[iwar] [fc:The.next.wave.of.terror:.Scenario.planners.trying.to.predict.the.unthinkable]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-30 06:11:19
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The next wave of terror: Scenario planners trying to predict the unthinkable 
Kevin Fagan, SF Chronicle, 10/29/2001
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/10/28/MN180760.DTL">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/10/28/MN180760.DTL>

Imagine your most unthinkable nightmare of the next terrorist attack.
Now try to imagine something even worse. 
Maybe then you'll come close to what scenario planners -- experts who
craft models for any manner of disaster -- are trying to prepare for in
America.

The nation has fired up its most imaginative thinkers to try to map out
what could be the next wave of terrorism, and the picture is not pretty.
The operating premise is that the hijackings and anthrax attacks are a
tepid warm- up for a truly big assault -- which could range from massive
truck-bomb explosions to infecting millions with disease to nuclear
annihilation -- and that we're not fully ready to combat it. 
Now here is the silver lining in that dark cloud: These are simply the
worst-case scenarios, not reality. Yet. 
In the days after Sept. 11, critics on Capitol Hill and elsewhere made
much of their belief that America's vulnerability to the aerial
broadsides was less a failure of intelligence than a failure of
imagination. Accordingly, the Army, 
CIA, weapons labs, even financiers and Hollywood writers are trying hard
to make sure that doesn't happen again. 
And with the nation already on edge over daily reports about the spread
of anthrax, the heat is on to get the schematics done fast. Preparations
are sprouting coast to coast. 
At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, scientists are quietly
outlining ways chemical, biological and nuclear sneak attacks could be
carried out, and perfecting tactics to counter them. Using data from
previous disasters, including the Three Mile Island nuclear leak, they
have already created evacuation plans for heads of state attending
events that get hit by firebombs or crop-dusters carrying poisons. 
In Washington, D.C., the Pentagon is crafting scenarios for handling
suicide bombings or gas attacks in crowded plazas, and analysts are
assessing how to keep the country running if Congress is obliterated.
Dartmouth College professors are helping the military envision hackers
crippling the Internet -- and even Lloyd's of London is revising
formulas for how to compensate for carnage it previously thought
impossible. 
WAR GAME Perhaps the most intensive effort is being conducted in think
tanks and labs from Florida to California, where analysts pore over the
results of a unnerving domestic war game called "Dark Winter." In the
simulation, terrorists spray small bits of smallpox into three U.S.
cities -- and within 13 days the nation's vaccine is depleted, 2,600
people are dead, and panic riots erupt everywhere. 
The idea of all these exercises, experts say, is that in the new war on
our own turf, we need to pool resources and find novel ways to fight.
Although even mentioning the chaotic possibilities is alarming,
downplaying them is not an option. 
"You can't wait. You have to make contingency planning for the absolute
worst-case scenarios, then work down from there," said Stanley
Bedlington, former senior analyst at the CIA's counterterrorism center.
"And in this case, the planning has to go from now to long-range,
meaning at least three, four years ahead." 
Bedlington, who is helping the military draft scenarios, said the range
of terrorist targets -- and the methods they could use -- is
breathtaking. 
"There are too many points of vulnerability, hundreds of thousands of
places you could attack -- farms, nuclear plants, power stations,"
Bedlington said. "You have to start with whatever is most believable, an
intuitive thing, really, and only when you've exhausted all the
possibilities can you stop." 
INTENSIVE SECOND-GUESSING The best way to narrow the field is for
American intelligence operatives to figure out what the Osama bin Laden
terror network has in mind next, and they are working overtime on that.
Existing scenarios for responding to earthquakes and other natural
disasters also save time, because they are blueprints for dispatching
troops and firefighters and they anticipate what could paralyze a region
and kill the most people. 
But the most important thing is that planners not let anything limit
their imaginations. 
That is why Hollywood film writers and producers have been brought in on
the act. Recruiting the artists whose spy thrillers and action flicks
can come off as improbable may sound amusing, but no one at the Pentagon
is laughing. 
Several brainstorming sessions among the best strategic minds in the
Army and a top-secret pool of entertainment talent were held this month
to map out scenarios, and more sessions are planned. 
"We've used these folks for a number of things in the past, and they are
incredibly helpful," said Michael Macedonia, chief scientist at the
Army's Simulation Training and Instrumentation Command. "When you have
Hollywood writers in the room, you sort of shake things up a bit,
stimulate things. It's no joke." 
After all, he pointed out, H. G. Wells forecast biological weapons long
before their time, and flip phones were first imagined on "Star Trek." 
"Those kinds of people are very good at thinking outside of the box,"
Macedonia said. 
SCENARIO PLANNING Scenario planning was most famously used by the United
States for designing D-Day, and by the Japanese for preparing the attack
on Pearl Harbor. The basic process is to envision an attack, draw up
responses, and have the military and local agencies run a simulation.
Then assess the simulation -- and run it again. This can take days, or
months. 
And always remember one thing, Macedonia said. Creating scenarios
doesn't guarantee your safety plan will be foolproof. 
"Here's the bottom line truth: They're only abstractions of reality,"
Macedonia said. "The only reason we do them is to package the problem,
put boundaries around it. In the real world you have real emotions, real
surprises, real people who get hurt." 
One man who knows terrorist movie plots as well as anyone is Tom
Mankiewicz, who wrote or co-wrote five James Bond movies including "Live
and Let Die." He says planners have to view the offensives so far as an
unfinished, three-act tragedy. 
THREE-ACT SCHEME The first act, the awful explosions in New York and at
the Pentagon, was very effective, he said. But the second, the anthrax
mailings, has been much less so -- and that is portentous. They may be
efficiently scaring people, but they're not as deadly as terrorists are
capable of being. 
"If I were a terrorist, I'd be planning for a big third act, and that's
what we need to strategize for," Mankiewicz said. "I just hope to God
they're very bad screenwriters and thought all they needed was a second
act." 
According to Bedlington, Mankiewicz's thinking is right on the money. 
"You have to look at the possibility that somebody is just practicing,
putting out this anthrax to see what the effect is," he said. "They
would want to know what the first responders do, how much it rattles us.
Then if it works, and in some respect it has, you do the big attack. 
"That's the worst-case scenario, like it or not," he said. "So you
figure out what could be next. Fast." 
E-mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan@sfchronicle.com.

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