Overblown

How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them

John Mueller

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781416574651
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Why have there been no terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11? It is ridiculously easy for a single person with a bomb-filled backpack, or a single explosives-laden automobile, to launch an attack. So why hasn't it happened? The answer is surely not the Department of Homeland Security, which cannot stop terrorists from entering the country, legally or otherwise. It is surely not the Iraq war, which has stoked the hatred of Muslim extremists around the world and wasted many thousands of lives. Terrorist attacks have been regular events for many years -- usually killing handfuls of people, occasionally more than that. Is it possible that there is a simple explanation for the peaceful American homefront? Is it possible that there are no al-Qaeda terrorists here? Is it possible that the war on terror has been a radical overreaction to a rare event? Consider: 80, 000 Arab and Muslim immigrants have been subjected to fingerprinting and registration, and more than 5, 000 foreign nationals have been imprisoned -- yet there has not been a single conviction for a terrorist crime in America. A handful of plots -- some deadly, some intercepted -- have plagued Europe and elsewhere, and even so, the death toll has been modest. We have gone to war in two countries and killed tens of thousands of people. We have launched a massive domestic wiretapping program and created vast databases of information once considered private. Politicians and pundits have berated us about national security and patriotic duty, while encroaching our freedoms and sending thousands of young men off to die. It is time to consider the hypothesis that dare not speak its name: we have wildly overreacted. Terrorism has been used by murderous groups for many decades, yet even including 9/11, the odds of an American being killed by international terrorism are microscopic. In general, international terrorism doesn't do much damage when considered in almost any reasonable context. The capacity of al-Qaeda or of any similar group to do damage in the United States pales in comparison to the capacity other dedicated enemies, particularly international Communism, have possessed in the past. Lashing out at the terrorist threat is frequently an exercise in self-flagellation because it is usually more expensive than the terrorist attack itself and because it gives the terrorists exactly what they are looking for. Much, probably most, of the money and effort expended on counterterrorism since 2001 (and before, for that matter) has been wasted. The terrorism industry and its allies in the White House and Congress have preyed on our fears and caused enormous damage. It is time to rethink the entire enterprise and spend much smaller amounts on only those things that do matter: intelligence, law enforcement, and disruption of radical groups overseas. Above all, it is time to stop playing into the terrorists' hands, by fear-mongering and helping spread terror itself.

Part I

Terrorism’s Impact

Chapter 1

The Limited Destructiveness
of Terrorism

For all the attention it evokes, terrorism, in reasonable context, actually causes rather little damage, and the likelihood that any individual will become a victim in most places is microscopic. Those adept at hyperbole like to proclaim that we live in “the age of terror.” However, the number of people worldwide who die as a result of international terrorism is generally a few hundred a year, tiny compared to the numbers who die in most civil wars or from automobile accidents. In fact, until 2001 far fewer Americans were killed in any grouping of years by all forms of international terrorism than were killed by lightning. And except for 2001, virtually none of these terrorist deaths occurred within the United States itself. Indeed, outside of 2001, fewer people have been killed in America by international terrorism than have drowned in toilets or have died from bee stings.

Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, however, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began its accounting) is about the same as the number killed over the same period by lightning, or by accident-causing deer, or by severe allergic reactions to peanuts. In almost all years the total number of people worldwide who die at the hands of international terrorists is not much more than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States.¹

Some of this is a matter of definition. When terrorism becomes really extensive we generally no longer call it terrorism, but war or insurgency, as has happened in Iraq.² But Americans and others in the developed world are mainly concerned about random or sporadic acts of terrorism within their homeland, not sustained warfare. Moreover, even using an expansive definition of terrorism and including domestic terrorism in the mix, it is likely that far fewer people were killed by terrorists in the entire world over the past 100 years than died in any number of civil wars during that time.

However, those who fear terrorism essentially argue that this experience is irrelevant. Spurred by the dramatic destruction of 9/11, they insist that we have now entered a new era. Soon, they conclude, terrorists will be able to deploy “weapons of mass destruction.” Moreover, the spectacular success of the 9/11 attacks is taken to suggest that international terrorists, al-Qaeda in particular, are diabolically clever and capable, and that the kind of destruction they visited on September 11, 2001, will soon come to be typical. The events of that day are taken as a harbinger. Are these two widely accepted arguments valid?

Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Because no weapons more complicated than box cutters were employed on September 11, it would seem that the experience ought to be taken to suggest that the scenario most to be feared is not the acquisition by terrorists of devices of mass destructiveness, but one in which terrorists are once again able, through skill, careful planning, suicidal dedication, and great luck, to massively destroy with ordinary, extant devices. Some of the anxiety about WMD, perhaps, derives from the post–September 11 anthrax scare, even though that terrorist event killed only a few people.

Not only were the 9/11 bombings remarkably low-tech, but they were something that could have happened long ago: both skyscrapers and airplanes have been around for a century now. In addition, the potential for destruction on that magnitude is hardly new: a tiny band of fanatical, well-trained, and lucky terrorists could have sunk or scuttled the Titanic and killed thousands.³

Nonetheless, terrorism analyses tend to focus on lurid worst-case scenarios, a great portion of them involving weapons of mass destruction, a concept that, especially after the cold war, has been expanded to embrace chemical and biological and sometimes radiological as well as nuclear weapons.⁴ Although chemical, radiological, and most biological weapons do not belong in the same category of destructiveness as nuclear weapons, all members of the WMD list are similar in that their acquisition and deployment present enormous difficulties, especially for terrorists.

Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear weapons can indeed inflict massive destruction, and an atomic bomb in the hands of a terrorist or rogue state could kill tens of thousands of people or even, in exceptional circumstances, more. But it is also essential to note that making such a bomb is an extraordinarily difficult task. As the Gilmore Commission, a special advisory panel to the president and Congress, stresses, building a nuclear device capable of producing mass destruction presents “Herculean challenges.” The process requires obtaining enough fissile material, designing a weapon “that will bring that mass together in a tiny fraction of a second, before the heat from early fission blows the material apart,” and figuring out some way to deliver the thing. And the Commission emphasizes that these merely constitute “the minimum requirements.” If each is not fully met, the result is not simply a less powerful weapon, but one that can’t produce any significant nuclear yield at all or can’t be delivered.⁵

Moreover, proliferation of these weapons has been remarkably slow. During the cold war there were many dire predictions about nuclear proliferation that proved to be greatly exaggerated. Among these was the nearly unanimous expectation in the 1950s and 1960s that dozens of countries would soon have nuclear weapons. For example, a report in 1958 predicted “a rapid rise” in the number of atomic powers by the mid-1960s, and a couple of years later, John Kennedy observed that there might be “ten, fifteen, twenty” countries with a nuclear capacity by 1964. In 1985 Time magazine devoted a cover story to the claim that “the nuclear threat is spreading” and worried that “the rate of proliferation could grow rapidly worse” thanks to what it ominously called “phantom proliferators.” Yet, twenty years later, the only clear addition to the nuclear club is Pakistan. Similar alarms were issued in the early 1990s, in the aftermath of the cold war. Well over a decade ago, it was argued that Japan and Germany would, by natural impulse, soon come to yearn for nuclear weapons. The Japanese and the Germans themselves continue to seem viscerally uninterested, though problems with North Korea could alter that perspective for Japan.⁶

It is also worth noting that, although nuclear weapons have been around now for well over half a century, no state has ever given another state—even a close ally, much less a terrorist group—a nuclear weapon (or chemical, biological, or radiological one either, for that matter) that the recipient could use independently. For example, during the cold war, North Korea tried to acquire nuclear weapons from its close ally, China, and was firmly refused.⁷ Donors understand that there is always the danger the weapon will be used in a manner the donor would not approve—or even, potentially, on the donor itself. There could be some danger from private profiteers, like the network established by Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan. However, its activities were rather easily penetrated by intelligence agencies, and it was closed down abruptly after 9/11.

Warnings about the possibility that small groups, terrorists, and errant states could fabricate nuclear weapons have been repeatedly uttered at least since 1946, when A-bomb maker J. Robert Oppenheimer agreed that “three or four men” could smuggle atomic bomb units into New York and “blow up the whole city.” Such assertions proliferated after the 1950s, when the “suitcase bomb” appeared to become a practical possibility. And it has now been over three decades since terrorism specialist Brian Jenkins published his warnings that the “widespread distribution of increasingly sophisticated and increasingly powerful man-portable weapons will greatly add to the terrorist’s arsenal” and that “the world’s increasing dependence on nuclear power may provide terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.”⁸ We continue to wait.

Under the stimulus of 9/11, dire warnings about nuclear terrorism have escalated. Of particular concern in this are Russia’s supposedly missing suitcase bombs, even though a careful assessment has concluded that it is unlikely that any of these devices has indeed been lost and that, regardless, their effectiveness would be very low or even nonexistent because they require continual maintenance. As CIA adviser and arms inspector Charles Duelfer has stressed, the development of nuclear weapons requires thousands of knowledgeable scientists and large physical facilities.⁹

In 2004, political scientist Graham Allison opined that a dedicated terrorist group could get around the problems in time and eventually steal, produce, or procure a “crude” bomb, and he boldly declared that, unless his policy recommendations (which include a dramatic push toward war with North Korea) are carried out, “a nuclear terrorist attack on America in the decade ahead is more likely than not.” It is anticipated that it might well take ten years of dedicated effort even for a state like Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, but Allison thinks that terrorists would be happy with one that is “large, cumbersome, unsafe, unreliable, unpredictable, and inefficient.” In support of his prediction Allison cites the “world’s most successful investor” and “legendary odds maker,” Warren Buffett, as declaring a nuclear terrorist attack to be inevitable. Contacted by the Wall Street Journal, however, Buffett says he was worrying about any nuclear explosion, not just one set off by terrorists, and that he was talking about something that might come about over the next century, not within a ten-year period.¹⁰

Given the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons, it definitely makes sense to expend some policy effort to increase the difficulties for any would-be nuclear terrorists, particularly by seeking to control the world’s supply of fissile material. But the difficulties for the terrorists persist, and their likelihood of acquiring the weapon any time soon remains very low—even assuming they try hard. Moreover, no terrorist group, including al-Qaeda, has shown anything resembling the technical expertise necessary to fabricate a bomb.

Allison’s dire forecast is far more likely to be remembered if it proves true than if, much more probably, it goes the way of C. P. Snow’s once-heralded alarmist broadside published nearly a half century ago:

We are faced with an either-or, and we haven’t much time. The either is acceptance of a restriction of nuclear armaments…. The or is not a risk but a certainty. It is this. There is no agreement on tests. The nuclear arms race between the United States and the U.S.S.R. not only continues but accelerates. Other countries join in. Within, at the most, six years, China and several other states have a stock of nuclear bombs. Within, at the most, ten years, some of those bombs are going off. I am saying this as responsibly as I can. That is the certainty.

Doomsayers have been wryly advised to predict catastrophe no later than ten years into the future but no earlier than five because that would be soon enough to terrify their rapt listeners but far enough off for people to forget if the doomsaying proves to be wrong.¹¹ Allison and Snow seem to have gotten the point.

Chemical Weapons

Chemical arms do have the potential, under appropriate circumstances, for panicking people; killing masses of them in open areas, however, is beyond their modest capabilities. Although they obviously can be hugely lethal when released in gas chambers, their effectiveness as weapons has been unimpressive, and their inclusion in the WMD category is highly dubious unless the concept is so diluted that bullets or machetes can also be included.¹²

Biologist Matthew Meselson calculates that it would take fully a ton of nerve gas or five tons of mustard gas to produce heavy casualties among unprotected people in an open area one kilometer square. Even for nerve gas this would take the concentrated delivery into a rather small area of about 300 heavy artillery shells or seven 500-pound bombs. This would usually require a considerable amount of time, allowing many people to evacuate the targeted area. A 1993 analysis by the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress finds that a ton of sarin nerve gas perfectly delivered under absolutely ideal conditions over a heavily populated area against unprotected people could cause between 3,000 and 8,000 deaths. Under slightly less ideal circumstances—if there is a moderate wind or if the sun is out, for example—the death rate would be one-tenth as great. Or, as the Gilmore Commission put it later, it would take a full ton of sarin gas released under favorable weather conditions for the destructive effects to become distinctly greater than could be obtained by conventional explosives. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of mass destruction because a single bomb can generate great devastation. By contrast, for chemical weapons to cause extensive damage, many of them must be used, just like conventional weapons.¹³

Discussions of chemical weapons often stress their ability to cause casualties, both dead and wounded. This glosses over the fact that historically most of those incapacitated by chemical weapons have not actually died. But clearly, to be classified as weapons of mass destruction they must destroy, not simply incapacitate. In World War I only some 2 or 3 percent of those gassed on the Western Front died; by contrast, wounds caused by traditional weapons were some 10 or 12 times more likely to prove fatal.¹⁴ Troops wounded by gas also tend to return to combat more quickly than those wounded by bullets or shrapnel, and to suffer less. Against well-protected troops, gas is almost wholly ineffective except as an inconvenience. Moreover, the weapons degrade over time. In 2006, two Republican lawmakers triumphantly announced that 500 chemical weapons had been found in Iraq. These, as it turned out, dated from before the 1991 war against that country, and the weapons were now, as one expert put it, “less toxic than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink.”¹⁵

Although gas was used extensively in World War I, it accounted for less than 1 percent of the battle deaths. In fact, on average it took well over a ton of gas to produce a single fatality. In the conclusion to the official British history of the war, chemical weapons are relegated to a footnote, which asserts that gas “made war uncomfortable…to no purpose.”¹⁶

Since that war, gas was apparently used in rather limited amounts in the 1930s by Italy in Ethiopia and by Japan in China, as well as by Egypt in the civil war in Yemen in the mid-1960s. Chemical weapons were used more significantly against substantially unprotected Iranians by Iraq in their 1980–88 war, but of the 27,000 gassed through March 1987, Iran reported that only 262 died.¹⁷ The most notable use of chemical weapons by a terrorist group was Aum Shinrikyo’s release in 1995 of sarin nerve gas into an enclosed space: a Japanese subway station. Although a more skillful effort conceivably might have done more damage, that attack inflicted thousands of casualties, but only twelve deaths.

One episode during the I...