Orlando Sentinel

Graham: Terrorists didn't reach all targets

By Mark Schlueb, Christine Shenot and Jon Seinman | Sentinel Staff Writers Posted September 18, 2001

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were intended to be the first wave of a sustained, days-long campaign of terror in the United States and around the world, U.S. Sen. Bob Graham said Monday.

Graham, chairman of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence, told the Orlando Sentinel that hijacked airliners were only one facet of a widespread plan by a cabal of terrorists likely headed by Osama bin Laden.

The Florida Democrat was briefed about the findings Sunday by the CIA.

"There has been very credible evidence gathered since Tuesday that Tuesday's attacks were not designed to be a one-day event," he said. "There were other acts of terrorism in the United States and elsewhere that were part of this plan."

Other attacks likely would not have involved commandeered airliners, Graham said.

"Not necessarily hijacking another airliner, but maybe putting a chemical in a city's water system, or blowing up a bridge in a major urban center," he said.

Bin Laden's weapons

Officials don't know precisely what kind of weapons are at the disposal of bin Laden and his terrorist cells scattered across the globe.

Although bin Laden-linked terrorists have successfully used car- and boat-based bombs, the Islamic extremist also has tried to acquire components to build nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, according to international security experts who cite intelligence reports.

And, experts warn, his arsenal could include more unorthodox weapons -- as unexpected as flying fuel-laden passenger jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The one thing several experts agree on is that the terrorists want to spawn widespread death.

"They're going to try and find places with larger numbers of people and that are highly symbolic, where they can cause a lot of destruction and panic and bring attention to their cause," said P.W. Singer, a security and intelligence scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

As recently as Sunday morning, Graham said, intelligence agencies worried that follow-up attacks still might take place. He said he could not identify possible targets of other attacks, and would not reveal how U.S. intelligence agencies learned of the plans.

However, an Army official has told the Sentinel that combat jets already are flying over U.S. cities to protect "major installations" such as nuclear power plants.

Bin Laden, a fugitive Saudi multimillionaire thought to be sheltered in Afghanistan, is known to have bankrolled earlier attacks on U.S. installations and people -- including last October's bombing of the USS Cole and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

The 17th of 52 children fathered by a billionaire Saudi builder, bin Laden used his inheritance to create al-Qaeda -- in Arabic, "The Base" -- an umbrella group that has helped train and support dozens of Islamic terrorist groups around the world since 1989, according to documents from the Justice and State departments.

Intelligence failures

Graham said a lack of coordination among American intelligence services contributed to the failure to obtain warning of last week's attacks. At least two suspects linked to the attacks had, at some point, been under CIA surveillance.

"There was a serious lack of coordination among federal agencies," he said. "There were some people with suspect backgrounds whom the CIA had been following outside the U.S., who were able to enter the U.S., which raises questions about our immigration service. And once they were in the U.S., they were able to lose themselves in the crowd."

On Thursday, Graham is expected to introduce a package of intelligence reforms. Among the changes would be a new White House-based coordinator for all U.S. intelligence agencies. He also plans to call for easing restrictions on wiretaps and making it easier to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists.

"America has not been comfortable with the idea of spies, and eavesdropping . . . but the kind of enemy we have today is not going to be found out other than by good intelligence, and if you don't find them out, there is tremendous carnage," Graham said.

Until last week, the weapons used by bin Laden terrorists had been, for the most part, vehicles loaded with explosives, such as the boat that smashed into the hull of the Cole last year and truck bombs such as those used to demolish U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.

The use of passenger jetliners was a novel adaptation of terror, said Judith Yaphe, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies and a retired CIA analyst who specialized in the Middle East. [OG Note--Not really novel. It's simply another mode of transportation used as a bomb--bicycles, cars, trucks, buses and boats have been used--why not a plane? However, it does take a lot more intelligence to plan and execute a plane-bomb and, I suspect, people dismissed the idea as being beyond the capability of terrorists.]

"One thing I learned years ago as an intelligence analyst is never say never. Never close your mind to any aspects," Yaphe said. "It's the simple thing that works.

"I would have to make the assumption that there are still cells in this country planning attacks. Not to make that assumption would be dangerous."

What's next?

Whether or not al-Qaeda possesses biological, chemical or nuclear weapons remains the subject of nervous debate in U.S. security circles.

"I believe they'll try and find weapons they believe are the most destructive," Singer said. "If they're able to obtain chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, I think they'll use them."

But Gene Poteat, a former scientific intelligence officer with the CIA and head of an association of retired intelligence officers, downplayed the notion that other attacks are imminent.

"My feeling is these people have overplayed their hands," he said. "They've awakened and aroused the sleeping tiger, as [the Japanese] did with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

"Their next step is to see how deep they can hide."

Poteat noted that more sophisticated weapons would require many more people and logistical support -- both of which increase the risk of detection.

Micheal Wermuth, a senior policy analyst with Rand Corp. who sat on a congressionally mandated advisory commission on terrorism, echoed that point. He also emphasized the extreme difficulty -- and expense -- involved in creating chemical or biological weapons.

Wermuth pointed to the nerve-gas attack in Tokyo in 1995 by the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo. The group spent an estimated $20 million to $100 million trying to develop devices, he said, and had full-time chemists on the payroll. Yet the attack killed only a dozen people.

To compare, officials fear the death toll from last week's low-tech attacks -- carried out by buying seats for 19 hijackers on four scheduled cross-country flights -- could surpass 5,000.

Other weapons

Using biological and chemical agents is extremely complicated, from the initial effort to cultivate a disease agent such as anthrax, to figuring out how to transport it and deliver it in a manner that will hit a lot of people, Wermuth said.

The same applies to developing nuclear weapons.

But that, Wermuth said, doesn't mean those possibilities should be dismissed: "They're not impossible. They're just a lot harder."

There are clear signs that bin Laden has made attempts to develop just such weaponry.

A federal indictment unsealed in 1998, in response to the embassy bombings that killed 224 people, charged bin Laden with trying to "obtain the components of nuclear weapons" and trying "to produce chemical weapons."

According to Yossef Bodansky, who wrote a biography of bin Laden in 1999, bin Laden has acquired samples of biological agents, including viruses such as Ebola and salmonella from Russia, botulinum toxin and equipment for mass production from the Czech Republic and anthrax from North Korea.

Jamal Ahmad al-Fadl, a Sudanese national and admitted accomplice of bin Laden who surrendered to American authorities in 1996, described his role in an attempt to purchase $1.5 million worth of uranium, a radioactive material used in nuclear weapons, according to the California-based Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

In 1998, the Arabic news magazine Al-Watan Al-Arabi reported that bin Laden purchased 20 stolen nuclear warheads from Chechen rebels for $30 million and 2 tons of opium.

"Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty," bin Laden told Time magazine later that year. "If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so."

In a 1999 interview with Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail, bin Laden said he felt justified in acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

"We don't consider it a crime if we tried to have nuclear, chemical, biological weapons," he said. "Our holy land is occupied by Israeli and American forces. We have the right to defend ourselves and to liberate our holy land."

The potential for biological weapons -- such as smallpox or anthrax released in public places -- being used against the American public is something the nation must consider, according to D.A. Henderson, a bioterrorism expert at Johns Hopkins University.

"Nations and dissident groups exist that have both the motivation and access to skills to selectively cultivate some of the most dangerous pathogens and deploy them as agents in acts of terrorism or war," he wrote in a 1998 report for the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Henderson specifically cited Iraq, which was discovered after the Persian Gulf War to have an extensive biological-weapons program, including "bombs, rockets and aircraft spray tanks" containing anthrax and botulism, which are highly infectious and often fatal.

Iraq and bin Laden, who both consider the United States their most powerful enemy, could very well be in league to develop such weapons and use them, said Yaphe, the former CIA analyst.

No one knows if another attack will come. But experts say one clue could be in the surprising nature of the attacks using the jetliners. That is, terrorists likely will try to exploit a security weakness that is not yet obvious.

"They're going to pick the time and place for the next attack, and they're not going to do the same thing," said Singer, of the Brookings Institution. "They're going to find new vulnerabilities or old vulnerabilities we've forgotten about."

Wire services were used in compiling this report. Mark Schlueb can be reached at 407-420-5417 or mschlueb@orlandosentinel.com. Christine Shenot can be reached at cshenot@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6140. Jon Steinman can be reached at 407-650-6333 or jsteinman@orlandosentinel.com.

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001

Answers

It was reported earlier that Atlanta was one of the targets. What is in Atlanta that would make it a choice target? A big airport?

I am thinking along the lines of bio weapons. Does that give you a hint?

The CDC.

What if that complex was bombed, and various and sundry toxins were to escape?

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001