|
History
WMD terrorism is not a new
phenomenon; in March 1995, the Japanese doomsday cult
Aum Shinrikyo
released sarin nerve agent in the Tokyo subway, killing 12 people
and injuring over a thousand. The fall 2001
anthrax attacks in the
United States killed five people. Both of these attacks killed far
fewer than the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World
Trade Center, which used commercial airplanes rather than WMD. Thus,
some experts argue that conventional weapons are of
greater concern than WMD.
Although conventional explosives
are less deadly pound-for-pound than some weapons of mass
destruction, they are
generally easier to acquire and use effectively. For example, the
rise in the number of
suicide bombings in post-war Iraq and elsewhere reveals the ease
of access to conventional explosives, their simple designs, and
their ability to cause casualties and panic. These types of bombings
have killed hundreds of people around the globe. In contrast to
conventional explosives, chemical, biological, and radiological
agents are difficult to use to cause large numbers of casualties. For example, despite Aum Shinrikyo's
substantial financial resources and scientific knowledge, it was
still unable to overcome the inherent complexities of effectively
using CW as a mass-casualty weapon.
Many scholars have argued that
since the 1980s, religion has replaced politics as the main
motivation of terrorist groups. This could lead some terrorist
groups to be less constrained by society's values and more willing
to cause greater levels of violence than the more traditional,
politically motivated terrorists of the past. Terrorism specialists
have in fact observed trends in tactics suggesting that terrorists
are now more interested in mass-casualty attacks, for which WMD
would be well suited. Mass-casualty terrorism is also not new to the
United States. In April 1995, a right-wing activist used a truck
bomb to destroy the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma
City, killing 168 people and injuring more than 700.
Scope
of Threat
Terrorists seeking a WMD
capability would need either to develop their own weapons, as did
Aum Shinrikyo, or recruit unemployed weapons scientists, steal
materials or weapons, or obtain WMD from a state sponsor. For
example, Usama bin Laden, the leader of an international network of
anti-American Islamic fundamentalist organizations called Al-Qaeda,
has expressed interest in obtaining and using WMD. Bin Laden,
believed to be responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks and
the August 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, may
have the resources to get WMD, as well as the willingness to use
them.
The U.S. government has accused some
countries of sponsoring terrorism, including Cuba,
Iran,
North
Korea, Sudan, and Syria. The U.S.
government has also determined that these countries currently
possess, or at one time possessed, one or more types of WMD.
Formerly, the list of countries also included
Iraq and
Libya. The
possibility that Iraq might supply terrorist groups with WMD,
however, is no longer a major concern in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. All
terrorism-related sanctions were lifted against Iraq by President
George W. Bush on May 7, 2003, and in October 2004, the United
States rescinded Iraq's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. Libya’s
December 2003 decision to
renounce terrorism and give up its WMD programs substantially
improved Libya’s standing with the international community; UN
sanctions were lifted against the country in September 2004. In May
2006, the United States removed Libya from the list of states that
sponsor terrorism.
|
