September 30, 2000

Dear Building Community Family,

Terrorism Sneaks Ashore is the first or a five-part series. It does not deal with natural disaster. It is disaster by humanity's own hand.

Terrorism has become a very real threat, something for which we need to prepare as best we can. It has the potential to affect every single person on this planet. In some countries, people have been victimized by these events for years, but acts of terrorism have only recently come upon our own shores.

We will examine terrorist events which have taken place recently, how the government is addressing this issue, who are these terrorist groups, what the future likely holds, why we should be concerned, and what we can do.

NEW YORK

1993 - our safe womb of "invincibility" was blown to hell. No longer could we rest easy thinking, "it only happens over there". This single event forced us to admit terrorism had trampled our hallowed soil.

February 26th, the New York World Trade Center's basement exploded into a nightmare. Six people lost their lives and 1042 persons were injured. Casualties fell far short of the terrorists' intentions.

OKLAHOMA

Who would have thought terrorism could touch America's heartland? It is not the site of major commerce like Wall Street, nor the seat of Federal government. Though it is within fifteen miles of Tinker Air Force Base, that was not the target either. Instead, Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building reaped the misery.

We didn't need another kick in the belly, but perhaps we needed another louder, stronger warning. It came just two years after the World Trade Center bombing on April 19, 1995.

Wednesday's work day was well under way by 9:00 and Spring's renewing freshness scented the air. At 9:02 the normalcy of that bright morning shattered when the entire front of the Federal Building blew out along with all windows in a two block area. The unthinkable had happened again.

This bombing WAS the single most lethal act of terrorism in U.S. history. It stole 168 lives including a nurse who died during rescue efforts. A well-placed bomb carved a massive 20 foot wide, eight foot deep crater. The second story of the Murrah Building housed a day care center. Its nearness to the blast cost 19 children their lives.

Fear, mixed with anger and sorrow, spread across America like oozing, sticky tar. We were no longer America The Beautiful. We had become America The Terrorized.

Justice was swift. Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death by lethal injection and Terry Nichols was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and conspiring with McVeigh. It has been strongly suggested that Saddam Hussein might be tied to the bombing in retaliation for the Gulf War. Was it coincidence the explosion occurred on the second anniversary of the Gulf War's end?


PRESIDENTIAL RESPONSE

1. Setting a course of action, on June 21, 1995, President Clinton signed PPD-39 (Presidential Decision Directive), dealing with counterterrorism. This PPD addressed America's susceptibility to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and how the U.S. plans to manage these emergencies in the future. It places the FBI over "crisis management" while FEMA is left to deal with the terrorist attack's chaos. By having this formal PPD, we, as a country, acknowledged our vulnerability.

2. The Domestic Preparedness "Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996" (more commonly known as the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici legislation) initiative was formed under FY 1997 Defense Authorization Bill (Public Law 104-201, September 23, 1996). The bill provides funding for the Department of Defense to better equip federal, state and local emergency responders (people who train the trainers) to deal with incidents of nuclear, biological and chemical terrorism.

As a result, $42.6 million was allocated to help prepare 120 cities against terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction. Each of these 120 cities will be assessed by medical and weapons experts on the city's ability to deal with these types of terrorist attacks. As of April 2000, assessment had been completed on 75 cities. This is the largest civil defense initiative since the Cold War.²

3. On May 22, 1998, President Clinton signed two more decision directives. PPD-62, the Combatting Terrorism Directive, underscoring PPD-39. The directive's lead-in sentence says it all.

"It is increasingly likely that terrorist groups, or individuals with criminal intent, may use
unconventional methods to disrupt the Nation's critical infrastructure or use weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) against our citizens."

4. PPD-63, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Directive, addresses security for infrastructure and further outlines the issue of protecting citizens against a terrorist's use of WMD.

5. Operation TOPOFF - short for "top officers" - unfolded. This program drilled three cities: Denver, Washington and Portsmouth, New Hampshire and their capabilities to deal with a WMD attack. The exercise ran for 10 consecutive days in each city with the vast majority of personnel unapprised of the scenario. Authorities released some of the details to the citizenry so they would not become unduly alarmed; however, When the exercise began, notification went out to all hospitals, law enforcement agencies, National Guard and state agencies. Most of the training was kept from public view except for that which involved hospitals and other public areas.

RECENT EVENTS

Since 1995, we have witnessed several waves of terrorism, though not necessarily on our own soil.

August 15, 1998

IRA dissidents killed 29 people with a car bomb in the religiously-mixed town of Omagh. It was the worst-ever terrorist attack in Northern Ireland.


August 7, 1998

Bombs exploded at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 259 people, including 12 Americans. Washington responded with cruise missile attacks on sites supposedly linked to Osama bin Laden. This public strike on a terrorist was a rare occurrence. Since this event, 11 other U.S. embassies have experienced threats of terrorism in Malaysia, Albania, Zambia, Israel, Burundi, Tajikistan, Czech Republic, Sudan, Mali, Madagascar, Mozambique and Chad. July 2000: The State Department canceled two Independence Day celebrations, one in the Middle East and another in Europe, because of the threat of terrorism. Ditto for U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan, and a street fair in Brussels, Belgium. Threats were disclosed.

November 17, 1997

Muslim militants marched into the Temple of Hatshepsut in southern Egypt and massacred 58 tourists. This incident was one of the deadliest acts of terrorism directed specifically at tourists.


July 27, 1996

The 1996 Atlanta Olympic games -- Not since the Munich games of '72 had the Olympic events been tarred by terrorists. In Atlanta's Centennial Park, a crude pipe bomb detonated at 1:25am. Richard Jewell was held by the FBI as the most likely suspect, but later released for lack of hard evidence. The likeliest targets were the police since a call was placed from a pay phone near the explosion. A voice warned, "There is a bomb in Centennial Park. You have 30 minutes." With the officers lured to Centennial Park, the bombed exploded in just 22 minutes. Two people lost there lives and more than 100 were injured. The bomber was never found.


March 20, 1995
Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult, launched a sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway killing 12 and injuring 5,500. This assault was the first non-military/non-governmental use of chemical weapons on civilians.


Other waves of terrorist attacks include those against bus stations and markets in Israel, bombings close to tourist areas in Paris, France; near daily bombings in Algeria, more chemical attacks in Tokyo; the destruction of a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, frequent attacks involving the IRA; and literally hundreds of other unassociated acts of extreme violence too numerous to name.

---