Move to Curb Explosives Taking on a New Urgency

After each major domestic bombing attack during the last 25 years, lawmakers have called for tighter controls over the nation’s supply of explosives and materials used to make homemade bombs.

But efforts for reform have been shot down by industry lobbying or languished in government bureaucracy while the number of bombings has increased dramatically, nearly doubling in the last five years.

Now, in the wake of the worst domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history, those calls have been renewed with unprecedented vigor.

A ranking U.S. senator, concerned about the longstanding problem of thefts of explosives from military bases, is seeking an inquiry into whether stolen Army materials have found their way to anti-government militias, or even to the perpetrators of the April 19 bombing in Oklahoma City.

President Clinton and others on Capitol Hill have proposed use of technology to deter potential terrorists and to track down bombers. And one congressman has announced a hearing on ways to make it tougher for fertilizer to be transformed into bombs like the ones at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City last month and the World Trade Center in New York two years ago.

Federal authorities responsible for fighting domestic terrorism have been hearing such reform proposals for decades.

“It’s always going to be hard to stop the crazies,” said Bob Holland, a retired former special agent in charge of the explosives branch of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. “But there are steps we can take and we’ve studied them for nearly 20 years now without making any successful moves.”

The result of the inaction, according to federal authorities, is that it is as easy as ever to obtain explosives, there are limited means of tracing them and materials and instructions for the making of homemade bombs are widely available.

Control Is Difficult

Interviews and records show that some current reform efforts mirror previous proposals that were defeated or ignored. Among them:

* Methods of detecting the existence of explosives before they are detonated, and then tracing the detonated materials to help authorities find the bombers. Such technology was developed after a 1970 bombing at a federal research building at the University of Wisconsin. But despite enthusiastic law enforcement support, use of the so-called “taggant” technology was defeated in Congress in 1980 and again after the trade center bombing following lobbying by the National Rifle Assn. and explosives manufacturers.

* Technology to neutralize over-the-counter fertilizer with which fuel oil can be turned into a deadly bomb. The first call for implementing this technology was issued more than 20 years ago. ATF officials and terrorism experts say similar technology has been used in Northern Ireland, helping reduce the deadly bombings that had occurred with stunning regularity, but has never been utilized in the United States.

Other significant problems have been recognized for years:

* There are no national safety requirements to ensure that commercial explosives found at construction sites are protected from theft and clearly identified as safety hazards. Experts say some criminals target construction sites as a way of obtaining explosives. Six firefighters were killed in Kansas City seven years ago when a truck filled with ammonium nitrate exploded in a construction site fire set by someone trying to steal explosives.

* Data on how to make bombs is readily available. Unlike many other countries, the United States does not prohibit the sale of books on bomb-making technology. Hundreds of such books exist, according to terrorism expert Neil Livingstone, and many can be purchased simply by dialing toll-free numbers. “You can regulate pornography but you do not regulate how to make bombs,” said Livingstone, author of “The War Against Terrorism.”

* Theft of U.S. military explosives is a continuing problem, despite repeated warnings from government and military investigators about inadequate safeguards over weapons, munitions and bomb parts. Unknown amounts of explosives have been stolen, with some sold at gun shows. In addition, outdated explosives are sold by the Defense Department to citizens and companies with government licenses--3.7 million pounds since 1993--but no checks are made to ensure that the lethal items are used for legal purposes, a Pentagon official said.

Bombing Rate Soars

Across the nation, the number of bombings has skyrocketed, according to annual reports of the ATF. The most common destructive devices were pipe bombs. The leading motives were vandalism and protests. The most frequent targets were mailboxes and residences.

In 1987, authorities reported 816 bombing incidents nationwide. In 1993, there were 1,880 bombings. Forty-five to 75 people died from bomb attacks each year during that period, according to the ATF.

“We are concerned,” said ATF spokesman Les Stanford in Washington. “I’m reminded of what the cartoonist once said: ‘We have met the enemy and it is us.’ We are doing everything in our power to bring (the number) down. . . . “

California leads the nation in the number of bombings, with twice as many reported incidents as any other state. The state suffered 1,559 bombings during the five-year period ending in 1993, compared to 822 incidents in runner-up Florida.

“I think it is because there are more people out here, and a lot more nuts,” said ATF Special Agent Bill Queen, who investigates bombings. “That’s about it.”

Experts acknowledge that there is no foolproof method of foiling a zealot intent on mayhem. The vast majority of explosives are used in such everyday tasks as construction, quarrying, mining and even farming.

Recognizing that such products as fertilizer are over-the-counter items, lawmakers face a dilemma. They must balance public safety concerns with basic American freedoms and the interests of industries reluctant to bear the cost of many proposed safety initiatives.

“You get into some weighty matters about the freedom of people to go about their business in terms of rights under the Constitution,” said ATF spokesman Stanford.

Moreover, not all of the available technologies and safeguards appear to be perfect. Lobbyists for the NRA and other groups have successfully fought back past efforts to require taggants in explosives by raising questions about their safety and effectiveness, as well as their cost.

After the Oklahoma City blast, the Institute of Makers of Explosives issued a strong statement of continued opposition to taggants, saying these “do nothing to prevent bombings--they are ineffectual, unsafe and very costly for almost no benefit.”

But other lobbying groups, including the Fertilizer Institute and the NRA, are now voicing a willingness to support new research to determine whether taggants, “fertilizer bomb” defusers and other technology can safely make a difference.

Ron Phillips, a spokesman for the Fertilizer Institute, said his organization strongly endorses federal funding of a study on whether the common chemicals used to manufacture homemade explosives can be rendered inert.

Public Opinion

While there are no simple solutions, law enforcement experts and lawmakers say that they hope the current wave of public sentiment may finally provide the impetus to make some changes.

“There are a lot of things that can be done and I imagine some of them will get done now,” said Al Gleason, a retired career ATF explosives expert. “It’s too late for those people (who died), but it may not be for others.”

Several lawmakers, including Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) and Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), have joined Clinton in calling for a new look at the use of taggants--virtually indestructable microscopic chips that can be inserted in explosives to allow tracing back to manufacturers, sellers or even customers.

“When I heard that,” said ATF Special Agent Lanny Royer in Los Angeles, “I said, God, we already have that (capability). We’ve had it for 20 years, we’ve tried it and it works great.”

This week Rep. W. J. (Billy) Tauzin (D-La.) announced an upcoming hearing on the use of a process that can prevent fertilizer from being combined with fuel oil and turned into a powerful bomb like the one used in Oklahoma City. It was two decades ago that Tauzin, then a private attorney representing holders of a chemical patent, first proposed using diammonium phosphate to neutralize the explosive capacity of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, but the Louisiana Legislature rejected that.

In Northern Ireland, several measures have helped thwart or reduce the potency of fertilizer bombs. Authorities say one method involves pressing the fertilizer into pellets that cannot absorb fuel oil.

Perhaps the area most in need of reform, according to Glenn and others, is the military, which for years has been criticized for lax oversight of its weapons, munitions and explosives. The Army often did not know weapons and explosives had been stolen until congressional investigators found them for sale at weekend gun shows, Glenn said.

In a telephone interview, the senator said he has demanded a May 24 briefing from Army brass on the issue of missing and stolen explosives, weapons and ammunition. He also said he has called on the General Accounting Office to continue looking into lax inventory and security controls, specifically at several Army bases, including Ft. Riley, Kan.

“It is almost impossible to stop all of this,” said Glenn. “But we have to try, and we certainly don’t want government explosives and government parts used in these (bombings). There is great cause for concern about all this.”

Officials at Ft. Riley, where Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy J. McVeigh was once stationed, have said they detected no instances of thefts or losses of weapons or explosives there.

“But,” said Glenn aide Len Weiss, “if the controls are as bad as they are in the rest of the country, that means they wouldn’t even know they were missing.”

In a letter to Glenn dated March 2, the GAO said the Army has identified 66 “action items” that they believe will rectify the inventory and security problems.

Military officials were unable to provide figures on the amount of explosives missing from military installations each year.

Sharon Dunfrund, acting chief of supply policy for the Army, said Friday that the overall number of stolen materials appears low but that studies have shown a need for stronger controls. “Nothing is perfect,” she said, but added: “One missing weapon or explosive is something that should not happen. Certainly this is one of the hottest projects within the Army.”

At a House Crime subcommittee hearing Wednesday, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh was asked to return with statistics on stolen explosives and weapons from military bases. Freeh told lawmakers that such thefts have been a persistent problem.

In the mid-1980s, congressional investigators reported that military explosives had been used in 445 bombings across the nation from 1976 to 1985. The possibility that terrorists could gain access to such munitions “is very frightening to me,” said then-U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, who mounted a long-term effort during his Washington tenure to reform the military’s inventory system.

A two-year undercover sting operation during the mid-1980s resulted in the recovery of nearly $1.5 million in stolen equipment from Camp Pendleton alone and the prosecution of more than 130 individuals. Although defense officials pledged to improve their inventory procedures, incidents continued, and so did criticism over the military’s oversight.

In early 1987, a federal grand jury in Raleigh, N.C., indicted five members of the Ku Klux Klan on charges of conspiring to steal U.S. military weapons, explosives and rockets to equip a white supremacist paramilitary unit. A subsequent congressional staff report charged that several extremist groups, ranging from white racists to a black street gang in Chicago, “have been known to seek sophisticated military ordnance to employ in terrorist attacks.”

The next year, according to press reports, an associate of former Green Beret Lt. Col. James (Bo) Gritz, now a leader of the militia movement, pleaded guilty to shipping 200 military plastic explosives by way of commercial airline to Las Vegas for use in training Afghan rebels in the Nevada desert.

In 1993, a former Army Green Beret sergeant pleaded guilty after trying to sell 20 pounds of stolen plastic military explosives and grenades to an undercover agent. In a hearing of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee the next month, a Michigan National Guardsman said he had been stealing small-arms parts for five years, and selling them to an Illinois gun dealer whose customers included David Koresh’s Branch Davidian religious sect near Waco, Tex. At the same hearing, a Los Angeles police detective said stolen explosives and weapons were allowing extremist groups on the left and the right to become better armed than law enforcement agents.

Thefts at construction sites, and even at garden shops, underscore the wide availability of bomb-making materials. This week, federal authorities have expressed concern about the theft of 1,500 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer--the type used in the Oklahoma blast--from a lawn and garden store near Atlanta.

“If there’s nobody watching the store, someone’s going to steal a bar of candy,” said New York City deputy chief fire inspector Bob Materasso, who heads one of the nation’s few strict municipal construction explosives monitoring programs.

Yet even as the nation mourns the killing of scores of children and adults, bomb-building recipes continue to be anonymously swapped in cyberspace, with one message on the Internet offering “complete details of the bomb used in Oklahoma City, and how it . . . could have been better.”

Back in the Vietnam War years, the “Anarchist Cookbook” served as a source of bomb-making recipes for left-wing radicals. Now, dozens of up-to-date how-to texts are available to paramilitary types, in catalogues and magazines.

“You are a man of action, frequently encountering explosive situations, so next time be prepared with a deadly brew of your own!” reads the publisher’s blurb for one book, which is available for $10 by credit card, with a money-back guarantee, through an ‘800’ phone line.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Bombings Nationwide

In recent years, the number of bombings across the nation has nearly doubled. California suffered more bombings than any other state, nearly twice as many in the last five years as the next hardest-hit state, Florida. Number of bombings for each state in red circle.

1 to 25 Alabama: 20 Alaska: 5 Arkansas: 18 Connecticut: 16 Delaware: 3 Idaho: 6 Kansas: 16 Kentucky: 22 Maine: 2 Maryland: 16 Massachusetts: 16 Mississippi: 22 Montana: 12 Nebraska: 18 Nevada: 20 New Hampshire: 5 North Dakota: 3 Rhode Island: 5 South Carolina: 9 South Dakota: 6 Utah: 16 Vermont: 5 Washington, D.C.: 5 West Virginia: 16 Wisconsin: 22 Wyoming: 12 ***

26 to 50 Georgia: 29 Hawaii: 29 Louisiana: 39 Missouri: 34 New Jersey: 39 New Mexico: 39 North Carolina: 32 Oklahoma: 34 Oregon: 31 Puerto Rico: 30 Tennessee: 28 ***

51 to 99 Colorado: 97 Indiana: 52 Iowa: 70 Minnesota: 86 Ohio: 90 Pennsylvania: 55 Virginia: 54 Washington: 55 ***

over 100 Arizona: 159 California: 541 Florida: 245 Illinois: 326 Michigan: 107 New York: 117 Texas: 197 ***

TYPES OF INCIDENTS NATIONWIDE

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 Bombings 1,065 1,275 1,585 1,911 1,880 Firebombings 319 389 414 582 538 Deaths 74 64 75 45 70 Injuries 495 385 695 469 1,375 Property damage $48.9 $16.3 $27.1 $22.6 $526.4 (in millions)

***

INCIDENTS IN CALIFORNIA

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 Bombings 203 283 382 326 405 Firebombings 46 82 116 149 136