Prepare for Worst in a Dangerous World

It is easy in the heat of rage to condemn terrorism, to issue bellicose threats and to shed tears for the victims. It is a far more difficult task to collect intelligence, divine terrorists’ intentions, maintain security over infinite targets, mobilize allies and prepare for contingencies that it is hoped never will occur. Over the past six months, the National Commission on Terrorism, a 10-member independent panel, has addressed the reality, not the mere rhetoric, of counterterrorism.

The language of its report is sober; its recommendations are sensible. It is nonetheless a passionate document determined to bring about a fundamental change in mind-set.

The commission recognizes that while progress has been made in combating terrorism, the terrorist threat has evolved. Today’s terrorists are potentially more dangerous and certainly more difficult to deal with.

Once a distant threat, terrorist attacks inspired or commissioned from abroad, have occurred on American soil. Large-scale indiscriminate violence has become the reality of today’s terrorism, raising concerns that tomorrow’s terrorists will move beyond truck bombs to employ chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons. At the same time, terrorist organizing has become more fluid. Networks and ad hoc conspiracies are replacing the identifiable terrorist organizations we dealt with in the past. The new, murkier structures are harder to identify, more difficult to penetrate. Meeting this new threat will require new thinking, an uncompromising posture and strong measures--including the use of terrorist informants.

So long as truck bombs represented the upper bounds of terrorist violence, we could afford a reactive posture. An event on the scale of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which 168 persons died, is clearly a tragedy, but does not imperil the republic. The perception that terrorists may employ deadlier weapons puts greater emphasis on prevention. A chemical or biological equivalent of Oklahoma City could lead to public hysteria and national panic.

Learning what terrorists are up to requires human intelligence gathering. This is the most difficult to obtain and involves the greatest risks. When we add bureaucratic obstacles, unrealistic requirements and lack of clarity that sometimes seems calculated to protect higher-ups if things go wrong, we encourage timidity on the part of those charged with collecting intelligence. The commission found U.S. intelligence to be “overly risk averse” and “excessively dependent on foreign intelligence services.”

The commission wants to reverse this situation. Shot through its specific recommendations is an exhortation to go out and get the information that is hardest to get. The proposed changes offer no license for abuse. For the most part, the commission recommends clarification and simplification; modifying the adversarial posture that prevails; making sure that agents know what they can, and thereby what they cannot, do and offering them assistance rather than flak when they seek guidance.

Most attention will focus on the commission’s recommendation to drop the guidelines that restrict the recruitment of unsavory informants who have committed human right abuses. But the best information about terrorist plans will come not from archbishops and archangels. It will come from terrorist informants, thugs who are not likely to meet our standards of behavior.

In order to learn what some terrorist organization may be planning next, would we not recruit one of its members, even knowing he had participated in previous terrorist attacks?

The commission endorses continued efforts to limit the collection of funds in the United States for groups engaged in terrorist activity abroad and takes a hard line on penalizing governments that sponsor terrorist activity or do not fully cooperate with the United States in combating terrorism. The report includes Pakistan and NATO ally Greece in the latter category. This is certain to cause a diplomatic flap. The Clinton administration is not likely to embrace this suggestion, but may instead exploit it to encourage greater cooperation.

In the case of a catastrophic terrorist attack, the commission suggests that the Department of Defense be designated the lead federal agency instead of the FBI or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This is not a good idea. There may arise circumstances that will require mobilizing the armed services, but I believe it is preferable that civilian agencies remain in charge.

The commission’s findings and recommendations address the more pedestrian but vital issues of regulation, legal authority and coordination of efforts in the event of a crisis. Its proposals should be discussed and debated in a moment of calm, not when terrorist-caused carnage smears across our television screens or while the public is in a state of alarm or while politicians are pounding podiums. That is our best protection against overreaction and ill-conceived measures.