by Clifford D. May
National Review
April 24, 2008
The next time Islamist terrorists attack us it could be with a nuclear
weapon... Graham Allison is a Harvard professor who served with
distinction in the Defense Department under Presidents Reagan and
Clinton. He wrote a book in 2004 arguing that “on the current course,
nuclear terrorism is inevitable.”
There has been no change of course since — quite the contrary. Ashton
B. Carter, co-director of the Preventive Defense Project at Harvard,
said recently that the threat of nuclear terrorism has been increasing
due to Iranian and North Korean proliferation and the failure to
secure Russia’s nuclear arsenal following the Cold War. The
probability of a nuclear attack on an American city, he believes, is
now “almost surely larger than it was five years ago.”
Gary Anthony Ackerman, research director of the National Consortium
for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, also recently
told Congress that “the prospect of terrorists detonating a nuclear
device on American soil sometime within the next quarter-century is
real and growing.”
And Cham D. Dallas, who directs the Institute for Health Management
and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia, says
flatly: “It’s inevitable.” Testifying before a Senate hearing this
month, he added: “I think it’s wistful to think that it won’t happen
by 20 years.”
Should a ten-kiloton nuclear bomb explode near the White House, Dallas
estimates that 100,000 people would be killed. A radioactive plume
would lethally contaminate thousands more. In a densely populated city
such as New York or Chicago, a similar blast would result in a death
toll perhaps eight times that high.
Charles Allen, undersecretary for intelligence and analysis for the
Department of Homeland Security, has said there is no question that
Islamist terrorist groups are seeking nuclear materials. But the
intelligence community, he added, is “less certain about terrorists’
capability to acquire or develop a nuclear device.”
Could the intelligence community be more certain? Yes, our spies could
do more to increase our chances of detecting — and preventing —
terrorist attacks of all varieties. But they are being denied the
tools. The most notable example: The law that gave America’s
intelligence agencies the authority to freely monitor the
communications of foreign terrorists abroad expired in February.
A bill to restore that authority passed the Senate by a solidly
bipartisan 68-to-29 majority. A bipartisan majority in the House would
almost certainly vote in favor of the same measure but Speaker Nancy
Pelosi — for more than two months — has used the power of her office
to stop members from casting their votes yea or nay.
Why would she do something so irresponsible? Groups on the Left,
important to the Democrats in this election season, demand that
foreign terrorists abroad be given the same privacy protections
enjoyed by American citizens here at home.
This policy may already have cost American lives. In at least one
instance, U.S. officials labored for nearly ten hours to get legal
approval necessary to conduct wiretaps to help them locate three
American soldiers kidnapped by al-Qaeda combatants in Iraq. The
soldiers were not successfully rescued.
“We are extending Fourth Amendment (constitutional) rights to a
terrorist foreigner . . . who’s captured a U.S. soldier,” Director of
National Intelligence Michael McConnell complained to a congressional
committee during a legislative battle over this same issue last year.
Also in the mix: Trial lawyers are suing telecommunications companies
that cooperated with intelligence officials immediately after 9/11,
allowing them to “mine” data for patterns of terrorist activity. If
the trial lawyers — the biggest donors to Democrats — succeed, they
will reap billions of dollars. They also will teach the private sector
never again to assist government efforts to identify terrorists. The
Senate bill would protect the telecoms from these laws suits.
Almost two dozen moderate Democratic House members sent Pelosi a
letter saying that until this measure is passed, America’s national
security will be “at undue risk.” But that was months ago. Since then,
with few exceptions, Democrats have been keeping their mouths shut.
Is worrying about nuclear terrorism fear mongering? After the
suicide-bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, and
again after the truck-bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, most
politicians exhibited not fear but complacency. They did nothing
serious to anticipate or avert the next terrorist attacks. The
consequence was the atrocity of 9/11.
Nancy Pelosi and those following her lead appear to have learned
nothing in the years since.
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