[iwar] [fc:Rumsfeld.Says.Terrorists.Inevitably.Will.Get.Chemical,.Nuclear.or.Biological.Weapons]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-05-21 17:03:31
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Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 17:03:31 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Rumsfeld.Says.Terrorists.Inevitably.Will.Get.Chemical,.Nuclear.or.Biological.Weapons]
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Rumsfeld Says Terrorists Inevitably Will Get Chemical, Nuclear or Biological Weapons

By John J. Lumpkin Associated Press Writer

Published: May 21, 2002


WASHINGTON (AP) - Terrorists are sure to eventually acquire nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
told senators Tuesday.

Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea are developing such weapons of
mass destruction and will supply them to terrorists to which they
already are linked, Rumsfeld said.

"They (terrorists) inevitably will get their hands on them and they will
not hesitate to use them," Rumsfeld told a Senate Appropriations
subcommittee.

Meantime, Tom Ridge, who heads the White House office of domestic
security, said new terror warnings have not prompted U.S. officials to
raise the nationwide alert status because the intelligence on possible
attacks is too vague.

Rumsfeld declined to discuss specific terrorist threats, saying the
government sees hundreds a day and as many as 90 percent of them are
designed to test the government's response.

"They jerk us around, try to jerk us around, and test us," Rumsfeld
said.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that
while the war on terror has hurt al-Qaida, the terrorist network remains
a threat. "Just like a wounded animal is the most dangerous, they
(al-Qaida) still pose a threat to our armed forces," Myers said.

Ridge said predictions that terrorists may target unnamed apartment
buildings, for example, were not enough to change the nation's security
alert from "yellow" - the third-highest of five stages - and retain the
system's credibility.

"It wasn't actionable in the sense that we're going to change a national
level of awareness, but it was informational," Ridge told the World
Economic Forum at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Faced with criticism for belatedly releasing terrorist information it
had before the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration may routinely
release intelligence information, he added.

"We have two choices: You can either keep it to yourselves or you can
share it," Ridge said. "And under the circumstances, depending on the
source and the specificity and a few other circumstances and conditions,
we may share it."

Ridge was the latest member of the Bush administration to predict that
more terror attacks on Americans are "not a matter of 'if', but 'when.'"


The predictions are based in part on new intelligence suggesting
plotting by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network has been on the rise over
the past few weeks, said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition
of anonymity.

But this sort of increase in volume has happened several times before -
even since Sept. 11.

The official portrayed the intelligence as a new peak in a high-and-low
cycle of terrorist threats that counterterrorism authorities have
tracked for years. The last peak was in March, when al-Qaida financial
activity and communications stepped up. That was linked to al-Qaida
leader Abu Zubaydah, who was subsequently captured in Pakistan.

Another peak in threat reporting took place last summer and is now
regarded as evidence of al-Qaida's preparations for the Sept. 11 attacks
on New York City and Washington. Other peaks have come and gone, and no
attack has taken place.

Publicly, officials are making sobering warnings.

"There will be another terrorist attack. We will not be able to stop
it," FBI Director Robert Mueller told a meeting of the National
Association of District Attorneys on Monday. "It's something we all live
with."

He said suicide bombers like those who have attacked Israeli buses and
restaurants are inevitable in the United States. His words - "I wish I
could be more optimistic" - came one day after Vice President Dick
Cheney said it was almost a certainty the United States would be
attacked again by terrorists.

The blunt new warnings are designed to give Americans better notice and
protect Bush against second guessing in the event of another attack,
said a senior administration official with knowledge of U.S.
intelligence and White House strategy.

Under fire for its handling of terrorism intelligence before the
September attacks, the administration is fighting Democratic-led efforts
to have an independent commission rather than existing congressional
intelligence committees study its performance.

Democrats last week pointed to the disclosure of a July 10 memo from a
Phoenix FBI agent who was concerned about a large number of Arabs
seeking pilot, security and airport operations training at at least one
U.S. flight school, along with the disclosure that Bush had been told in
an Aug. 6 intelligence briefing that al-Qaida might attempt a hijacking
aimed at Americans. The administration has said the information was not
specific enough for it to take concrete action.

The Justice Department said Monday that Attorney General John Ashcroft
did not learn until weeks ago of the Phoenix memorandum.

"The attorney general was not briefed in any detail with any specificity
about the document known as the Phoenix memo until approximately a month
ago," a Justice official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

But The New York Times in Tuesday's editions reported that Ashcroft and
Mueller were told a few days after Sept. 11 about the Phoenix memo. The
newspaper said neither Ashcroft nor Mueller briefed Bush and his
national security staff until recently about the contents of the memo.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, asked repeatedly Tuesday
whether Bush had seen the memo, said he was not entirely certain about
that, but said Bush has "heard of it now."

Fleischer said it immediately became known in the moments after the
Sept. 11 attacks that the hijackers had been trained at American flight
schools.

In fact, just hours after the hijackers' identities were determined,
government officials had tracked their paths through the flight schools
and sent FBI agents to them.

Fleischer repeatedly refused to criticize the FBI or Justice Department
for not telling Bush until recently about the Phoenix memo and said that
Bush will not make judgments about the agencies based on "the snippet of
the day."


Associated Press writer Ron Fournier contributed to this report.

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