional lines of using bombs, or
explosives, which seem to be the more prominent part that we
see here now in the United States.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
I will yield to Mr. Terry.
Mr. Terry. A couple of quick questions so we can go vote.
Just picking up on a couple of your answers in the portion
of your testimony that I heard--sorry about being late--is
there a problem at the FBI? Are they dragging their feet on
this issue? It seems that some of the answers--you are not
saying it overtly, but is one of the barriers to implementing a
more cohesive policy involving the FBI; and if you say that the
FBI needs to become more involved, is there a problem there?
Mr. Hinton. No, Mr. Terry, I don't want you to think that.
When we first got into this our thinking was at a much broader
community level, but as we worked with the intelligence
community, DOD, HHS, and the others, the FBI came up and said,
we ought to be the agency that sponsors a national-level risk
assessment.
Mr. Terry. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Hinton. Yes. All of the Federal players felt that we
should put that responsibility with the FBI.
Mr. Terry. Why should they be the hub of the spokes?
Mr. Hinton. They have the lead responsibility in crisis
events, and they have a pretty good ability to tap into the
communities out there in terms of different intelligence
sources and the threats that are out there.
I don't want you to think, too, that they have been
inactive in this debate. They have gone through quite a bit of
research on their own and have come up with broad groupings of
the different types of threats out there, but we have not
advanced domestically like I think we have internationally in
looking at the specific threats that are out there, and that is
what we were trying to move to, to isolate the specific threats
that might be reason for concern.
Mr. Terry. Where are we in the process here?
Another hint that I interpreted from your answers and your
statement is that we have a lot of people talking and studying
and looking at it. Now we need to tie everybody together. That
has probably been haphazard to date but is probably the first
step. First of all, you have to identify that there is an issue
and then a need. The second part is becoming cohesive and tying
that into a plan.
Where are we in that process? Do we need to focus
everybody? Are we to that next phase where we can be more
comprehensive?
Mr. Hinton. We are at that stage. We have been looking at
this for several years, and what we have seen is a growth in
the Federal expenditures throughout the government to address
in this whole arena.
What we have not seen through our work a process to put in
place the identification of the various threats and an
assessment process that will allow you to take those threats
and related scenarios to come up with countermeasures for those
in some coordinated fashion. That has been the subject of
several recommendations that we have made. I am pleased that we
have gotten a response at this point to move in that direction.
I think it is constructive. I think the more intelligence that
we gain, the more contingency planning, the process will only
get better as it goes forward.
Mr. Terry. One last question. Now developing this next
phase as you described, the FBI's involvement as being the hub
here to help us organize focus, become comprehensive, where are
they in the process of implementing any of these
recommendations, Nunn-Lugar, Domenici? Where are they in the
process?
Mr. Hinton. I think they are in the early beginnings of it.
On the Nunn-Lugar, we had a recommendation a while back,
and it was picked up in the 1999 defense authorization
legislation for them to develop some methodologies and assess
the possibility of weapons of mass destruction threat against
several cities. They were given about a year I think from when
that legislation passed to complete the task. They are not at
the point of fully executing that yet. They have started
working the methodologies, and I think they are going to be
evolving in this area.
Mr. Terry. Thank you.
Mr. Hinton. Yes, sir, Mr. Terry.
Mr. Shays [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Hinton.
We made a decision to have this hearing public, and we
invited DOD and the CIA to come and testify, but their
preference is to testify in a hearing that would not be open to
the public and therefore we could get at the issues that we
can't get into in a public forum like this.
In the question do you believe that a nuclear or chemical
or biological attack could happen in the 20 years, your answer
was that it is appearing more and more likely that we will have
to deal to some degree with one of those three types of weapons
of mass destruction.
Mr. Hinton. Mr. Chairman, I think the keyword here is an
``attempt'' in the chemical and biological area and that is
where I would like to have my remarks focused. On the nuclear
side, I haven't done the research yet to comment on that.
Mr. Shays. Tell me the difference--terrorists don't play by
the same rules, so tell me the difference between dealing with
a rogue nation, a nation that might use one of these three
weapons of mass destruction and a terrorist organization?
Mr. Hinton. Well, I think if you look at it from a state
environment, you have more resources. You probably have access
to expertise that you need. You might well have a sophisticated
machine that can move in that direction to do those types of
things. I guess it is the goals and the intent that they want
to advance.
I think also that you have to look at the in objectives.
And when it comes to a terrorist, the question is, do they have
the same capacity that a state-sponsored organization might
have? Would they have the same level of resources and the same
knowledge and those types of things? Also, you have to look
into the motives and the objectives which they are trying to
achieve.
Mr. Shays. Versus the terrorists--a terrorist has to live
somewhere, so there has to be some environment that enables
them to exist and potentially train and so on.
What is the likelihood that--if we are dealing with foreign
terrorists, that we would know the country that basically has
sponsored them or has allowed them to live there?
Mr. Hinton. We are getting very close to some of the
concerns that I think the CIA and others raised to you.
Mr. Shays. Let me put it this way. In most instances, do we
believe that we would know if a terrorist was sponsored by a
foreign country?
Mr. Hinton. I think that the intelligence community would
probably have indications of that based on their research.
Mr. Shays. In determining the risks, we asked you to look
at casualties of over 1,000 or more. If that number were to
drop to 200 injuries, would your study be all that different?
Mr. Hinton. No, sir, I don't think it would. Probably to
have casualties of that magnitude you almost need to go through
the same process discussed here in terms of coming up with and
overcoming the challenges that one would have in coming up with
an agent or a device to cause that magnitude of casualties.
The events that we saw in Japan not too long ago, the
casualties of deaths were smaller but a large number were
injuries, and that was serious. But I think also, looking at
that incident there is a huge psychological impact that comes
along when you see events like that.
But I think in terms of whether I would lower from 1,000 to
200, I wouldn't see much difference in terms of the technical
and operational challenges.
Mr. Shays. When I read your report, I thought in a way--my
first reaction was that it seemed to minimize the threat to me
a bit. Then I thought about it more and changed my view a bit.
Let me say that there was a student before I was a Member
of Congress who lived in Norwalk, CT and went to Princeton, and
his assignment was to see if he could go to material in any--in
some of our libraries, material that would be available and
construct a nuclear weapon. And he ended up doing that. We are
going back I think 18 years ago. So the thought now is that one
doesn't have to go anywhere other than just turn on their
computer. The ability to make--to know--to have the directions
on how to make a nuclear or chemical or biological agent is
pretty much available. So then the issue is do you have the
technical skills to be able to make--let us just talk chemical
or biological.
We have Americans and foreigners who obviously have
tremendous technical skills. Am I to infer that just because it
requires--I say just--am I to infer that having the technical
skill makes it unlikely that a nuclear or biological agent
won't occur? Or should I make an assumption that there are
enough people who possess these technical skills that we need
to be concerned? In other words, I want you to walk me through
this chart, particularly the side corners, and have you tell me
what that really means. Start with possess requisite technical
skills first.
Mr. Hinton. Well, you need specialized skills in this
arena. There are a lot of risks. The process gets into
acquiring, handling, processing, and manufacturing. To
understand those risks and to deal with them and come up an
agent that can be weaponized is technically challenging, with
the exception of toxic industrial chemicals such as chlorine,
which is already in the commercial market.
Mr. Shays. One of the basic points in the report was that a
chemical agent is more likely than biological because a
chemical agent can be bought in an industrial setting?
Mr. Hinton. Right. Those such as chlorine and phosgene.
Mr. Shays. There are literally potentially not just
thousands of people, but tens of thousands, even hundreds of
thousands of people who possess the technical skills. We are
not talking about just a few geniuses around the country.
Mr. Hinton. That is correct. You are right on that. But
there is a lot of information that is not publicly available,
we know, Mr. Chairman, that would be needed to successfully go
through all of these processes and weaponize an agent.
Mr. Shays. Let's just take them one at a time.
First off, the technical skills, we have hundreds of
thousands of people potentially----
Mr. Hinton. Right.
Mr. Shays [continuing]. With those technical skills. You
realize when we put the whole package together we minimize,
fortunately, the number. And I realize that in going through a
process like this, it can help us find out where we need to
focus our time and attention.
So I think this is--but I just want to--I don't want us to
dismiss it by saying that someone needs technical skills as if
we don't have to be concerned.
Mr. Hinton. No. I understand where you are going right now.
It has got to be the people with certain motives. They might be
individuals or groups. Not everyone who has those technical
skills are going to want to participate, depending on the
motives or the skill or the objectives of what the terrorist
might want to do.
Mr. Shays. It seems what I am hearing is, in one case, you
need one kind of technical skill, and then in order to get it
through to the point at which it becomes a weapon, you've had a
lot of different people with different skills come into play.
So, in other words, one person--I guess one of the messages
that I am getting is a Unabomber may be able to make a bomb,
but it is less likely that they are going to be able to make a
weapon of mass destruction, clearly nuclear, but also chemical
or biological, there is going to be more than one person that
is going to have to be involved?
Mr. Hinton. I would say that is probably the case unless
they have had past experience.
Mr. Shays. But as I go down this chart, you start out with
biological or chemical cultures. You have to acquire and
synthesize, you have to process and then you have to deliver
the system. They are all going to take different skills.
Mr. Hinton. Right. As my statement--in the remarks, there
are different types of skills, from physicists, meteorologists,
those types of people, you are going to need their technical
knowledge. From the research that we have done and the people
that we have spoken to, you are going to have to bring a host
of those technical skills to bear in this issue.
Mr. Shays. Which suggests to me that, in many instances,
they are going to have to have the cooperation of a country
that is willing to--the more vigilant a country is, the more
difficult it is going to be for someone to have this kind of
activity take place in that country. The more friendly that
country is to a terrorist's efforts, obviously the more likely
it is going to happen. This is the challenge.
The bottom line is that we are spending over $10 billion a
year trying to deal with a chemical or biological threat. One
danger would be to minimize the likelihood because then that
gives us a false sense of comfort. Another danger is for us to
make it more dramatic than it is. But the bottom line is that
you even felt this way. There are a number of us who feel that
a nuclear or chemical or biological terrorist attack is--is not
a question of if, it is a question of where and when and to
what degree.
We want to make sure that we are maximizing all of our
resources, and that is the purpose of your report, to say that
we are going to have to make choices. I am trying to get a
feeling for how you begin to compartmentalize this effort and
begin to know how to do that.
When you say technical skills, I am struck with the fact
that is not a significant barrier. There are a lot of people
with technical skills. The challenge begins when you try to
synthesize this whole effort and get the people who have those
skills coming together. And as soon as you get more than one
person involved, then the phrase on the right side as I look at
your chart ``avoid detection by authorities,'' becomes more and
more difficult.
Could you speak to some personal risk where no vaccines or
antidotes are available?
Mr. Hinton. Do you want to take that?
Ms. Colantonio. Yes. It is almost a catch-22, Mr. Chairman.
If terrorists were to work with in particular a biological
weapon and if they were not able to vaccinate themselves, they
run the risk of hurting themselves.
But if we want to step back and go through the process of
handling the biological agent, whether it be a virus or a
bacteria, and they are growing it and they are processing it
and working with it and they are working with specialized
equipment and specialized types of ingredients that they need
to use to get to a liquid or to a dry form, they run the risk
of perhaps inhaling the agent themselves. If the terrorists
don't have the proper vaccines or if there are not proper
antidotes available, they could possibly harm themselves,
infect themselves or die.
Let me give you an example. When you work with a dry
biological agent and you have rubber gloves on, a dry
biological agent tends to stick to your gloves. That poses a
risk. That is a concrete example of a risk factor for a
terrorist. So you have the biological agent on your gloves. It
is sticking to your gloves. And so if you have somebody pull
the gloves off for you, that individual can be infected perhaps
or if you happen to inhale this because we know you--the
process of inhaling any type of biological weapon and in some
cases chemical weapons one can become ill.
Mr. Shays. Describe to me the differences between the
challenges for the terrorist with a chemical versus biological?
Ms. Colantonio. For example, for chemical agents, there is
a process where these agents are corrosive. There are nasty by-
products that have to be dealt with and disposed of. You have
to, for example, get the right temperatures for the materials.
So you have to be careful when heating or cooling. You have to
handle highly toxic gases.
With biological agents, when you are dealing with a wet
agent, you are growing your media, and you have to, from your
wet media, get your actual live bacteria or virus out of your
growth material so you have to filter out the by-product from
your growth. If you were to stop there, then you have to get
this into containers or store it. So, again, there are by-
products that you have to dispose of.
If you want to go from a liquid biological agent to a dry
biological agent, you have to go through a drying process and
you've some risks involved there in terms of just handling the
material, at all stages carefully.
You also have to--for example, with biological agents have
to have the right respiratory equipment, like a filter that you
are breathing with, and you have to make sure that you are
secure, you have a secure hood that won't let these particles
into your mouth, nose, or eyes.
Mr. Hinton. To bring that back to your question about the
skills: the skills that you need to weaponize, whether it be
chemical or biological, are not as plentiful as we might think.
I think that is important from the perspective we were
discussing a little while ago about the skills. It is all the
delicate parts that Deborah was bringing out to you there. As
you move through that process in the various stages, the
weaponization is a real critical part of this, for which the
skill base may not be as plentiful.
Mr. Shays. The chemical weapon convention hasn't been fully
adopted and defined, correct?
Mr. Hinton. That's correct. Not everybody has signed up to
it.
Mr. Shays. How many chemical companies are subject to
inspection under the CWC, the Chemical Weapons Convention?
Mr. Hinton. I don't have that, Mr. Chairman. We can get
that and provide it for the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.015
Mr. Shays. If, say, 1,000 of the chemical companies who are
subject to inspection, what are the chances of a sham company
receiving a chemical weapon, precursor chemicals being
inspected?
Mr. Hinton. I don't have a good answer. We have not looked
at that issue, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. When we were in Geneva, that was one of the
questions that we were trying to get a handle on. You have a
certain group that play by the rules, but we just wonder if
others can get the precursors that ultimately lead to the
weapon.
In the chart that you gave us, you talk about the stages
and then the obstacles. One of the obstacles I note that is not
there is money. How come?
Mr. Hinton. We could add that. There is another one that is
not there either, testing. Money and testing are two that are
on our minds. What I was trying to do was walk you through the
operational aspects.
Mr. Shays. To make a better chart you can add those two.
Mr. Hinton. We will.
Mr. Shays. Are there any others?
Mr. Hinton. Money is an issue. Also testing, and testing in
the sense that once you have something, you want to make sure
that it works. And the only way you can find that out
beforehand is to test it, but there are risks associated with
that.
The other issue, too, while I think the chart is rich in
the sense of the stages and the challenges, is the time that is
involved in this process, too.
Mr. Shays. I note that we are joined by our ranking member.
I will continue to allow you an opportunity to catch up.
You mentioned in your testimony the smallpox virus is
available only in the United States of America and Russia.
Could it have been proliferated beyond Russia and how dangerous
is smallpox compared to anthrax?
Ms. D'Agostino. Based on our review throughout the entire
year that----
Mr. Shays. Could you lower your mic a little bit?
Ms. D'Agostino. Sorry.
Mr. Shays. That is all right.
Ms. D'Agostino. Based on our reviews, there was no credible
evidence available that the smallpox virus has been
proliferated to other countries or individuals.
What we don't know about is the level of security
specifically on the smallpox cultures in Russia. We don't have
really good, sound, corroborated information about that. We
also don't know whether or not terrorists really are interested
in getting smallpox and using it. So we are kind of short on
answers and other pertinent questions that you might want to
ask before you undertake a very large program.
In terms of smallpox, I guess everybody has billed it as a
low probability but high consequence attack scenario, and I
think we would agree with that. But, unlike anthrax, smallpox
is very contagious. And it is a severe illness with an
estimated fatality rate of about 30 percent, which is very low
compared to a successful inhalation anthrax attack which can
lead to an 80 to 90 percent lethality rate.
The vaccinations, obviously, have not been given for
smallpox for many years, partly because the disease has been
eradicated. It is just not clear to us at this time that
smallpox is a very attractive biological weapon for a terrorist
based on what we have seen.
Mr. Shays. Right. Thank you.
Could you please comment on Mr. Hamre's, the Deputy
Secretary of Defense, recent statement before the House Armed
Services Committee that, one, North Korea has weaponized
anthrax; and, two, it is easy to weaponize biological warfare
agents.
Mr. Hinton. We haven't seen the evidence to support Mr.
Hamre's statement that North Korea has weaponized. But it is
something that we would be happy to look into for you, Mr.
Chairman. Based on the evidence that we now have, we have a
disconnect.
On the second issue--easy to weaponize, that, too, is
different from the information that we have, and, as I have
discussed through the process, it is another area that I need
to inquire about so that we can understand the basis for those
statements.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Let me ask Mr. Blagojevich if he has questions, and then I
will just come back for a few more questions.
Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you.
Mr. Hinton, you evidently had made the point just moments
ago that the threat of a nuclear or biological attack has been
overstated and not nearly as threatening as some of the popular
literature lately might suggest. Can you tell us what you are
talking about when you say that and who is overstating that
threat and how they are doing it?
Mr. Hinton. My comment, Congressman, was more to the point
that, based on the information that we have received from the
work that we have done through the intelligence community and
all, that the data and the evidence would suggest that there
might be an attempt down the road in the chemical and
biological area. I have not had any review around the nuclear
area at this point, but it might be an attempt somewhere down
the road.
Mr. Blagojevich. Is it your conclusion that some of the
discussions in the public domain regarding a threat of a
chemical or biological terrorist attack has been overstated?
And if that is in fact your conclusion, can you give us
examples of where and who is doing it?
Mr. Hinton. Some overstatement has been made regarding how
to go about acquiring, manufacturing, weaponizing an agent, and
it has been made out to be easier than the evidence through our
work would suggest. We have discussed the various operational
and technical challenges to do this and--so it contradicts some
of what has been in the press and the media about how easy it
is to do.
Mr. Blagojevich. Your report states that potential
terrorist attacks carried out, and I am quoting from your
report, ``without access to state-run laboratories or weapons
programs.'' Now, limiting the qualifying--the discussion on
potential terrorist attacks by that statement, does that
arbitrarily restrict your analysis?
Ms. D'Agostino. We don't think that it arbitrarily
restricts our analysis. What it did was help define the
parameters of our analysis, and we don't see it as necessarily
a limiting factor.
The question that you raised by that scope definition is
whether or not a state actor would be willing to provide a
terrorist group or organization with their chemical or
biological weapons. That is a question that the intelligence
community has looked at, and we can't discuss their position on
that matter in this forum. But it has been looked at, and they
have come to conclusions and judgments about that very matter.
I think that in comment on our report, the Department of
Health and Human Services raised that issue, and we did say
that could be part of a risk assessment. But there are some
judgments out there on the part of the community about that
question. So you could factor that into the assessment.
Mr. Blagojevich. Some of the language in the report also
indicates receiving chemical or biological agents or weapons
from such countries, that being a statement in your report that
terrorists would not be--your conclusion is predicated on the
thought that terrorists would not have access to some of the
material from certain countries that may have it; is that true?
Is that essentially a fair statement of your report?
Mr. Hinton. Yes.
Mr. Blagojevich. OK. I am asking these questions in the
context of the fluidity of the material that we are talking
about and the experts that are presently leaving the former
Soviet Union. Russia has acknowledged--is acknowledged as the
world's largest stockpile of chemical agents, including 40,000
metric tons of chemical agents. It included various delivery
systems, such as artillery aerial bombs, rockets and missiles.
In 1992, Boris Yeltsin revealed that the Soviet Union conducted
its biological warfare program in violation of the 1972
Biological Weapons Convention.
My question is: With all of this information, do you
believe Soviet decentralization, the process going on now in
the former Soviet Union with all of the talk of criminal
syndicates and so forth, has this posed a significant concern
with regard to the flight of Russian scientists and materials?
Ms. Colantonio. Congressman, I think the one thing that we
have to remember is that if the chemical and biological agents
are stockpiled, in order to be effective and cause the mass
casualties, they have to be released effectively, be
disseminated, and be weaponized.
Our work--as Mr. Hinton has discussed earlier, there are
certain steps that you have to go through, and what we found in
our work is that as agents sit on the shelf, they possibly
could lose some of their stability and strength.
Now, in terms of rogue or errant former Soviet Union
scientists passing out information, we do not--there is no
credible evidence that suggests that is going on. In fact,
there was a senior fellow at the University of Maryland who did
some investigation on the Aum Shinrikyo group, and it was
suggested that the Aum had contacted a former Soviet Union
scientist to get his expertise, and it just appeared in the
media as if the scientist provided the Aum the information.
Through this investigation, it was suggested that the Aum
wasn't able to get any kind of technical information.
Mr. Blagojevich. The conclusions that some of you have
reached in terms of the threat of terrorism, did it contemplate
a terrorist organization that might purchase chemical agents or
a delivery system from a former Soviet state, or was that
consideration outside the parameters of your analysis and the
conclusions that you ultimately reached?
Ms. Colantonio. Congressman, that was outside our
parameters. What we wanted to look at was whether individuals,
whether they are defined as terrorists or religious sects or
cult groups, whether these individuals or groups of people can
actually perform the stages, OK, and do the science and
actually go from a growth media or a chemical to actually
effectively weaponize and release.
Mr. Blagojevich. So the concentration was on producing and
weaponizing the various agents, that was the concentration of
your study?
Ms. D'Agostino. Right, outside of the state-run
laboratories where you would have a lot of resources marshalled
around solving the types of problems in getting an effective
biological or chemical weapon.
Mr. Blagojevich. Having said that, is it fair to assume on
my part that you have excluded the possibility that this
technology could be stolen by a terrorist organization from a
foreign state? That is excluded from the analysis?
Ms. D'Agostino. It is excluded from our analysis, but we
are not ruling out the possibility. We did not weigh the
likelihood or the risk of that occurring.
Ms. Colantonio. May I add that, even if you have the
technology, you have to have the ``smarts'' in order to
weaponize, to disseminate, OK, a biological or chemical agent.
For example, with a biological agent, the best way to cause
casualties is to aerosolize the agent, and as Mr. Hinton
mentioned earlier in his remarks--you have to use the proper
equipment with the proper rates or speed and use of energy in
order to do this.
Not only that, some of the other clouds come into play in
terms of what a terrorist has to do, for example under the
right weather conditions.
Mr. Blagojevich. In closing here, let me throw out one
hypothetical. Iran has some money. They cultivate a Russian
scientist who needs money and has expertise in chemical and
biological matters. As part of a terrorist organization funded
by Iran, they have this person produce weaponized various
agents. They are prepared to steal products if necessary. That
kind of a hypothetical was not considered in terms of the
analysis that you are providing; and if in fact I am right,
then doesn't this undercut your conclusion that the threat has
been overstated by not considering all aspects of this threat?
Mr. Hinton. The specifics of that were not addressed as
part of this. It doesn't rule it out. I don't think that it
undercuts our conclusions, that to go through the entire
process that we have laid out and discussed this morning, that
it is highly dependent on the agent--whether it is a chemical
or biological agent that is chosen. It is not easy to do. It is
a challenge, and it is something that the intelligence
community looking overseas and the FBI looking domestically has
got to stay focused on. And I think that process is moving
right now toward assessing the various hypothetical scenarios
that we are talking about.
Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. You are basically making an interesting point to
me that all terrorists aren't the same, and I am stuck with the
fact that we are trying to develop a rational approach, which
is something that I tried to allude to in my statement, and we
are dealing in many cases with irrational terrorists.
We are going to have some interesting time in our next
panel going through this, but Raymond Zilinskas says, on page
12, kind of making reference to this, the last full paragraph,
``This problem may be illustrated by referring to the
microbiology technician Larry Wayne Harris. During an interview
conducted in September, 1999, by a German reporter, Harris was
asked whether he would use biological weapons. He replied, 'If
God tells me to do it, I will.''' And then he goes on to say
that no risk assessor would be in a position to determine if
and when God gives Harris, or others of his ilk, the requisite
command.
I think it is a cautionary word.
Would you describe how you envision a national threat and
risk management could be conducted? That is kind of a big
question. Maybe you can just kind of address it.
Mr. Hinton. Sure, Mr. Chairman, and I think our report does
a pretty good job of laying that out and how we envision that
working. Basically, the concept is that you would take all of
the available threat assessments that have been done throughout
the intelligence communities, both internationally and those
that we would have domestically through the FBI, that they have
agreed to do in response to our recommendation. This is a
starting point for the process of doing a risk assessment. And
we would think that then you would bring in a team of
multidisciplinary folks, from the law enforcement community,
from the science community and others, to weigh in on this,
particularly terrorism experts, that get at the point that you
just raised--to help sort through what are the likely threat
scenarios; what agents might be involved in those threat
scenarios and think through the likelihood of those events
occurring, the in-severity, if they did occur--what could
really happen and then begin to pose countermeasures. That
would begin to lay out a process by which you could decide on
the risks at hand and what you want to do to mitigate those
risks.
I don't think that you are going to rule risk out totally,
or completely. I think it is a process that is going to come
back. You are going to have to revisit it as more data and
information are brought to bear. You are going to have to go
back and review those assessments that you have done.
I think the FBI and the Justice Department's response to
our report furthers the process by which the government is
approaching this.
The foreign-origin threats, are being handled through the
intelligence community. What was missing from the picture in
the threat assessment was the domestic piece. This is a step to
move that process forward. Now we have got the FBI that is
going to sponsor the risk assessment to look domestically. So I
think the process is evolving, and I think what we have got to
see now is what comes out of the process once they go through
the analysis we have recommended.
Mr. Shays. How will this type of assessment help us focus
resources better?
Mr. Hinton. When you see the likely scenarios, and what are
likely to be involved in those scenarios, it will help make
resource decisions. There might be some that you will rule out
immediately that you don't move forward on or invest in. For
example, where smallpox might fall in the scenario development
could be used to gauge whether or not we want to be making the
investments in the national pharmaceutical stockpile and
vaccines that HHS is moving toward. But I think it would give
you an affirmation if it is or what is in line with the
priority threats the Nation may face.
We know from some of our past work looking at that issue as
it involved HHS is that some of the threats that were on its
list were not consistent with the threats that were on the
intelligence community's list.
Mr. Shays. Interesting.
Have you looked at the possibility of terrorists just
taking over a nuclear plant, electrical generating plant and
blowing it up?
Ms. D'Agostino. The DOE has focused on that scenario for
many, many years and has put a great deal of resources to that
problem; it has used risk assessment in its process as well.
Mr. Shays. I am struck by the fact that when we look at
risk, it is really looking at the hazard versus times the
exposure. It is really the likelihood of an event.
But I also--I have a hard time separating or ignoring
consequence. So even if something was not likely to occur but
the consequence was so horrific, then I think that we need to
put resources into it even though the likelihood is small. What
becomes difficult is that I can think of a lot of very large
consequences that could take place.
Mr. Hinton. I think one part of the process, Mr. Chairman,
would give you as decisionmakers and policymakers the various
scenarios that are at crosshairs so that those judgments can be
made. Right now, we don't have that laid out before us, and I
think to get that type of a process working would enable that
information to come forward so that Congress, the executive
branch, can make informed judgments in this area.
Mr. Shays. I am going to conclude. I just happen to accept
the fact that you need a process, but it seems to me that
process has got to be very flexible, and it constantly has to
be updated and analyzed because the process could really give
us a false sense of comfort when we are totally ignoring
something, and it seems to me that you have to have the
irrational be part of that process. What is someone who is
irrational going to do? If someone is willing to die in the
process--we make an assumption that as long as--they wouldn't
do this because they would die; and that is not----
Mr. Hinton. We would not disagree with your view on that,
Mr. Chairman. In fact, I think one aspect of this is having
hearings like you are holding is to get more discussions going
about this and find out what is coming out of the process that
is now taking place so that you can raise whether or not all of
those types of scenarios have been considered as part of that
process. I think that is a valid question.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Your report is a helpful
contributor to our--to those of us in Congress and in the
administration, for those trying to sort this issue out. Thank
you very much. I always appreciate the work of your people.
They make you look good.
We call the next panel, Brian M. Jenkins, senior adviser to
the president, RAND; John V. Parachini, senior associate,
Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of
International Studies; Dr. Raymond Zilinskas, senior scientist
in residence, Biological and Toxin Arms Control, Monterey
Institute of International Studies.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Note for the record that all three have
responded in the affirmative.
We will go right down the line starting with you, Mr.
Jenkins.
STATEMENTS OF BRIAN M. JENKINS, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE
PRESIDENT, RAND; JOHN V. PARACHINI, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, CENTER
FOR NONPROLIFERATION STUDIES, MONTERREY INSTITUTE OF
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES; AND RAYMOND ZILINSKAS, SENIOR SCIENTIST
IN RESIDENCE, BIOLOGICAL AND TOXIN ARMS CONTROL, MONTEREY
INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Mr. Jenkins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Blagojevich.
Thank you very much for inviting me to participate in these
important discussions.
I have been given a number of opportunities to testify
before Congress on the topic of terrorism, the first time more
than 25 years ago when I thought I knew a hell of a lot more
than I know today.
I have submitted a written statement summarizing my views
on the threat of whether a terrorist might use chemical or
biological weapons. Let me just underline a few of those
points. In doing so, I want to make it clear that, although I
am an adviser to the president of the RAND Corp., my comments
this morning are entirely my own and do not reflect those of
the RAND Corp. or any of its sponsors.
The possibility that terrorists might resort to chemical or
biological agents is not a new concern. People have been
writing about this for several decades. That it is only a
matter of time before terrorists use such weapons is a
relatively new idea which has become kind of a new orthodoxy.
What has brought about this change from something that was
considered an exotic possibility years ago to the inevitability
that we see it today?
There are several developments that give us cause for
concern. The growth of organized crime and corruption in Russia
raise concerns about the security of its arsenal. While we have
no direct evidence that chemical or biological substances have
been stolen from or sold by corrupt government officials in
Russia, we have ample examples of other weapons being sold
through criminal organizations of strategic materials being
stolen, and even small quantities of nuclear material being
stolen. So there is some cause for concern.
Also, a number of America's foes and potential foes are
conducting research on weapons of mass destruction. Several
were mentioned in the earlier discussion this morning.
Another factor is that today's terrorists seem more
interested in running up high body counts than in advancing
political agendas. In part this is a consequence of the change
in motivations of terrorists, as we move away from ideological
motivated terrorism and into the realm of terrorism that is
inspired by someone's vision of God.
The nerve gas attack in Tokyo subways may yet inspire
repetition. Even the fact that we are having these public
discussions may alter the environment somewhat. Again, there
are reasons for concern.
At the same time, we cannot conclude that a catastrophic
terrorist attack involving chemical or biological weapons is
inevitable. The historical analysis provides no basis for
forecasting such incidents. There is no inexorable progression
from truck bombs to weapons of mass destruction. In the more
than 4 years since the Tokyo attack, no group has attempted to
do anything like it; that is significant when we look at past
terrorist and criminal innovations: hijackings, political
kidnappings, malicious product tampering--those were
innovations that were promptly imitated.
But even if it is correct, this assessment offers no
comfort because every tentative conclusion that one can offer
must be followed by the necessary caveat. Indeed, predictions
call for the gift of prophecy. I don't think that we can do
well in the realm of predicting with any degree of confidence
what certainly will or will not happen, I know that causes a
certain amount of frustration on the part of those such as
yourselves who have to make decisions regarding how much
resources should be devoted to the issue and how to best
allocate those resources. We are trying to make the uncertainty
go away; it is very, very difficult to do that.
About the best we can do is an assessment of comparative
likelihoods. We can say with a degree of confidence that
hoaxes, which already have become a problem, will continue to
be a problem. We can say that limited attacks seem more likely
than large-scale attacks. We can say that crude dispersal
techniques in contained environments are more likely than
poisoning cities.
But I would echo the report prepared by the GAO that we do
need a more comprehensive and in some cases a more rigorous
analysis, not to validate the threat or dismiss the threat. The
issue is not whether we can say ``we don't have to worry about
it,'' or ``it is imminent'' and set off national panic.
But if we are going to prepare at all, we need to have some
rational basis for allocating resources. You mentioned the
figure $10 billion. Somebody decided on the basis of something
that $10 billion is the right amount. How should we best
allocate those resources? Should we spend another $10 billion?
Or is even that not enough to spend in the years that come? A
high degree of uncertainty will remain. That is the reality
upon which we are going to have to make these decisions.
Therefore we might try to compensate not only by trying to
reduce the uncertainty but also by adopting a strategy that
takes into account that uncertainty.
First, we want to have a comprehensive analysis. That is
not a finite task. That requirement is going to continue as we
gain more information, as the threat evolves, as our analysis
becomes more sophisticated.
No. 2, we can't wait for the results of the analysis; we
have to continue to prepare. We have to be willing to refine
our efforts to prepare as we learn more and refine our
analysis. We are going to have to be flexible whatever we do.
Third, we might want to look for opportunities to create
capabilities that will have utility even if no terrorist attack
occurs. For example, increasing our capability to respond to
emergencies; improving our ability to detect, identify and
treat infectious diseases; creating a more muscular public
health service; improving measures to ensure food safety are
some of the things that we may want to explore. Even if it is
done in the context of terrorism, we nonetheless device public
health benefits.
There is a final issue that we often ignore, and that is
terrorism always consists of two components. One is the actual
event or set of events that terrorists carry out. The second is
the much broader psychological effects of those terrorist
incidents.
Even if a terrorist attack involving a biological or
chemical agent were to kill only a small number of people, as
in Tokyo, instead of the tens of thousands predicted in one of
the recently publicized fictional scenarios, nonetheless if we
did not communicate well, it could provoke national hysteria.
This is scary stuff.
Therefore, we need to plan our communications, educate the
public in advance. We need to create a cadre of people who will
provide practical advice and act as a barrier against the
misinformation and rumors that will inevitably occur. That
requires legislative initiatives, legislative support; and,
should something happen, requires that each of you as Members
of Congress act as calm, informed communicators. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. I was reminded while you were speaking, I
represent Fairfield, and in the late 1950's the person who
built my house found that it was more lucrative for him to
build the shelters for a nuclear attack and so we had
throughout Fairfield County people building these shelters.
This was a guy who was making a good amount of money on homes,
but he found it more advantageous to build shelters.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jenkins follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Mr. Parachini.
Mr. Parachini. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to
this hearing.
I think now is a very important time to do reevaluation of
what we see as the threat of chemical and biological weapons
terrorism. There were a number of events that really spun the
country up to look at this very carefully, first being the
World Trade Center bombing, then the bombing on the Tokyo
subway, and the Oklahoma City bombing. And then there were a
series of hearings in the Senate chaired by Senators Roth and
Nunn in which Senator Lugar also participated that are
entitled, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction,
and these hearings drew a lot of attention to the events in
those cases.
I think at this point the threat is overstated, and so now
is a good time to reevaluate it, and so I commend you for doing
that at this time.
The GAO's general call for a comprehensive threat
assessment I think is a good thing to do, although you have to
recognize that within the intelligence community and within the
FBI there are different methodologies that they employ to
actually do the threat assessments, so you have to figure out
how to marry those different methodologies. Law enforcement
functions and intelligence functions are different, so you have
to figure out some way to fit those together and not take away
the beauty that those different approaches also bring. But
clearly an important part of the assessment has to be a
multidisciplinary effort.
Most of how the threat has been evaluated in this country
in the last 4 years has been on vulnerability. We are
potentially an infinitely vulnerable society. There are a lot
of different components. Vulnerability is certainly a part of
it. Technological ease of acquiring and assembling these
weapons is part of it.
That is not the only part. The part that has not been
looked at adequately and has not been discussed in public
hearings--and I commend you for trying to do this now--is to
look at the behavioral patterns of terrorists and their
motivations. What exactly has been the past cases where
terrorists have done this in the few instances where this has
actually occurred?
If I can call upon the first chart--I am going to put up
two charts to sort of help make this point. Actually, the other
one.
At the Monterey Institute of International Studies we are
conducting a series of both qualitative and quantitative
assessments of terrorist incidents, and we have just concluded
a series of qualitative case studies where we have asked the
same questions. This lists a series of cases which we looked at
in the first volume that will come out in January 2000, and it
is a series of cases from 1946 until 1995. We had a number of
authors who were experts on these groups or in these regions of
the world. They applied the same questions. We then brought
back all of the data and tried to compare across the cases to
see what were common patterns. This is valuable to help
establish a bench line. It is not necessarily a clear guide to
the future, but it does create a benchmark for what we are
looking at.
At the moment, the worst-case scenarios are being spun out
by people mainly who have a lot of expertise in our own weapons
programs, or evaluating the weapons programs of foreign
countries, not subnational groups or terrorists. That doesn't
mean that their expertise is not relevant, but it means that
their expertise captures one part of the problem.
The other part of the problem is you have to actually look
at groups and what they have done. So that is what we tried to
do using open source information, interviewing the terrorists,
interviewing people who know them, interviewing arresting
officials and prosecuting attorneys and reading all of the
statements that the terrorists have articulated, trying to see
what were the agents that they used and how did they get them
and how were they apprehended.
Based on this work and another set of case studies that we
will be conducting in 1999 and the year 2000, we are beginning
to get some sense of a profile of what some of the groups are
that will use weapons of mass destruction, principally chemical
and biological weapons, and we are beginning to understand what
are some of their patterns of behavior.
Some of the findings are that, in contrast to what we hear
in popular discussion, that this is a very complex task. Even
very smart people have difficulty doing it. And as you yourself
noted, there is a lot of technical expertise in the United
States. Why isn't this happening more often? We should ask
ourselves that question.
One, it is not that easy. So it is a technologically
complex thing. Two, it is sort of surprising how infrequent it
is. Three, the people who do want to use these types of agents
for their particular purposes tend to be small groups or
individuals. Those are very hard for law enforcement people to
penetrate--very hard.
And, finally, the people who are most motivated toward
these attacks are people who we identify with the following
characteristics. They have charismatic leadership. They have no
outside constituencies so they are internally focused. They
don't have the outside constraints that most of us have in the
socialization process. They have an apocalyptic view of the
world. They are often splinter--individual splinter groups or
individuals. They have a sense of paranoia that tends to push
them to want to use these when they feel that law enforcement
people are closing down on them. And they have a sense of
grandiosity. They are above the restraints that most of us feel
and that they may be impervious to the effects of their action.
The beauty, fortunately, and I am not clear on how long we
can rely upon this, but the beauty is these are unusual
characteristics. These are not the political terrorist groups
that we faced in the 1960's, 1970's and early 1980's. These
tend to be splinter groups or loners. They tend to be
religiously motivated groups or people who are somewhat
unstable, so there are self-limiting characteristics in who
these groups are. They tend to envision ways to perpetrate
their attacks that are not realistic. They tend to have visions
that are very difficult to carry out, so there is an upside
story when you begin profile who has done this in the past.
On the next chart you can see how we have tried to compare
across the various cases what some of these patterns are. The
beauty of identifying these patterns is it begins to focus us
on what agents are really relevant. It doesn't mean that those
will be the agents in the future, but at least we know what has
been used in the past. By looking at the incidence, it gives us
some sense of the magnitude of what did happen in the past, how
many casualties were there. You have asked this question
several times. This is not an arbitrary number. This is a
number based on looking at the historical record.
One of the things that you do find is that industrial
chemicals, as was mentioned, and fairly common pathogens are
more likely. So are we scaling our response to deal with the
more likely things or are we scaling to deal with national
strikes with very unusual agents that were in foreign
countries' weapons programs that are not very likely?
Let me finally comment on the report in a general sense as
an observer and a regular reviewer, both of hearings that you
convene and of reports that the General Accounting Office
prepares.
Although I think a general call for comprehensive
assessment is valuable, I was struck when reviewing the report
how caveated it was in many ways. While I recognize that there
is a beauty to that reiterative process between the GAO and the
various agencies, at some point you have to begin to worry
about when does it become a negotiated product. And I think
Congress, to perform its proper oversight role, wants as crisp
and as hard-edged reports as possible, even if it makes them
unpopular. This issue is too important to get sort of a
negotiated product. In the end, you want clear statements and
judgments. People should be held accountable for their
judgments.
That is why we would have tried to ground our work in the
historical record, and we recognize it is a historical record
and not a projection for the future. We wanted to have some
benchmark for our work and how we might project into the
future.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Parachini follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Mr. Zilinskas, it is wonderful to have you here.
Mr. Zilinskas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a
thoroughly enjoyable opportunity.
My written presentation has four parts. I will skip over my
background. I will go directly into the preliminary findings of
a project that I am doing with the National Defense University,
then I will talk a bit about the GAO report, and I will
conclude with some thoughts on what might be done as far as
meeting the biological threat that faces us all.
As to the project that I am doing in collaboration with
National Defense University, we are trying to assess how the
advanced biotechnologies might be fed into projects to develop
biological weapons; our timeframe is the next 5 years. This is
a pretty unique project because nobody else has tried to
objectively assess what genetic engineering can do for
weaponization of agents.
Our approach is to assemble 16 of some of the foremost
scientists in the United States. They include virologists,
microbiologists, geneticists, and others. We have met for 2
days as a focus group. The report of this focus group meeting
and the analysis of the conclusions will be published at the
beginning of the year 2000, but I can tell you a bit about the
findings with the caveat that they are my interpretations on
what has happened so far. To reiterate the report is not
finished, and it will contain the official word of the focus
group proceedings.
In the main, we find that the advanced biotechnologies are
not likely to be used, and there are two reasons for that.
First, there is something called pleomorphic effects when you
genetically engineer an organism. These are effects that
manifest themselves as undesirable characteristics. So, for
example, if you genetically engineer a bacterium to become
antibiotic resistant, it might also show other effects that
will make it less useful a weapon agent.
So what happens, and this has happened many times in
industry, is that the developer is able to successfully do what
he wants to do, but then ends up with an organism that is less
virulent or less resistant to environmental factors. So then
the developer has to go through another cycle of research and
development, and then he might end up with something else that
is undesirable.
So our feeling is that the only kind of programs that could
undertake this kind of activity are well-supported national
programs that are in it for the long-term. That is the first.
The second is simply a lack of basic information about
natural phenomenon such as host-parasite interrelationships,
the infectious processes, pathogenesis and so on.
There is a lot of information that is being generated in
these areas right now, but it is not to the point where it
really can be applied for weaponization.
We recognize fully well that the Soviet Union's scientists
did use genetic engineering in research to produce some very,
very frightening or theoretically frightening, hybrids; for
example, a combination of the Ebola and the smallpox virus, but
it does not make it a weapon. It only means that they were
working on it. It might have taken them 5 or 10 years to
succeed or then might fail entirely to make this kind of an
organism into a real, useful weaponized agent.
In the course of focus group discussions, we came up with
some incidental findings. They include that the most likely
scenario in the next 5 years for a biological attack is that a
common food-borne or beverage-borne agent will be used to
deliberately sabotage food or beverages, and this certainly has
the capability of injuring hundreds of people, but not
thousands. An example occurreed in 1984 when there was an
attack by the Rajneeshee group in Oregon of 10 salad bars that
affected 751 persons; it is a harbinger for the future.
Second, it is much less likely that an attack using an
airborne organism will take place, and that has to do with the
technical difficulties of formulating the agents for an
airborne attack. The problems, as was shown by the Aum
Shinrikyo experience are two. First, they used the wrong strain
but second the technical part was that they were not able to
disperse the agent as an aerosol because it clogged the
nozzles. To overcome this kind of problem is rather difficult.
It takes a lot of time and a lot of experimentation.
So moving on to the second part, remarks on the GAO report,
I am not going to go into the good parts of it, but I will tell
you about the two problem areas that I had with it.
The first one, as a scientist, I had real problems with
some of the terminology, which I found----
Mr. Shays. For the record, we will note that someone from
the GAO smiled when you said that you were not going to go over
the good parts. Were there more good parts than bad parts?
Mr. Zilinskas. There were more bad parts, unfortunately.
They used terms like ``valid'' and ``sound'', which sound
pretty good when you read it, but are meaningless when you
really look at them. Are you going to use valid data versus--
what--invalid data? Are you going to use sound information or
do a sound assessment versus--what--an unsound assessment? I
found this very irritating, and I guess it hindered me to some
point to--well, maybe not.
And then the second part is that the heart of this report
is that it recommends risk assessments to be done, but doesn't
provide ideas on methods.
I listened to the GAO talking about methodology. They were
not talking about methodology whatsoever. They were saying that
they should put together an interdisciplinary team, they should
get information from national intelligence estimates, whatever
that is. Is that a bunch of guesses or are they hard facts? I
don't know. And so on.
But there is no set methodology, and I give an example in
my report of a scientific way of doing scientific assessment
done by the EPA when it considers the introduction of genetic
engineered organisms into the environment.
I also give an example of how I used this protocol, the EPA
protocol, to do a risk assessment involving the introduction of
genetically engineered marine organisms into the open
environment, and found out that I could not do a risk
assessment. Hey, there is nothing wrong with saying we can't do
the risk assessment because the necessary information is not
available. And I find that the necessary information as far as
terrorist organizations is not there, and it mainly has to do
with capabilities. There is no way that you can know what the
capabilities are unless you look at each organization
individually and then somehow find out if they have access to
it, microbiologists, chemists, doctors. And, furthermore,
whether or not these people are willing to lend their skills
for illicit purposes.
The second bigger problem has to do with intent. There is
no way that anyone can read the mind of a terrorist. For
example, my experience with Iraq, people often ask why did they
acquire biological weapons? We don't know why they acquired
them because the only one who has that knowledge in his brain
in Saddam Hussein, and no one can read that brain.
In conclusion, my feeling is that you cannot do a risk
assessment under the terms that is discussed in the report.
What do we do then?
Well, my feeling is that you take a common sense approach,
and the common sense approach, as far as I am concerned, is to
try to figure out what is the large biological threat facing
the United States. It is really natural disease outbreaks;
specifically emerging diseases, reemerging infectious diseases
and transported infectious diseases in other words, diseases
coming from somewhere else.
And if we can do something that meets this threat, the
overwhelming threat of natural infectious diseases, then we
have gone a long ways toward at least also being able to
alleviate the aftereffects of biological attacks by terrorists.
There is another part of that which I don't go into that
much, which is how do you prevent terrorist attacks. The only
way that you can prevent them is by having good intelligence.
That is something that I don't know anything about because it
is mostly classified. How do you set up a good intelligence-
gathering system through the intelligence agencies and the
police forces?
I say, first of all, deal with the public health and the
medical aspects, and then we are in a good place to deal with
the terrorist aftereffects. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Zilinskas follows:]
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Mr. Shays. I am going to call on my colleague, but I am
struck by the fact that your statement was that it is hard to
make common sense out of terrorists. So it is interesting how
we would use a common sense approach.
Mr. Zilinskas. The common sense approach is to say that the
greater threat is natural infectious diseases. What can we do
about them? Meeting this threat has to do with surveillance,
monitoring, and, improving emergency response to outbreaks.
You have to remember when there is a disease outbreak you
don't know at its beginning whether it is a natural outbreak or
it is a deliberately caused outbreak. Therefore, the response
of public health responders and medical people will be the same
regardless of what it is. It is only after 2, 3, or 5 days that
you can determine this. This could have been a terrorist or
biological attack. At that time, the police enters into it, and
there is a whole--then you try to get evidence.
Mr. Shays. It is interesting because we had an example of
encephalitis in my District and in New York City, and the New
Yorker or New York magazine had some unnamed source who talked
about the possibly that this might be a terrorist attack, and
then we got a lot of calls. And it was interesting how just
even the inference got people very excited.
Mr. Zilinskas. I got a lot of calls from reporters on that
incident, and it happens each time there is an unusual disease
outbreak. For example, the hantavirus outbreak in 1993 was like
that. I was getting calls from Albuquerque, Denver, asking,
could that have been a biological attack? I said, no.
Mr. Shays. We are going to try to finish before we leave--
we have like 10 minutes.
Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you.
Dr. Zilinskas, if I can just followup, you are suggesting
that the enhancement of the ability of public health and health
delivery systems to respond to these disease outbreaks is
essential. Can you give us some more suggestions on how you
would enhance the public health sector so they can respond
properly?
Mr. Zilinskas. What happens when you have a disease
outbreak of any type, you suddenly have a lot of people who
become sick. First of all, you have to treat these people in an
adequate way. The problem of treating a large number of people
might overwhelm local systems. Therefore, we have to do an
assessment of what local systems can do. And then, if they are
in a situation where they can't handle a large outbreak, what
kind of assistance can be immediately available at the State
level and eventually, the Federal level, and that includes
military forces.
I would imagine that a large disease outbreak there would
create a lot of logistical problems, and maybe, problems having
to do with deciding who has authority and so on. All of that
has to be solved. That is the treatment part.
The second part is the investigation to find out what the
etiology of the disease was, and that involves using trained
people in epidemiology, both molecular and classic
epidemiology, and having them immediately available for this
kind of work.
So I think that is important, to increase our capabilities
at the local and at the State levels especially to immediately
investigate disease outbreaks.
Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you, Dr. Zilinskas.
Mr. Jenkins, you also suggest that, rather than focusing on
probability predictions and infinite vulnerabilities, we
instead work toward creating capabilities that will help us
with or without chemical or biological attack. You mention
enhancing intelligence and improving food safety. What do you
think should be done to help prepare the public infrastructure
with regard to that?
Mr. Jenkins. I think some of the comments just made would
address that particular issue. My point is to find areas where
we can devote resources, since we are spending this money, that
we will get permanent benefit out of it.
If we go back in our own history in this country, we have
had experience with large-scale outbreaks of infectious
diseases. We at one time had a very powerful U.S. Public Health
Service with extraordinary authority granted to it to deal with
outbreaks of typhoid, yellow fever, Spanish flu and things of
this sort.
As we have become a somewhat safer society, we have lost
some of that capability. Now that we are faced again with the
reappearance of some of these diseases as a result of increased
global travel, global food supplies, some of these issues have
reemerged, and we have to go back and develop some of these
capabilities.
Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Parachini, I was struck by the fact that you
wanted to look at the events that have already taken place and
try to analyze the behavior, and I was just struck by the fact
that I didn't feel that they were as relevant because I don't
think they are a precursor of what is going to happen in the
future.
Now, I guess I would have no likely basis for making that,
but it seems some of it was domestically focused. In other
words, in many instances they were domestic terrorism. I am
struck with the information that I have seen that our biggest
concern is not domestic.
Mr. Parachini. Most of the cases now that the FBI is
looking into, about 85 percent are domestic threats. The
variety of threats we face now, we previously had always
thought of foreign threats. We did not think that this would
happen here in the United States, but Oklahoma City should be
the clear signal that there are threats here that are domestic.
If indeed it is right that there are all of these
capabilities here in this country to procure materials, many of
them commercially available, there are plenty--this is a large
country with a lot of people with different agendas. It seems
to me no accident that the FBI is mainly following domestic
cases and not foreign cases.
Mr. Shays. Right. But when we were overseas--I was struck
by the fact that in one country they were trying to explain to
us that the United States can bully every nation--and I don't
mean that in a pejorative sense. We have incredible military
powers, so we force our adversaries to look at other ways to
deal with the United States.
Mr. Parachini. So they may be looking at asymmetrical
attacks, and I want to draw a distinction on asymmetrical
attacks on our forces abroad and asymmetrical attacks here
within the United States. I think it is harder--the closer you
get into the United States, it is harder to do. And we have
within our own borders many people who have strong grievances
against the Federal Government or against other people who are
willing to do that.
Mr. Shays. I guess what I am going to say is that I think
your analysis is more valuable as it relates to how we would
respond to a domestic attack. It would probably be a little
easier for us to take that information and then translate it
into something useful. But I think we are facing a whole new
potential level of activity that we can't draw on the past.
Let me ask the other two to respond to that in any way that
you want.
Mr. Jenkins. Could I add a comment to that? I think there
is some relevance in the historical analysis that has been done
here.
First of all, there are incidents drawn from various parts
of the world. There is Aum Shrinrikyo. There are other things
that have happened outside of the United States.
During the same period of time, if we take those incidents
that have happened since 1970, discarding the first one on the
top of that list, there were 11 incidents; 11 incidents out of
what are more than 10,000 international terrorists incidents.
If we indeed add domestic terrorists incidents around the
world, we are talking about a universe of tens of thousands.
The fact that there have been very few. It doesn't give us
an actuarial chart, it doesn't give us the scientific
confidence that we would want to have, but, nonetheless, it
does permit an inference that this is a pretty rare event.
Mr. Shays. Let me respond to that, because you really
triggered something. I was here in 1968 as an intern for what I
think was the first hijacking of an airliner to Cuba. The first
became--we lost track of the number. So I am struck by the fact
that if we use that kind of analysis, we never would have
thought that there would be a hijacking of a plane and then
wouldn't have been able to deal with the plethora of attacks
that followed.
Mr. Jenkins. I agree with the fact that history does not
suggest that things cannot occur. There are always going to be
unprecedented events.
However, a number of groups have looked at this, a number
of groups have certainly contemplated this, and some attempts
have been made. What is striking is the lack of imitation, to
go back to your own analogy. The first politically motivated
hijacking took place in 1968. Within the following 4 years, we
were dealing with hundreds of hijackings that forced us to take
extraordinary security measures. In the 4 years since Tokyo, we
haven't seen anything.
Mr. Shays. You have made that point.
Let me tell you the challenge. We have a series of votes.
We have your statements in the record, and they are all
valuable and helpful. We are just scratching the surface.
I am going to adjourn the hearing because we will be tied
up for a bit, and I do not want to hold you. Thank you very
much.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]