Counterterrorism experts urge the United States to take measures against a wide range of terrorist threats, but they continue to disagree over which forms of attack pose the greatest danger, United Press International reported yesterday (see GSN, March 4).
U.S. dependency on imported food makes the country more vulnerable to an attack on its food supply than to than to other possible threats, said Minh Luong, assistant director of Yale University's international security program. He listed biological or chemical strikes and sniper or computer-based attacks as the other top threats.
"The [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] was given approval for more inspectors and analysts, but there's no coordination with foreign food suppliers and it's hard to inspect all containers," Luong said.
"The goal of terrorism is to get people worried. It can be very random. Terrorists only have to tamper with one container on a cargo ship," he said. "People aren't making the connection between terrorism and the food supply."
Luong noted that any response to a chemical or biological attack would be delayed as the weapon agent is identified.
John Wohlstetter, a fellow at the Discovery Institute, expressed concerns about the possible detonation of a radiological "dirty bomb" inside a major urban area. The blast radius of such a weapon would extend for only one or two city blocks, but radioactive material could be spread across a much wider area, he said.
"With the potential for panic, more could die in what comes afterward than in the bomb explosion. Sensationalist news reports and the Internet sow panic among people for whom radiation is automatically presumed highly toxic," he said, suggesting that reckless driving and rioting could result.
The ultimate terrorism weapons would be a nuclear bomb or highly virulent disease agent, Wohlstetter said. "One nuclear attack would scar us permanently," he stated.
However, he said that nuclear material is generally well secured and requires a great deal of sophistication to move. In addition, nuclear material inside any Cold War-era weapons that might have gone missing would have deteriorated since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"Terror groups would essentially require the support of a state to develop a nuclear bomb," he said. Wohlstetter added, though, that "every dollar spent to deter is worthwhile" (Megan Harris, United Press International, March 25).