Despite bin Laden's threats, analysts don't think he has high-tech weapons
By Anthony Shadid
Boston Globe
Saturday, September 15, 2001
WASHINGTON -- While denying any involvement in the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Saudi Arabian militant Osama bin Laden has reportedly warned that thousands of young, devoted Muslims have been trained in chemical, biological and nuclear warfare and are ready for martyrdom.
Specialists cast doubt on his threat, which was reported Thursday in the Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, saying that it differed in both style and substance from previous attacks attributed to his group. But, analysts said, the warning underscored what policy makers have increasingly prepared for: the threat of an attack with weapons of mass destruction.
Since the sarin gas attack in a Tokyo subway in 1995, U.S. officials have sharply increased spending to defend against the threat posed by biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, increasing the budget 211 percent from 1998 to 2002.
But in the aftermath of Tuesday's deadly terrorist attacks, some specialists called such preparations a misallocation of resources.
While money went to prevent an assault whose likelihood was always remote, they said, more could have been spent to prepare for a more conventional assault.
"The attack on Tuesday was a wake-up call to reorient our focus on where we're putting our money for counterterrorism," said Peter Chalk, a terrorism and security analyst with the Rand Corp., a research center in the Washington area.
Since 1998, spending on preparedness for a chemical, biological or nuclear attack tripled, from $569 million to nearly $1.8 billion in 2002, according to an analysis by the Henry L. Stimson Center, a Washington think tank.
Meanwhile, the overall counterterrorism budget grew more slowly, from $6.1 billion to more than $10 billion over the same period, according to the analysis.
Individual programs saw even bigger increases. Spending on research and development for defense against weapons of mass destruction jumped 344 percent from 1998 to 2002.
Analysts trace the start of that shift in spending to the Clinton administration, which was alarmed by the release of sarin by an apocalyptic cult in a Tokyo subway. Twelve people were killed, alerting many to the potential of terrorism with chemical and biological agents.
Bin Laden's reported threat this week raised similar fears.
Quoted by aides, he reportedly said that thousands of Muslim youths "have a lot of scientific and military capability in the fields of chemical, biological and nuclear warfare . . . and they are ready to do what they are entrusted with in the service of their religious community."
Some analysts cautioned against ignoring that warning.
While "people have done chemical and biological attacks, no one has ever done anything like was done on Tuesday," said Daniel Byman, research director for the Rand Corp.'s Middle East Center.
"I think the focus has been reasonable, just not perfect," Byman said. "You can slam people for missing a particular threat, but you can credit them for seeing other threats. Just because it hasn't happened, doesn't mean it won't happen in the future."
But others questioned such a focus, including those who have followed bin Laden since he left Saudi Arabia for Afghanistan to fight Soviet troops in the 1980s.
His style was always brazen but conventional, and his resources went to recruitment and training, not sophisticated weaponry.
"These are people who go on their own, and it is up to them to resort or to use whatever resources they can put their hands on, according to their financial ability and according to their skills," said Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who first interviewed bin Laden in 1989.
Analysts say attacks attributed to bin Laden and his followers have displayed a simplicity, bombs carried by boat, truck and plane.
"Terrorism is a remarkably conservative practice . . . even though those carrying it out are incredibly radical in what they're trying to achieve," Chalk said. "The planes were unprecedented, but they were bombs."
The report by the Stimson Center suggests that it would take a small terrorist group two years to make enough sarin to kill 500 people outdoors and another 18 years to produce the ton of sarin needed to kill 10,000.
Despite recruiting 100 scientists and technicians and investing $30 million in chemical and biological weapons, the religious cult in Tokyo failed to create a bioweapons program, the report said. Such a project might require hundreds, even thousands of top-flight scientists, it said.
"There's a huge difference between theoretical possibility and operational reality when it comes to that type of weapon," said Amy Smithson, a senior associate at the Stimson Center and author of the study.
She contended that the threat was overestimated in the federal budget.
"If Washington were spending these resources in a wiser fashion, much more would be going to front-line preparedness," she said. |
