WMD Terrorism is A Nightmare of Different Sort

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security


Terrorist "capabilities" to use weapons of mass destruction are "more limited" than those of states like North Korea and Iran, but the threat of terrorist attack with WMD is "more likely" than an attack by any state, top U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday.

Despite this broad assertion, U.S. officials offer only that there is the "possibility" of a future terrorist attack with WMD. They present no evidence that there is any actual terrorist capability, not a single example of terrorists receiving assistance from WMD states to develop their own capabilities nor do they offer any intelligence indicators that terrorists are making headway towards achieving any WMD capability.

I've never thought that terrorists posed much of a weapons of mass destruction threat, and I've always thought that the specter of "nuclear terrorism" was promiscuous and politically motivated, both to undermine disarmament and to bolster U.S. WMD programs.


The image of a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction is certainly a powerful one, and the threat is so catastrophic, the Bush administration has made it a priority in fighting the war against terrorism.

It shouldn't be. What is more, there is also enormous cost in continuing to let the WMD nightmare rule: It was responsible for the war with Iraq; it was at the root of the failure of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to deal with hurricane Katrina; it is central to the current debate over the security of American ports.

Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. Gen. Michael Maples testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday on the worldwide threats to the United States.

Their testimony was the usual combination of optimism about U.S. progress in the war on terrorism and happy talk about "encouraging developments in Iraq" together with dire talk about a dangerous and nightmarish world.

The "global jihadist threat," Negroponte said, is the "preeminent threat" to U. S. national security and interests abroad.

"The ongoing development of dangerous weapons and delivery systems constitutes the second major threat to the safety of our nation, our deployed troops, and our allies," Negroponte also said.

"We are most concerned about the threat and destabilizing effect of nuclear proliferation," Negroponte said, and "WMD-related proliferation and two states of particular concern, Iran and North Korea," is the central concern.

But it is the terrorist threat with weapons of mass destruction that continue to get the administration excited.

Noting a time long ago "when a few states had monopolies over the most dangerous technologies," Negroponte said "al Qaeda remains interested in acquiring chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials or weapons to attack the United States, US troops, and US interests worldwide."

"Indeed, today," Negroponte said,

"we are more likely to see an attack from terrorists using weapons or agents of mass destruction than states, although terrorists' capabilities would be much more limited. In fact, intelligence reporting indicates that nearly 40 terrorist organizations, insurgencies, or cults have used, possessed, or expressed an interest in chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear agents or weapons. Many are capable of conducting simple, small-scale attacks, such as poisonings, or using improvised chemical devices."

That's quite the arsenal. I guess in order to understand why U.S. officials would focus on terrorist weapons of mass destruction while IEDs and suicide bombers and civilian airliners seem quite effective, you'd have to understand the U.S. government's definition: Everything is a weapon of mass destruction.

And then there is the issue of proportion. North Korea's existing nuclear weapons, heck Russia's thousands of precariously controlled and maintained nuclear weapons, are less threatening than poisons or "improvised chemical devices" wielded by terrorists?

Neither Negroponte nor Maples offered any current intelligence indicating trends towards terrorists acquiring any of these capabilities.

"Several terrorist groups, particularly al Qaeda, remain interested in Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) weapons," Maples said. "Al Qaeda's stated intention to conduct an attack exceeding the destruction of 9/11 raises the possibility that future attacks may involve unconventional weapons."

Saying that nation-states were still "constrained by the logic of deterrence," Negroponte noted that such "constraints may be of little utility in preventing the use of mass effect weapons by rogue regimes or terrorist groups."

The truth is that the United States government has a gigantic weapons of mass destruction bureaucracy, from intelligence collectors and targeters to WMD scientists to the world's premier underground bunker physicists to "counter-proliferation" and "global strike" warriors to technology interdictors to effects analysts and disaster response cadres. There is no getting around the fact that that apparatus has both an appetite and an interest in characterizing the threat as worthy of enormous investment.

WMD are such an emotional threat that no one really asks whether the investment equals the threat or is focused on the right problem. U.S.-Russian nuclear disarmament is stalled and programs to safeguard existing WMD technologies and materials are starved in comparison with new programs to stop "proliferation" (read terrorist proliferation).

All based on bureaucratic self-justification and someone's unsubstantiated nightmare?

By William M. Arkin | March 2, 2006; 07:30 AM ET