U.S. Skimps on Terrorist Defenses, Senate Told : Security: Incidents are expected to increase after the Gulf War, experts testify. But funding to combat them has been cut back.

The threat of terrorism is expected to increase if the Gulf War ends in humiliating defeat for Iraq, but the U.S. government is skimping on the money to develop counterterrorist technology, experts told a Senate hearing Tuesday.

A top State Department official reported a sharp upsurge in terrorist incidents--more than three times the usual number--since the start of the war against Iraq. Most of the incidents primarily have resulted in property damage.

“The threat of terrorism will continue in the future,” said Morris D. Busby, coordinator for counterterrorism. “There has been an aftermath of terrorism to every conflict in the Middle East for the last three decades, and although we hope it will not be the case in this one, we must assume and plan for the worst.”

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) agreed, saying: “Terrorism is the coward’s weapon. After humiliation, terrorists strike back, so in the aftermath of the Gulf War, we should toughen our defenses against terrorism.”

Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), who as chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee presided at Tuesday’s hearing, said chemical and biological agents soon may be employed in terrorist attacks against the United States.

“The increasing number of terrorist threats is not the only story here--the weapons that terrorists use are getting deadlier each year,” Glenn said at the outset of the hearing.

But the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) said the government was sharply reducing money for a key coordinating agency--the Technical Support Working Group--in anti-terrorism research. From a peak of $10 million in 1986-87, the office reported, Congress provides only $2 million a year for the working group, delaying development of devices that could improve bomb detection at airports and thwart chemical or biological attacks.

“This steady and drastic reduction in funding is ill-advised,” said Anthony Fainberg, director of the agency’s project on counterterrorism research, who recommended a return to the $10-million level for the interagency group.

Busby, speaking for the Bush Administration, agreed that more money should be allocated to speed development of anti-terrorism technology.

But the experts reported that no sure-fire method has been found to detect small quantities of the type of plastic explosive used in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December, 1988.

“OTA finds no technological ‘silver bullet’ that will protect against the introduction of bombs onto airliners,” said Alan Shaw, the agency’s manager for international security. “Rather, we should seek to devise a system with multiple complimentary parts that . . . together provide greater breadth of coverage than any single detection method can. There are many promising areas of technology . . . but no one that can do the job alone.”

The OTA report said it now was inadvisable for the Federal Aviation Administration to require airports to install a large number of costly devices using thermal neutral analysis for detecting bombs in checked baggage.

“The utility of this detector for finding bombs of the size that caused the Lockerbie crash has been widely questioned,” the report said. It also said a series of tests have confirmed that the device causes too many false alarms for practical use in a busy airport.

The agency noted that the special equipment, which is bulky and time-consuming to operate, costs more than $1 million per machine. Until better technology is available, the agency recommended other steps, including hand inspection of all suspect baggage and better passenger screening, to improve airline security.

But Lynne A. Osmus, acting director of the office of civil aviation security policy and planning for the FAA, defended the devices as “the most promising (explosive detection system) to date,” adding that performance tests at Gatwick Airport in England have been promising.