<DOC> [106th Congress House Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:63765.wais] COMBATING TERRORISM: ASSESSING THE THREAT ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ OCTOBER 20, 1999 __________ Serial No. 106-109 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house http://www.house.gov/reform __________ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 63-765 WASHINGTON : 2000 ______ COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois DOUG OSE, California ------ PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent) DAVID VITTER, Louisiana Kevin Binger, Staff Director Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian Carla J. Martin, Chief Clerk Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director ------ Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida TOM LANTOS, California JOHN M. McHUGH, New York ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia JOHN L. MICA, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York Carolina BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont LEE TERRY, Nebraska (Independent) JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho Ex Officio DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel Michele Lang, Professional Staff Member Robert Newman, Professional Staff Member Jason Chung, Clerk David Rapallo, Minority Counsel C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on October 20, 1999................................. 1 Statement of: Hinton, Henry L., Jr., Assistant Comptroller General, National Security and International Affairs Division, General Accounting Office, accompanied by Deborah A. Colantonio, Senior Evaluator; and Davi M. D'Agostino, Assistant Director......................................... 9 Jenkins, Brian M., senior advisor to the president, RAND; John V. Parachini, senior associate, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterrey Institute of International Studies; and Raymond Zilinskas, senior scientist in residence, Biological and Toxin Arms Control, Monterey Institute of International Studies................ 37 Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by: Blagojevich, Hon. Rod R., a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, prepared statement of............... 6 Hinton, Henry L., Jr., Assistant Comptroller General, National Security and International Affairs Division, General Accounting Office: Information concerning the Chemical Weapons Convention... 30 Prepared statement of.................................... 13 Jenkins, Brian M., senior advisor to the president, RAND, prepared statement of...................................... 40 Parachini, John V., senior associate, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterrey Institute of International Studies, prepared statement of............... 49 Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 3 Zilinskas, Raymond, senior scientist in residence, Biological and Toxin Arms Control, Monterey Institute of International Studies, prepared statement of............................. 77 COMBATING TERRORISM: ASSESSING THE THREAT ---------- WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1999 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations, Committee on Government Reform, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Shays, Souder, Terry, and Blagojevich. Staff present: Lawrence J. Halloran, staff director and counsel; Michele Lang and Robert Newman, professional staff members; Jason Chung, clerk; David Rapallo, minority counsel; and Earley Green, minority staff assistant. Mr. Shays. I would like to call this hearing to order. We are going to be having a vote, but I will see if I can get some of the preliminaries done. This is our fifth hearing on Federal efforts to combat terrorism at home and abroad. In previous sessions, we examined governmentwide spending coordination and specific programs to train first responders, deploy National Guard rapid response teams and strengthen public health capabilities to deal with weapons of mass destruction. Underlying all that testimony was one question: How should we fix spending priorities and establish programs to meet an inherently unpredictable, constantly changing threat? To address that question, we asked the General Accounting Office [GAO], to examine one dimension of the threat: the scientific and practical aspects of terrorists carrying out large-scale chemical or biological attacks on U.S. soil. Their report discusses the degrees of difficulty terrorists face when trying to acquire, process, improvise and disseminate certain chemical and biological agents to inflict mass casualties of 1,000 or more. GAO recommends using that type of information to improve systematic threat assessments and refine Federal program targeting. That will not be easy. By its nature, terrorism partakes of the irrational and will not always succumb to rational dissection by the tools of threat assessment and risk management. Any rigid ranking of terrorists' histories, capabilities, and intentions appears to equate likelihood with lethality, understating the threat posed by low probability, yet highly consequential, chemical and biological attacks. But the threat can just as easily be overstated. Vulnerability alone is an inadequate measure, drawing scarce resources in 1,000 directions. Preparing for every worst case scenario is neither practical nor affordable and carries the additional risk we terrorize ourselves by starving other fiscal priorities and surrendering civil liberties. As the threat of biological and chemical terrorism evolves, so should our response. Just as we learned to assess, and to a degree accept, the nuclear threat in the 1950's and 1960's, our assessment of the risks posed by terrorism will need to adapt to the changing world environment of the next century. Federal programs, not known for flexibility or adaptability, will need to change as well. What will guide those changes? Increasingly sophisticated judgments or generalized fears? Prudent planning or budgetary momentum? These are the issues we will confront today, and in future hearings, as our oversight continues. Our witnesses this morning bring significant expertise and insight to our discussion of an important national security issue. We appreciate their time and look forward to their testimony. At this time, I ask if Mr. Souder has any comments he would like to make. [The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.002 Mr. Souder. No. Mr. Shays. Let me take care of unanimous consents. I ask unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the record and that the record remain open for 3 days for that purpose, and without objection, so ordered. [The prepared statement of Hon. Rod R. Blagojevich follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.003 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.005 Mr. Shays. I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted to include their written statements in the record and, without objection, so ordered. As our first witness, we have Henry Hinton, Jr., Assistant Comptroller General, National Security and International Affairs Division, General Accounting Office; and Deborah A. Colantonio and Davi M. D'Agostino. And would you state your titles? Ms. Colantonio. I am a Senior Evaluator. Ms. D'Agostino. I am an Assistant Director. Mr. Shays. Why don't you start your testimony? I think you will be able to finish, and then we will have a vote. Mr. Hinton. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Souder---- Mr. Shays. Excuse me, we do swear everyone in, including yourself. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Shays. For the record, everyone has responded in the affirmative. We will do 5 minutes and then roll the clock over for another 5 minutes. STATEMENT OF HENRY L. HINTON, JR., ASSISTANT COMPTROLLER GENERAL, NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS DIVISION, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY DEBORAH A. COLANTONIO, SENIOR EVALUATOR; AND DAVI M. D'AGOSTINO, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Mr. Hinton. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Souder, I am pleased to be here this morning to discuss our recent report on combating terrorism that you referred to. I will first discuss the ease or difficulty for terrorists to conduct large-scale chemical and biological attacks. Second, I will cover the extent to which the threat of such attacks have been assessed. But before I begin, Mr. Chairman, I want to clarify for you what we did and what we did not do in our work. We consulted with experts in numerous fields to look at the scientific and practical aspects of terrorists successfully carrying out large-scale chemical or biological attacks that might cause mass casualties of at least 1,000. We also considered the fact that the terrorists would be operating illegally and outside a state-run laboratory or weapon program. We did not address the possibility of a rogue scientist or official from a state program providing agents or their weapons from their programs to a terrorist organization, nor did we examine the ease or difficulty for states to successfully produce these weapons. Overall, Mr. Chairman, we found that terrorists trying to make chemical or biological weapons would have to overcome a number of significant technical challenges to cause mass casualties. Some people might be surprised because this conflicts with the many suggestions that have been made in the media and elsewhere that it is easy to prepare agents in your kitchen, your bathtub and your garage. Chemical and biological experts and intelligence agency officials believe that ease or difficulty for terrorists to cause mass casualties with an improvised weapon or device depends on the agent selected. Experts from the scientific intelligence and law enforcement communities told us that terrorists did not need sophisticated knowledge or dissemination methods to use toxic industrial chemicals such as chlorine. In contrast, terrorists would need a relatively high degree of sophistication to successfully cause mass casualties with some other chemical and most biological agents. Specialized knowledge would be needed to acquire the right biological agent or precursor chemicals, process the chemical or biological agent, improvise a weapon and disseminate it. Throughout the different stages of the process, terrorists would run the risk of hurting themselves and being detected and would have to overcome these challenges. Let me break these down further, Mr. Chairman, and call your attention to this chart that is before you. It gives you an idea of some of the stages and the challenges that go into making these types of weapons. Note the cloud in the upper left-hand corner. A terrorist would need to possess certain technical skills. Experts in the various fields, including those formerly with state-sponsored weapons programs, told us that many skills are required to successfully research, develop, produce and disseminate weapons of this type. For example, knowledge and expertise in the fields of physics, meteorology, microbiology and chemistry would come into play. Also, when dealing with biological weapons, experts agree that only those individuals who work on weaponizing agents in a state biological warfare program are likely to possess the specialized knowledge. Next as shown in the top box, a terrorist would need to acquire basic chemicals or infectious biological seed cultures. Basic chemicals necessary for the production of some chemical agents are controlled by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Chemical experts told us that illegal acquisition of large quantities of precursor chemicals would raise red flags, and most nerve agents like sarin have to be delivered in large quantities. The critical exception to this and other challenges for making a chemical attack is toxic industrial chemicals. Chemicals like chlorine or phosgene are ready available. They don't require any mixing. They are dangerous just the way that they are. A hurdle for terrorists trying to make biological weapons is to get sufficiently deadly or infectious seed stocks of the bacteria or virus, especially since controls over these stocks have improved. In our former biological warfare program the United States investigated numerous strains of biological warfare agents before finding ones that were highly infectious. In the second box, terrorists would need to synthesize chemical agents or grow biological agents. For some chemical agents, a terrorist must mix the right amounts of different types of chemicals together in an appropriate container. Biological agents are relatively easy to grow, but a terrorist has to be very careful not to contaminate them with other bacteria or viruses that might kill or interfere with the agents' effects. Even if a terrorist goes through this stage, there are more stages to complete. As shown in the third box, a terrorist would need to process the agents into a form that can be effectively delivered. Specialized knowledge is needed because some steps in the production process of nerve agents are difficult and hazardous. A technical challenge includes containing highly toxic gases. For biological agents, a terrorist has to make a wet or dry product with the right particle size to form a stable aerosol so that the particles reach the small air sacs deep in the lungs. And if a terrorist is trying to make the dry product, special precautions would need to be taken to avoid killing the biological agent in the process. As depicted in the fourth box, a terrorist would have to improvise an agent delivery device to cause mass casualties. Even if the chemical agents can be produced successfully, they must be released effectively as a vapor or as an aerosol to be inhaled. Another method for certain chemicals is to spray large droplets for skin penetration, and for biological agents a terrorist would have to use the right equipment with the right speed to disseminate the agent effectively. If the biological agent is not stabilized and disseminated with the proper energy rate, then the biological agent can lose its ability to cause injury. Last, in the fifth box, and the remaining cloud, a terrorist would have to effectively release the selected agent to cause mass casualties. Both chemical and biological agents need to maintain their strength during release. This is a challenge posed by the very nature of the agents themselves. Terrorists must also deal with additional hurdles. For example, outdoor delivery of agents can be disrupted by environmental and meteorological conditions. If wind conditions are too erratic or strong, the agent might dissipate. Terrorists risk capture and personal safety in acquiring and processing materials, disposing of by-products and releasing the agents. Many agents are dangerous to handle. In some cases, the lack of an effective vaccine, antibiotic, antiviral treatment or antidote poses the same risk to the terrorist as it does to the targeted population. Let me turn now to the second issue regarding the extent to which threat and risk assessments have been done. As you know, numerous Federal agencies--and you have made reference to that in your remarks--are spending billions of dollars and initiating several new programs to prepare for the possibility of a terrorist attack. It is not clear that these investments are targeted toward the right program solutions in the right amounts. We have found that the intelligence community has assessed the more likely chemical and biological threat agents to be used by foreign terrorists, but there is no comparable formal assessment that has been done by the FBI for domestic origin threats. Also, we determined that there is need for a national level assessment that would enable the Nation to focus on the more likely chemical and biological threats. If done properly, this risk assessment would also target our programs and resources more effectively and economically. In our report we recommended that the Attorney General direct the FBI to perform these assessments to help establish and prioritize program requirements. The Justice Department agreed with us on the need for these assessments, as did the Department of Defense and the CIA. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my summary remarks. My colleagues and I will be pleased to respond to your questions. Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. [The prepared statement of Mr. Hinton follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.007 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.008 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.009 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.010 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.011 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.012 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.013 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.014 Mr. Shays. I just want to note for the record that Lee Terry is here as well. I am going to recognize you, Mr. Souder, first, but that is after I ask one question. Mr. Hinton, do you believe a nuclear, biological or chemical attack will take place in the United States sometime in the next 20 years? Mr. Hinton. Based on what we have seen in our work, Mr. Chairman, we are being advised by the intelligence community that the likelihood that this could happen, an attempt of this sort, is growing. Mr. Shays. Thank you. Mr. Souder. Mr. Souder. Pardon my voice. I don't have much of one today. In the bulk of your presentation you were talking about the difficulty of terrorists kind of having the ability to execute an attack that I believe you said in your opening paragraph, defined as at least 1,000 deaths. Does this change if you lower that? Could there be less than a mass catastrophe? Mr. Hinton. Just going through the process, it is very difficult to successfully pull that off--to cause casualties at levels of 1,000 or a couple hundred. I think, as we saw in Japan not too long ago, it wasn't a quality effort. It did affect a small population. That event, even though small, was serious. What was larger was probably the psychological impact that resuslts from such an incident regardless of the number of casualties. My answer is, as you look at whether 1,000, several hundred, I think the steps that we have talked about, the operational and technical parts have to be done in such a way as to be effective before you can have that level of casualty. Mr. Shays. Would the gentleman just suspend? I am going to vote quickly and have you carry on, and just leave with 5 minutes to go, and then we will reconvene when I return. Mr. Souder [presiding]. In the difficulty of delivery systems, the knowledge that this requires and so on, would that not suggest on the surface that foreign threats are probably more serious than domestic threats? Mr. Hinton. I think, Mr. Souder, until we see an analysis of the various threats, both that have been done by the intelligence community and those that we have asked the FBI to undertake, and that using that information and going through a risk assessment process which isolates scenarios, which might have as their base the different types of agents that would be involved, to look at the likelihood of these events occurring and if they did occur, what would be the criticality of the events, I don't know which part of those threats are more serious than the other. I think this is very important as part of the process that governmental agencies that are working this issue need to go through. And in doing that and in coming to those solutions it gives them a way to manage the most serious risk that they see. It might not alleviate all of the risk, but it puts us into a position to come up with countermeasures to go after the higher order of risks that are out there. I don't think that there is any substitute for having good intelligence and contingency planning along these lines. Mr. Souder. It has been hard to get a handle around the different types of threat. By showing the difficulty, it narrows it. This is especially true when you are talking about a domestic situation and American citizens and trying to analyze this without getting into overly classified and high- risk information. We have had public testimony here that most of the foreign threat to American citizens have come from Osama bin Laden and his network because they had some of the delivery systems, at least in a regional way, and then Japan, the FARC, but very few networks have done that. When you start to get into domestic, it starts to get really hairy. I have talked to Mr. Blitzer a number of times about what kinds of groups do you target. Do you say, we have had some pro-life protesters protest at clinics; therefore, any of them at this time could theoretically do this. What about people who are part of the Montana group or whatever, the citizen rights groups? And all of a sudden you are speculative. How would you start to apply some of what you have here to a domestic analysis, because you have raised that? And given the type of technical things that you say here, for example, would people who have worked at a biological or a chemical lab who have been fired or who have been unstable, would you start tracking those kinds of people? You are saying that there are technical things that are needed and it is not just an ideological anger. You need technical people. How do you bring that together along with the question of their American citizenship? Mr. Hinton. One, getting the FBI to be supportive of the recommendation that we made to move domestically in this regard is a good first step. It starts dealing with the question of who/what might be the type of threat that is out there. This is evolving. It is not quick and easy, and it is something that we constantly have to come back to revisit, and update as events around the country change or change overseas. I think that a first step, then allows you to identify what that threat might be and then start putting that threat along with other information from the law enforcement community, the intelligence community that we have and other sources together to start assessing each of those threats from where they might come. Then look upon what is the likelihood that you might have an event and come up with countermeasures against various dependent scenarios. That threat might be multiple things that you have to look at, chemical and biological agents being a part of it, as well as any threats along conventional lines of using bombs, or explosives, which seem to be the more prominent part that we see here now in the United States. Mr. Souder. Thank you. I will yield to Mr. Terry. Mr. Terry. A couple of quick questions so we can go vote. Just picking up on a couple of your answers in the portion of your testimony that I heard--sorry about being late--is there a problem at the FBI? Are they dragging their feet on this issue? It seems that some of the answers--you are not saying it overtly, but is one of the barriers to implementing a more cohesive policy involving the FBI; and if you say that the FBI needs to become more involved, is there a problem there? Mr. Hinton. No, Mr. Terry, I don't want you to think that. When we first got into this our thinking was at a much broader community level, but as we worked with the intelligence community, DOD, HHS, and the others, the FBI came up and said, we ought to be the agency that sponsors a national-level risk assessment. Mr. Terry. Do you agree with that? Mr. Hinton. Yes. All of the Federal players felt that we should put that responsibility with the FBI. Mr. Terry. Why should they be the hub of the spokes? Mr. Hinton. They have the lead responsibility in crisis events, and they have a pretty good ability to tap into the communities out there in terms of different intelligence sources and the threats that are out there. I don't want you to think, too, that they have been inactive in this debate. They have gone through quite a bit of research on their own and have come up with broad groupings of the different types of threats out there, but we have not advanced domestically like I think we have internationally in looking at the specific threats that are out there, and that is what we were trying to move to, to isolate the specific threats that might be reason for concern. Mr. Terry. Where are we in the process here? Another hint that I interpreted from your answers and your statement is that we have a lot of people talking and studying and looking at it. Now we need to tie everybody together. That has probably been haphazard to date but is probably the first step. First of all, you have to identify that there is an issue and then a need. The second part is becoming cohesive and tying that into a plan. Where are we in that process? Do we need to focus everybody? Are we to that next phase where we can be more comprehensive? Mr. Hinton. We are at that stage. We have been looking at this for several years, and what we have seen is a growth in the Federal expenditures throughout the government to address in this whole arena. What we have not seen through our work a process to put in place the identification of the various threats and an assessment process that will allow you to take those threats and related scenarios to come up with countermeasures for those in some coordinated fashion. That has been the subject of several recommendations that we have made. I am pleased that we have gotten a response at this point to move in that direction. I think it is constructive. I think the more intelligence that we gain, the more contingency planning, the process will only get better as it goes forward. Mr. Terry. One last question. Now developing this next phase as you described, the FBI's involvement as being the hub here to help us organize focus, become comprehensive, where are they in the process of implementing any of these recommendations, Nunn-Lugar, Domenici? Where are they in the process? Mr. Hinton. I think they are in the early beginnings of it. On the Nunn-Lugar, we had a recommendation a while back, and it was picked up in the 1999 defense authorization legislation for them to develop some methodologies and assess the possibility of weapons of mass destruction threat against several cities. They were given about a year I think from when that legislation passed to complete the task. They are not at the point of fully executing that yet. They have started working the methodologies, and I think they are going to be evolving in this area. Mr. Terry. Thank you. Mr. Hinton. Yes, sir, Mr. Terry. Mr. Shays [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Hinton. We made a decision to have this hearing public, and we invited DOD and the CIA to come and testify, but their preference is to testify in a hearing that would not be open to the public and therefore we could get at the issues that we can't get into in a public forum like this. In the question do you believe that a nuclear or chemical or biological attack could happen in the 20 years, your answer was that it is appearing more and more likely that we will have to deal to some degree with one of those three types of weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Hinton. Mr. Chairman, I think the keyword here is an ``attempt'' in the chemical and biological area and that is where I would like to have my remarks focused. On the nuclear side, I haven't done the research yet to comment on that. Mr. Shays. Tell me the difference--terrorists don't play by the same rules, so tell me the difference between dealing with a rogue nation, a nation that might use one of these three weapons of mass destruction and a terrorist organization? Mr. Hinton. Well, I think if you look at it from a state environment, you have more resources. You probably have access to expertise that you need. You might well have a sophisticated machine that can move in that direction to do those types of things. I guess it is the goals and the intent that they want to advance. I think also that you have to look at the in objectives. And when it comes to a terrorist, the question is, do they have the same capacity that a state-sponsored organization might have? Would they have the same level of resources and the same knowledge and those types of things? Also, you have to look into the motives and the objectives which they are trying to achieve. Mr. Shays. Versus the terrorists--a terrorist has to live somewhere, so there has to be some environment that enables them to exist and potentially train and so on. What is the likelihood that--if we are dealing with foreign terrorists, that we would know the country that basically has sponsored them or has allowed them to live there? Mr. Hinton. We are getting very close to some of the concerns that I think the CIA and others raised to you. Mr. Shays. Let me put it this way. In most instances, do we believe that we would know if a terrorist was sponsored by a foreign country? Mr. Hinton. I think that the intelligence community would probably have indications of that based on their research. Mr. Shays. In determining the risks, we asked you to look at casualties of over 1,000 or more. If that number were to drop to 200 injuries, would your study be all that different? Mr. Hinton. No, sir, I don't think it would. Probably to have casualties of that magnitude you almost need to go through the same process discussed here in terms of coming up with and overcoming the challenges that one would have in coming up with an agent or a device to cause that magnitude of casualties. The events that we saw in Japan not too long ago, the casualties of deaths were smaller but a large number were injuries, and that was serious. But I think also, looking at that incident there is a huge psychological impact that comes along when you see events like that. But I think in terms of whether I would lower from 1,000 to 200, I wouldn't see much difference in terms of the technical and operational challenges. Mr. Shays. When I read your report, I thought in a way--my first reaction was that it seemed to minimize the threat to me a bit. Then I thought about it more and changed my view a bit. Let me say that there was a student before I was a Member of Congress who lived in Norwalk, CT and went to Princeton, and his assignment was to see if he could go to material in any--in some of our libraries, material that would be available and construct a nuclear weapon. And he ended up doing that. We are going back I think 18 years ago. So the thought now is that one doesn't have to go anywhere other than just turn on their computer. The ability to make--to know--to have the directions on how to make a nuclear or chemical or biological agent is pretty much available. So then the issue is do you have the technical skills to be able to make--let us just talk chemical or biological. We have Americans and foreigners who obviously have tremendous technical skills. Am I to infer that just because it requires--I say just--am I to infer that having the technical skill makes it unlikely that a nuclear or biological agent won't occur? Or should I make an assumption that there are enough people who possess these technical skills that we need to be concerned? In other words, I want you to walk me through this chart, particularly the side corners, and have you tell me what that really means. Start with possess requisite technical skills first. Mr. Hinton. Well, you need specialized skills in this arena. There are a lot of risks. The process gets into acquiring, handling, processing, and manufacturing. To understand those risks and to deal with them and come up an agent that can be weaponized is technically challenging, with the exception of toxic industrial chemicals such as chlorine, which is already in the commercial market. Mr. Shays. One of the basic points in the report was that a chemical agent is more likely than biological because a chemical agent can be bought in an industrial setting? Mr. Hinton. Right. Those such as chlorine and phosgene. Mr. Shays. There are literally potentially not just thousands of people, but tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people who possess the technical skills. We are not talking about just a few geniuses around the country. Mr. Hinton. That is correct. You are right on that. But there is a lot of information that is not publicly available, we know, Mr. Chairman, that would be needed to successfully go through all of these processes and weaponize an agent. Mr. Shays. Let's just take them one at a time. First off, the technical skills, we have hundreds of thousands of people potentially---- Mr. Hinton. Right. Mr. Shays [continuing]. With those technical skills. You realize when we put the whole package together we minimize, fortunately, the number. And I realize that in going through a process like this, it can help us find out where we need to focus our time and attention. So I think this is--but I just want to--I don't want us to dismiss it by saying that someone needs technical skills as if we don't have to be concerned. Mr. Hinton. No. I understand where you are going right now. It has got to be the people with certain motives. They might be individuals or groups. Not everyone who has those technical skills are going to want to participate, depending on the motives or the skill or the objectives of what the terrorist might want to do. Mr. Shays. It seems what I am hearing is, in one case, you need one kind of technical skill, and then in order to get it through to the point at which it becomes a weapon, you've had a lot of different people with different skills come into play. So, in other words, one person--I guess one of the messages that I am getting is a Unabomber may be able to make a bomb, but it is less likely that they are going to be able to make a weapon of mass destruction, clearly nuclear, but also chemical or biological, there is going to be more than one person that is going to have to be involved? Mr. Hinton. I would say that is probably the case unless they have had past experience. Mr. Shays. But as I go down this chart, you start out with biological or chemical cultures. You have to acquire and synthesize, you have to process and then you have to deliver the system. They are all going to take different skills. Mr. Hinton. Right. As my statement--in the remarks, there are different types of skills, from physicists, meteorologists, those types of people, you are going to need their technical knowledge. From the research that we have done and the people that we have spoken to, you are going to have to bring a host of those technical skills to bear in this issue. Mr. Shays. Which suggests to me that, in many instances, they are going to have to have the cooperation of a country that is willing to--the more vigilant a country is, the more difficult it is going to be for someone to have this kind of activity take place in that country. The more friendly that country is to a terrorist's efforts, obviously the more likely it is going to happen. This is the challenge. The bottom line is that we are spending over $10 billion a year trying to deal with a chemical or biological threat. One danger would be to minimize the likelihood because then that gives us a false sense of comfort. Another danger is for us to make it more dramatic than it is. But the bottom line is that you even felt this way. There are a number of us who feel that a nuclear or chemical or biological terrorist attack is--is not a question of if, it is a question of where and when and to what degree. We want to make sure that we are maximizing all of our resources, and that is the purpose of your report, to say that we are going to have to make choices. I am trying to get a feeling for how you begin to compartmentalize this effort and begin to know how to do that. When you say technical skills, I am struck with the fact that is not a significant barrier. There are a lot of people with technical skills. The challenge begins when you try to synthesize this whole effort and get the people who have those skills coming together. And as soon as you get more than one person involved, then the phrase on the right side as I look at your chart ``avoid detection by authorities,'' becomes more and more difficult. Could you speak to some personal risk where no vaccines or antidotes are available? Mr. Hinton. Do you want to take that? Ms. Colantonio. Yes. It is almost a catch-22, Mr. Chairman. If terrorists were to work with in particular a biological weapon and if they were not able to vaccinate themselves, they run the risk of hurting themselves. But if we want to step back and go through the process of handling the biological agent, whether it be a virus or a bacteria, and they are growing it and they are processing it and working with it and they are working with specialized equipment and specialized types of ingredients that they need to use to get to a liquid or to a dry form, they run the risk of perhaps inhaling the agent themselves. If the terrorists don't have the proper vaccines or if there are not proper antidotes available, they could possibly harm themselves, infect themselves or die. Let me give you an example. When you work with a dry biological agent and you have rubber gloves on, a dry biological agent tends to stick to your gloves. That poses a risk. That is a concrete example of a risk factor for a terrorist. So you have the biological agent on your gloves. It is sticking to your gloves. And so if you have somebody pull the gloves off for you, that individual can be infected perhaps or if you happen to inhale this because we know you--the process of inhaling any type of biological weapon and in some cases chemical weapons one can become ill. Mr. Shays. Describe to me the differences between the challenges for the terrorist with a chemical versus biological? Ms. Colantonio. For example, for chemical agents, there is a process where these agents are corrosive. There are nasty by- products that have to be dealt with and disposed of. You have to, for example, get the right temperatures for the materials. So you have to be careful when heating or cooling. You have to handle highly toxic gases. With biological agents, when you are dealing with a wet agent, you are growing your media, and you have to, from your wet media, get your actual live bacteria or virus out of your growth material so you have to filter out the by-product from your growth. If you were to stop there, then you have to get this into containers or store it. So, again, there are by- products that you have to dispose of. If you want to go from a liquid biological agent to a dry biological agent, you have to go through a drying process and you've some risks involved there in terms of just handling the material, at all stages carefully. You also have to--for example, with biological agents have to have the right respiratory equipment, like a filter that you are breathing with, and you have to make sure that you are secure, you have a secure hood that won't let these particles into your mouth, nose, or eyes. Mr. Hinton. To bring that back to your question about the skills: the skills that you need to weaponize, whether it be chemical or biological, are not as plentiful as we might think. I think that is important from the perspective we were discussing a little while ago about the skills. It is all the delicate parts that Deborah was bringing out to you there. As you move through that process in the various stages, the weaponization is a real critical part of this, for which the skill base may not be as plentiful. Mr. Shays. The chemical weapon convention hasn't been fully adopted and defined, correct? Mr. Hinton. That's correct. Not everybody has signed up to it. Mr. Shays. How many chemical companies are subject to inspection under the CWC, the Chemical Weapons Convention? Mr. Hinton. I don't have that, Mr. Chairman. We can get that and provide it for the record. [The information referred to follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.015 Mr. Shays. If, say, 1,000 of the chemical companies who are subject to inspection, what are the chances of a sham company receiving a chemical weapon, precursor chemicals being inspected? Mr. Hinton. I don't have a good answer. We have not looked at that issue, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shays. When we were in Geneva, that was one of the questions that we were trying to get a handle on. You have a certain group that play by the rules, but we just wonder if others can get the precursors that ultimately lead to the weapon. In the chart that you gave us, you talk about the stages and then the obstacles. One of the obstacles I note that is not there is money. How come? Mr. Hinton. We could add that. There is another one that is not there either, testing. Money and testing are two that are on our minds. What I was trying to do was walk you through the operational aspects. Mr. Shays. To make a better chart you can add those two. Mr. Hinton. We will. Mr. Shays. Are there any others? Mr. Hinton. Money is an issue. Also testing, and testing in the sense that once you have something, you want to make sure that it works. And the only way you can find that out beforehand is to test it, but there are risks associated with that. The other issue, too, while I think the chart is rich in the sense of the stages and the challenges, is the time that is involved in this process, too. Mr. Shays. I note that we are joined by our ranking member. I will continue to allow you an opportunity to catch up. You mentioned in your testimony the smallpox virus is available only in the United States of America and Russia. Could it have been proliferated beyond Russia and how dangerous is smallpox compared to anthrax? Ms. D'Agostino. Based on our review throughout the entire year that---- Mr. Shays. Could you lower your mic a little bit? Ms. D'Agostino. Sorry. Mr. Shays. That is all right. Ms. D'Agostino. Based on our reviews, there was no credible evidence available that the smallpox virus has been proliferated to other countries or individuals. What we don't know about is the level of security specifically on the smallpox cultures in Russia. We don't have really good, sound, corroborated information about that. We also don't know whether or not terrorists really are interested in getting smallpox and using it. So we are kind of short on answers and other pertinent questions that you might want to ask before you undertake a very large program. In terms of smallpox, I guess everybody has billed it as a low probability but high consequence attack scenario, and I think we would agree with that. But, unlike anthrax, smallpox is very contagious. And it is a severe illness with an estimated fatality rate of about 30 percent, which is very low compared to a successful inhalation anthrax attack which can lead to an 80 to 90 percent lethality rate. The vaccinations, obviously, have not been given for smallpox for many years, partly because the disease has been eradicated. It is just not clear to us at this time that smallpox is a very attractive biological weapon for a terrorist based on what we have seen. Mr. Shays. Right. Thank you. Could you please comment on Mr. Hamre's, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, recent statement before the House Armed Services Committee that, one, North Korea has weaponized anthrax; and, two, it is easy to weaponize biological warfare agents. Mr. Hinton. We haven't seen the evidence to support Mr. Hamre's statement that North Korea has weaponized. But it is something that we would be happy to look into for you, Mr. Chairman. Based on the evidence that we now have, we have a disconnect. On the second issue--easy to weaponize, that, too, is different from the information that we have, and, as I have discussed through the process, it is another area that I need to inquire about so that we can understand the basis for those statements. Mr. Shays. Thank you. Let me ask Mr. Blagojevich if he has questions, and then I will just come back for a few more questions. Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you. Mr. Hinton, you evidently had made the point just moments ago that the threat of a nuclear or biological attack has been overstated and not nearly as threatening as some of the popular literature lately might suggest. Can you tell us what you are talking about when you say that and who is overstating that threat and how they are doing it? Mr. Hinton. My comment, Congressman, was more to the point that, based on the information that we have received from the work that we have done through the intelligence community and all, that the data and the evidence would suggest that there might be an attempt down the road in the chemical and biological area. I have not had any review around the nuclear area at this point, but it might be an attempt somewhere down the road. Mr. Blagojevich. Is it your conclusion that some of the discussions in the public domain regarding a threat of a chemical or biological terrorist attack has been overstated? And if that is in fact your conclusion, can you give us examples of where and who is doing it? Mr. Hinton. Some overstatement has been made regarding how to go about acquiring, manufacturing, weaponizing an agent, and it has been made out to be easier than the evidence through our work would suggest. We have discussed the various operational and technical challenges to do this and--so it contradicts some of what has been in the press and the media about how easy it is to do. Mr. Blagojevich. Your report states that potential terrorist attacks carried out, and I am quoting from your report, ``without access to state-run laboratories or weapons programs.'' Now, limiting the qualifying--the discussion on potential terrorist attacks by that statement, does that arbitrarily restrict your analysis? Ms. D'Agostino. We don't think that it arbitrarily restricts our analysis. What it did was help define the parameters of our analysis, and we don't see it as necessarily a limiting factor. The question that you raised by that scope definition is whether or not a state actor would be willing to provide a terrorist group or organization with their chemical or biological weapons. That is a question that the intelligence community has looked at, and we can't discuss their position on that matter in this forum. But it has been looked at, and they have come to conclusions and judgments about that very matter. I think that in comment on our report, the Department of Health and Human Services raised that issue, and we did say that could be part of a risk assessment. But there are some judgments out there on the part of the community about that question. So you could factor that into the assessment. Mr. Blagojevich. Some of the language in the report also indicates receiving chemical or biological agents or weapons from such countries, that being a statement in your report that terrorists would not be--your conclusion is predicated on the thought that terrorists would not have access to some of the material from certain countries that may have it; is that true? Is that essentially a fair statement of your report? Mr. Hinton. Yes. Mr. Blagojevich. OK. I am asking these questions in the context of the fluidity of the material that we are talking about and the experts that are presently leaving the former Soviet Union. Russia has acknowledged--is acknowledged as the world's largest stockpile of chemical agents, including 40,000 metric tons of chemical agents. It included various delivery systems, such as artillery aerial bombs, rockets and missiles. In 1992, Boris Yeltsin revealed that the Soviet Union conducted its biological warfare program in violation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. My question is: With all of this information, do you believe Soviet decentralization, the process going on now in the former Soviet Union with all of the talk of criminal syndicates and so forth, has this posed a significant concern with regard to the flight of Russian scientists and materials? Ms. Colantonio. Congressman, I think the one thing that we have to remember is that if the chemical and biological agents are stockpiled, in order to be effective and cause the mass casualties, they have to be released effectively, be disseminated, and be weaponized. Our work--as Mr. Hinton has discussed earlier, there are certain steps that you have to go through, and what we found in our work is that as agents sit on the shelf, they possibly could lose some of their stability and strength. Now, in terms of rogue or errant former Soviet Union scientists passing out information, we do not--there is no credible evidence that suggests that is going on. In fact, there was a senior fellow at the University of Maryland who did some investigation on the Aum Shinrikyo group, and it was suggested that the Aum had contacted a former Soviet Union scientist to get his expertise, and it just appeared in the media as if the scientist provided the Aum the information. Through this investigation, it was suggested that the Aum wasn't able to get any kind of technical information. Mr. Blagojevich. The conclusions that some of you have reached in terms of the threat of terrorism, did it contemplate a terrorist organization that might purchase chemical agents or a delivery system from a former Soviet state, or was that consideration outside the parameters of your analysis and the conclusions that you ultimately reached? Ms. Colantonio. Congressman, that was outside our parameters. What we wanted to look at was whether individuals, whether they are defined as terrorists or religious sects or cult groups, whether these individuals or groups of people can actually perform the stages, OK, and do the science and actually go from a growth media or a chemical to actually effectively weaponize and release. Mr. Blagojevich. So the concentration was on producing and weaponizing the various agents, that was the concentration of your study? Ms. D'Agostino. Right, outside of the state-run laboratories where you would have a lot of resources marshalled around solving the types of problems in getting an effective biological or chemical weapon. Mr. Blagojevich. Having said that, is it fair to assume on my part that you have excluded the possibility that this technology could be stolen by a terrorist organization from a foreign state? That is excluded from the analysis? Ms. D'Agostino. It is excluded from our analysis, but we are not ruling out the possibility. We did not weigh the likelihood or the risk of that occurring. Ms. Colantonio. May I add that, even if you have the technology, you have to have the ``smarts'' in order to weaponize, to disseminate, OK, a biological or chemical agent. For example, with a biological agent, the best way to cause casualties is to aerosolize the agent, and as Mr. Hinton mentioned earlier in his remarks--you have to use the proper equipment with the proper rates or speed and use of energy in order to do this. Not only that, some of the other clouds come into play in terms of what a terrorist has to do, for example under the right weather conditions. Mr. Blagojevich. In closing here, let me throw out one hypothetical. Iran has some money. They cultivate a Russian scientist who needs money and has expertise in chemical and biological matters. As part of a terrorist organization funded by Iran, they have this person produce weaponized various agents. They are prepared to steal products if necessary. That kind of a hypothetical was not considered in terms of the analysis that you are providing; and if in fact I am right, then doesn't this undercut your conclusion that the threat has been overstated by not considering all aspects of this threat? Mr. Hinton. The specifics of that were not addressed as part of this. It doesn't rule it out. I don't think that it undercuts our conclusions, that to go through the entire process that we have laid out and discussed this morning, that it is highly dependent on the agent--whether it is a chemical or biological agent that is chosen. It is not easy to do. It is a challenge, and it is something that the intelligence community looking overseas and the FBI looking domestically has got to stay focused on. And I think that process is moving right now toward assessing the various hypothetical scenarios that we are talking about. Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you. Mr. Shays. You are basically making an interesting point to me that all terrorists aren't the same, and I am stuck with the fact that we are trying to develop a rational approach, which is something that I tried to allude to in my statement, and we are dealing in many cases with irrational terrorists. We are going to have some interesting time in our next panel going through this, but Raymond Zilinskas says, on page 12, kind of making reference to this, the last full paragraph, ``This problem may be illustrated by referring to the microbiology technician Larry Wayne Harris. During an interview conducted in September, 1999, by a German reporter, Harris was asked whether he would use biological weapons. He replied, 'If God tells me to do it, I will.''' And then he goes on to say that no risk assessor would be in a position to determine if and when God gives Harris, or others of his ilk, the requisite command. I think it is a cautionary word. Would you describe how you envision a national threat and risk management could be conducted? That is kind of a big question. Maybe you can just kind of address it. Mr. Hinton. Sure, Mr. Chairman, and I think our report does a pretty good job of laying that out and how we envision that working. Basically, the concept is that you would take all of the available threat assessments that have been done throughout the intelligence communities, both internationally and those that we would have domestically through the FBI, that they have agreed to do in response to our recommendation. This is a starting point for the process of doing a risk assessment. And we would think that then you would bring in a team of multidisciplinary folks, from the law enforcement community, from the science community and others, to weigh in on this, particularly terrorism experts, that get at the point that you just raised--to help sort through what are the likely threat scenarios; what agents might be involved in those threat scenarios and think through the likelihood of those events occurring, the in-severity, if they did occur--what could really happen and then begin to pose countermeasures. That would begin to lay out a process by which you could decide on the risks at hand and what you want to do to mitigate those risks. I don't think that you are going to rule risk out totally, or completely. I think it is a process that is going to come back. You are going to have to revisit it as more data and information are brought to bear. You are going to have to go back and review those assessments that you have done. I think the FBI and the Justice Department's response to our report furthers the process by which the government is approaching this. The foreign-origin threats, are being handled through the intelligence community. What was missing from the picture in the threat assessment was the domestic piece. This is a step to move that process forward. Now we have got the FBI that is going to sponsor the risk assessment to look domestically. So I think the process is evolving, and I think what we have got to see now is what comes out of the process once they go through the analysis we have recommended. Mr. Shays. How will this type of assessment help us focus resources better? Mr. Hinton. When you see the likely scenarios, and what are likely to be involved in those scenarios, it will help make resource decisions. There might be some that you will rule out immediately that you don't move forward on or invest in. For example, where smallpox might fall in the scenario development could be used to gauge whether or not we want to be making the investments in the national pharmaceutical stockpile and vaccines that HHS is moving toward. But I think it would give you an affirmation if it is or what is in line with the priority threats the Nation may face. We know from some of our past work looking at that issue as it involved HHS is that some of the threats that were on its list were not consistent with the threats that were on the intelligence community's list. Mr. Shays. Interesting. Have you looked at the possibility of terrorists just taking over a nuclear plant, electrical generating plant and blowing it up? Ms. D'Agostino. The DOE has focused on that scenario for many, many years and has put a great deal of resources to that problem; it has used risk assessment in its process as well. Mr. Shays. I am struck by the fact that when we look at risk, it is really looking at the hazard versus times the exposure. It is really the likelihood of an event. But I also--I have a hard time separating or ignoring consequence. So even if something was not likely to occur but the consequence was so horrific, then I think that we need to put resources into it even though the likelihood is small. What becomes difficult is that I can think of a lot of very large consequences that could take place. Mr. Hinton. I think one part of the process, Mr. Chairman, would give you as decisionmakers and policymakers the various scenarios that are at crosshairs so that those judgments can be made. Right now, we don't have that laid out before us, and I think to get that type of a process working would enable that information to come forward so that Congress, the executive branch, can make informed judgments in this area. Mr. Shays. I am going to conclude. I just happen to accept the fact that you need a process, but it seems to me that process has got to be very flexible, and it constantly has to be updated and analyzed because the process could really give us a false sense of comfort when we are totally ignoring something, and it seems to me that you have to have the irrational be part of that process. What is someone who is irrational going to do? If someone is willing to die in the process--we make an assumption that as long as--they wouldn't do this because they would die; and that is not---- Mr. Hinton. We would not disagree with your view on that, Mr. Chairman. In fact, I think one aspect of this is having hearings like you are holding is to get more discussions going about this and find out what is coming out of the process that is now taking place so that you can raise whether or not all of those types of scenarios have been considered as part of that process. I think that is a valid question. Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Your report is a helpful contributor to our--to those of us in Congress and in the administration, for those trying to sort this issue out. Thank you very much. I always appreciate the work of your people. They make you look good. We call the next panel, Brian M. Jenkins, senior adviser to the president, RAND; John V. Parachini, senior associate, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies; Dr. Raymond Zilinskas, senior scientist in residence, Biological and Toxin Arms Control, Monterey Institute of International Studies. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Shays. Note for the record that all three have responded in the affirmative. We will go right down the line starting with you, Mr. Jenkins. STATEMENTS OF BRIAN M. JENKINS, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT, RAND; JOHN V. PARACHINI, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, CENTER FOR NONPROLIFERATION STUDIES, MONTERREY INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES; AND RAYMOND ZILINSKAS, SENIOR SCIENTIST IN RESIDENCE, BIOLOGICAL AND TOXIN ARMS CONTROL, MONTEREY INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Mr. Jenkins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you very much for inviting me to participate in these important discussions. I have been given a number of opportunities to testify before Congress on the topic of terrorism, the first time more than 25 years ago when I thought I knew a hell of a lot more than I know today. I have submitted a written statement summarizing my views on the threat of whether a terrorist might use chemical or biological weapons. Let me just underline a few of those points. In doing so, I want to make it clear that, although I am an adviser to the president of the RAND Corp., my comments this morning are entirely my own and do not reflect those of the RAND Corp. or any of its sponsors. The possibility that terrorists might resort to chemical or biological agents is not a new concern. People have been writing about this for several decades. That it is only a matter of time before terrorists use such weapons is a relatively new idea which has become kind of a new orthodoxy. What has brought about this change from something that was considered an exotic possibility years ago to the inevitability that we see it today? There are several developments that give us cause for concern. The growth of organized crime and corruption in Russia raise concerns about the security of its arsenal. While we have no direct evidence that chemical or biological substances have been stolen from or sold by corrupt government officials in Russia, we have ample examples of other weapons being sold through criminal organizations of strategic materials being stolen, and even small quantities of nuclear material being stolen. So there is some cause for concern. Also, a number of America's foes and potential foes are conducting research on weapons of mass destruction. Several were mentioned in the earlier discussion this morning. Another factor is that today's terrorists seem more interested in running up high body counts than in advancing political agendas. In part this is a consequence of the change in motivations of terrorists, as we move away from ideological motivated terrorism and into the realm of terrorism that is inspired by someone's vision of God. The nerve gas attack in Tokyo subways may yet inspire repetition. Even the fact that we are having these public discussions may alter the environment somewhat. Again, there are reasons for concern. At the same time, we cannot conclude that a catastrophic terrorist attack involving chemical or biological weapons is inevitable. The historical analysis provides no basis for forecasting such incidents. There is no inexorable progression from truck bombs to weapons of mass destruction. In the more than 4 years since the Tokyo attack, no group has attempted to do anything like it; that is significant when we look at past terrorist and criminal innovations: hijackings, political kidnappings, malicious product tampering--those were innovations that were promptly imitated. But even if it is correct, this assessment offers no comfort because every tentative conclusion that one can offer must be followed by the necessary caveat. Indeed, predictions call for the gift of prophecy. I don't think that we can do well in the realm of predicting with any degree of confidence what certainly will or will not happen, I know that causes a certain amount of frustration on the part of those such as yourselves who have to make decisions regarding how much resources should be devoted to the issue and how to best allocate those resources. We are trying to make the uncertainty go away; it is very, very difficult to do that. About the best we can do is an assessment of comparative likelihoods. We can say with a degree of confidence that hoaxes, which already have become a problem, will continue to be a problem. We can say that limited attacks seem more likely than large-scale attacks. We can say that crude dispersal techniques in contained environments are more likely than poisoning cities. But I would echo the report prepared by the GAO that we do need a more comprehensive and in some cases a more rigorous analysis, not to validate the threat or dismiss the threat. The issue is not whether we can say ``we don't have to worry about it,'' or ``it is imminent'' and set off national panic. But if we are going to prepare at all, we need to have some rational basis for allocating resources. You mentioned the figure $10 billion. Somebody decided on the basis of something that $10 billion is the right amount. How should we best allocate those resources? Should we spend another $10 billion? Or is even that not enough to spend in the years that come? A high degree of uncertainty will remain. That is the reality upon which we are going to have to make these decisions. Therefore we might try to compensate not only by trying to reduce the uncertainty but also by adopting a strategy that takes into account that uncertainty. First, we want to have a comprehensive analysis. That is not a finite task. That requirement is going to continue as we gain more information, as the threat evolves, as our analysis becomes more sophisticated. No. 2, we can't wait for the results of the analysis; we have to continue to prepare. We have to be willing to refine our efforts to prepare as we learn more and refine our analysis. We are going to have to be flexible whatever we do. Third, we might want to look for opportunities to create capabilities that will have utility even if no terrorist attack occurs. For example, increasing our capability to respond to emergencies; improving our ability to detect, identify and treat infectious diseases; creating a more muscular public health service; improving measures to ensure food safety are some of the things that we may want to explore. Even if it is done in the context of terrorism, we nonetheless device public health benefits. There is a final issue that we often ignore, and that is terrorism always consists of two components. One is the actual event or set of events that terrorists carry out. The second is the much broader psychological effects of those terrorist incidents. Even if a terrorist attack involving a biological or chemical agent were to kill only a small number of people, as in Tokyo, instead of the tens of thousands predicted in one of the recently publicized fictional scenarios, nonetheless if we did not communicate well, it could provoke national hysteria. This is scary stuff. Therefore, we need to plan our communications, educate the public in advance. We need to create a cadre of people who will provide practical advice and act as a barrier against the misinformation and rumors that will inevitably occur. That requires legislative initiatives, legislative support; and, should something happen, requires that each of you as Members of Congress act as calm, informed communicators. Thank you. Mr. Shays. I was reminded while you were speaking, I represent Fairfield, and in the late 1950's the person who built my house found that it was more lucrative for him to build the shelters for a nuclear attack and so we had throughout Fairfield County people building these shelters. This was a guy who was making a good amount of money on homes, but he found it more advantageous to build shelters. [The prepared statement of Mr. Jenkins follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.016 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.017 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.018 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.019 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.020 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.021 Mr. Shays. Mr. Parachini. Mr. Parachini. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to this hearing. I think now is a very important time to do reevaluation of what we see as the threat of chemical and biological weapons terrorism. There were a number of events that really spun the country up to look at this very carefully, first being the World Trade Center bombing, then the bombing on the Tokyo subway, and the Oklahoma City bombing. And then there were a series of hearings in the Senate chaired by Senators Roth and Nunn in which Senator Lugar also participated that are entitled, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and these hearings drew a lot of attention to the events in those cases. I think at this point the threat is overstated, and so now is a good time to reevaluate it, and so I commend you for doing that at this time. The GAO's general call for a comprehensive threat assessment I think is a good thing to do, although you have to recognize that within the intelligence community and within the FBI there are different methodologies that they employ to actually do the threat assessments, so you have to figure out how to marry those different methodologies. Law enforcement functions and intelligence functions are different, so you have to figure out some way to fit those together and not take away the beauty that those different approaches also bring. But clearly an important part of the assessment has to be a multidisciplinary effort. Most of how the threat has been evaluated in this country in the last 4 years has been on vulnerability. We are potentially an infinitely vulnerable society. There are a lot of different components. Vulnerability is certainly a part of it. Technological ease of acquiring and assembling these weapons is part of it. That is not the only part. The part that has not been looked at adequately and has not been discussed in public hearings--and I commend you for trying to do this now--is to look at the behavioral patterns of terrorists and their motivations. What exactly has been the past cases where terrorists have done this in the few instances where this has actually occurred? If I can call upon the first chart--I am going to put up two charts to sort of help make this point. Actually, the other one. At the Monterey Institute of International Studies we are conducting a series of both qualitative and quantitative assessments of terrorist incidents, and we have just concluded a series of qualitative case studies where we have asked the same questions. This lists a series of cases which we looked at in the first volume that will come out in January 2000, and it is a series of cases from 1946 until 1995. We had a number of authors who were experts on these groups or in these regions of the world. They applied the same questions. We then brought back all of the data and tried to compare across the cases to see what were common patterns. This is valuable to help establish a bench line. It is not necessarily a clear guide to the future, but it does create a benchmark for what we are looking at. At the moment, the worst-case scenarios are being spun out by people mainly who have a lot of expertise in our own weapons programs, or evaluating the weapons programs of foreign countries, not subnational groups or terrorists. That doesn't mean that their expertise is not relevant, but it means that their expertise captures one part of the problem. The other part of the problem is you have to actually look at groups and what they have done. So that is what we tried to do using open source information, interviewing the terrorists, interviewing people who know them, interviewing arresting officials and prosecuting attorneys and reading all of the statements that the terrorists have articulated, trying to see what were the agents that they used and how did they get them and how were they apprehended. Based on this work and another set of case studies that we will be conducting in 1999 and the year 2000, we are beginning to get some sense of a profile of what some of the groups are that will use weapons of mass destruction, principally chemical and biological weapons, and we are beginning to understand what are some of their patterns of behavior. Some of the findings are that, in contrast to what we hear in popular discussion, that this is a very complex task. Even very smart people have difficulty doing it. And as you yourself noted, there is a lot of technical expertise in the United States. Why isn't this happening more often? We should ask ourselves that question. One, it is not that easy. So it is a technologically complex thing. Two, it is sort of surprising how infrequent it is. Three, the people who do want to use these types of agents for their particular purposes tend to be small groups or individuals. Those are very hard for law enforcement people to penetrate--very hard. And, finally, the people who are most motivated toward these attacks are people who we identify with the following characteristics. They have charismatic leadership. They have no outside constituencies so they are internally focused. They don't have the outside constraints that most of us have in the socialization process. They have an apocalyptic view of the world. They are often splinter--individual splinter groups or individuals. They have a sense of paranoia that tends to push them to want to use these when they feel that law enforcement people are closing down on them. And they have a sense of grandiosity. They are above the restraints that most of us feel and that they may be impervious to the effects of their action. The beauty, fortunately, and I am not clear on how long we can rely upon this, but the beauty is these are unusual characteristics. These are not the political terrorist groups that we faced in the 1960's, 1970's and early 1980's. These tend to be splinter groups or loners. They tend to be religiously motivated groups or people who are somewhat unstable, so there are self-limiting characteristics in who these groups are. They tend to envision ways to perpetrate their attacks that are not realistic. They tend to have visions that are very difficult to carry out, so there is an upside story when you begin profile who has done this in the past. On the next chart you can see how we have tried to compare across the various cases what some of these patterns are. The beauty of identifying these patterns is it begins to focus us on what agents are really relevant. It doesn't mean that those will be the agents in the future, but at least we know what has been used in the past. By looking at the incidence, it gives us some sense of the magnitude of what did happen in the past, how many casualties were there. You have asked this question several times. This is not an arbitrary number. This is a number based on looking at the historical record. One of the things that you do find is that industrial chemicals, as was mentioned, and fairly common pathogens are more likely. So are we scaling our response to deal with the more likely things or are we scaling to deal with national strikes with very unusual agents that were in foreign countries' weapons programs that are not very likely? Let me finally comment on the report in a general sense as an observer and a regular reviewer, both of hearings that you convene and of reports that the General Accounting Office prepares. Although I think a general call for comprehensive assessment is valuable, I was struck when reviewing the report how caveated it was in many ways. While I recognize that there is a beauty to that reiterative process between the GAO and the various agencies, at some point you have to begin to worry about when does it become a negotiated product. And I think Congress, to perform its proper oversight role, wants as crisp and as hard-edged reports as possible, even if it makes them unpopular. This issue is too important to get sort of a negotiated product. In the end, you want clear statements and judgments. People should be held accountable for their judgments. That is why we would have tried to ground our work in the historical record, and we recognize it is a historical record and not a projection for the future. We wanted to have some benchmark for our work and how we might project into the future. Mr. Shays. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Parachini follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.022 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.023 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.024 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.025 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.026 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.027 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.028 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.029 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.030 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.031 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.032 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.033 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.034 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.035 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.036 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.037 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.038 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.039 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.040 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.041 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.042 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.043 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.044 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.045 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.046 Mr. Shays. Mr. Zilinskas, it is wonderful to have you here. Mr. Zilinskas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a thoroughly enjoyable opportunity. My written presentation has four parts. I will skip over my background. I will go directly into the preliminary findings of a project that I am doing with the National Defense University, then I will talk a bit about the GAO report, and I will conclude with some thoughts on what might be done as far as meeting the biological threat that faces us all. As to the project that I am doing in collaboration with National Defense University, we are trying to assess how the advanced biotechnologies might be fed into projects to develop biological weapons; our timeframe is the next 5 years. This is a pretty unique project because nobody else has tried to objectively assess what genetic engineering can do for weaponization of agents. Our approach is to assemble 16 of some of the foremost scientists in the United States. They include virologists, microbiologists, geneticists, and others. We have met for 2 days as a focus group. The report of this focus group meeting and the analysis of the conclusions will be published at the beginning of the year 2000, but I can tell you a bit about the findings with the caveat that they are my interpretations on what has happened so far. To reiterate the report is not finished, and it will contain the official word of the focus group proceedings. In the main, we find that the advanced biotechnologies are not likely to be used, and there are two reasons for that. First, there is something called pleomorphic effects when you genetically engineer an organism. These are effects that manifest themselves as undesirable characteristics. So, for example, if you genetically engineer a bacterium to become antibiotic resistant, it might also show other effects that will make it less useful a weapon agent. So what happens, and this has happened many times in industry, is that the developer is able to successfully do what he wants to do, but then ends up with an organism that is less virulent or less resistant to environmental factors. So then the developer has to go through another cycle of research and development, and then he might end up with something else that is undesirable. So our feeling is that the only kind of programs that could undertake this kind of activity are well-supported national programs that are in it for the long-term. That is the first. The second is simply a lack of basic information about natural phenomenon such as host-parasite interrelationships, the infectious processes, pathogenesis and so on. There is a lot of information that is being generated in these areas right now, but it is not to the point where it really can be applied for weaponization. We recognize fully well that the Soviet Union's scientists did use genetic engineering in research to produce some very, very frightening or theoretically frightening, hybrids; for example, a combination of the Ebola and the smallpox virus, but it does not make it a weapon. It only means that they were working on it. It might have taken them 5 or 10 years to succeed or then might fail entirely to make this kind of an organism into a real, useful weaponized agent. In the course of focus group discussions, we came up with some incidental findings. They include that the most likely scenario in the next 5 years for a biological attack is that a common food-borne or beverage-borne agent will be used to deliberately sabotage food or beverages, and this certainly has the capability of injuring hundreds of people, but not thousands. An example occurreed in 1984 when there was an attack by the Rajneeshee group in Oregon of 10 salad bars that affected 751 persons; it is a harbinger for the future. Second, it is much less likely that an attack using an airborne organism will take place, and that has to do with the technical difficulties of formulating the agents for an airborne attack. The problems, as was shown by the Aum Shinrikyo experience are two. First, they used the wrong strain but second the technical part was that they were not able to disperse the agent as an aerosol because it clogged the nozzles. To overcome this kind of problem is rather difficult. It takes a lot of time and a lot of experimentation. So moving on to the second part, remarks on the GAO report, I am not going to go into the good parts of it, but I will tell you about the two problem areas that I had with it. The first one, as a scientist, I had real problems with some of the terminology, which I found---- Mr. Shays. For the record, we will note that someone from the GAO smiled when you said that you were not going to go over the good parts. Were there more good parts than bad parts? Mr. Zilinskas. There were more bad parts, unfortunately. They used terms like ``valid'' and ``sound'', which sound pretty good when you read it, but are meaningless when you really look at them. Are you going to use valid data versus-- what--invalid data? Are you going to use sound information or do a sound assessment versus--what--an unsound assessment? I found this very irritating, and I guess it hindered me to some point to--well, maybe not. And then the second part is that the heart of this report is that it recommends risk assessments to be done, but doesn't provide ideas on methods. I listened to the GAO talking about methodology. They were not talking about methodology whatsoever. They were saying that they should put together an interdisciplinary team, they should get information from national intelligence estimates, whatever that is. Is that a bunch of guesses or are they hard facts? I don't know. And so on. But there is no set methodology, and I give an example in my report of a scientific way of doing scientific assessment done by the EPA when it considers the introduction of genetic engineered organisms into the environment. I also give an example of how I used this protocol, the EPA protocol, to do a risk assessment involving the introduction of genetically engineered marine organisms into the open environment, and found out that I could not do a risk assessment. Hey, there is nothing wrong with saying we can't do the risk assessment because the necessary information is not available. And I find that the necessary information as far as terrorist organizations is not there, and it mainly has to do with capabilities. There is no way that you can know what the capabilities are unless you look at each organization individually and then somehow find out if they have access to it, microbiologists, chemists, doctors. And, furthermore, whether or not these people are willing to lend their skills for illicit purposes. The second bigger problem has to do with intent. There is no way that anyone can read the mind of a terrorist. For example, my experience with Iraq, people often ask why did they acquire biological weapons? We don't know why they acquired them because the only one who has that knowledge in his brain in Saddam Hussein, and no one can read that brain. In conclusion, my feeling is that you cannot do a risk assessment under the terms that is discussed in the report. What do we do then? Well, my feeling is that you take a common sense approach, and the common sense approach, as far as I am concerned, is to try to figure out what is the large biological threat facing the United States. It is really natural disease outbreaks; specifically emerging diseases, reemerging infectious diseases and transported infectious diseases in other words, diseases coming from somewhere else. And if we can do something that meets this threat, the overwhelming threat of natural infectious diseases, then we have gone a long ways toward at least also being able to alleviate the aftereffects of biological attacks by terrorists. There is another part of that which I don't go into that much, which is how do you prevent terrorist attacks. The only way that you can prevent them is by having good intelligence. That is something that I don't know anything about because it is mostly classified. How do you set up a good intelligence- gathering system through the intelligence agencies and the police forces? I say, first of all, deal with the public health and the medical aspects, and then we are in a good place to deal with the terrorist aftereffects. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Zilinskas follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.047 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.048 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.049 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.050 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.051 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.052 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.053 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.054 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.055 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.056 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.057 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.058 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.059 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.060 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.061 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.062 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.063 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.064 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3765.065 Mr. Shays. I am going to call on my colleague, but I am struck by the fact that your statement was that it is hard to make common sense out of terrorists. So it is interesting how we would use a common sense approach. Mr. Zilinskas. The common sense approach is to say that the greater threat is natural infectious diseases. What can we do about them? Meeting this threat has to do with surveillance, monitoring, and, improving emergency response to outbreaks. You have to remember when there is a disease outbreak you don't know at its beginning whether it is a natural outbreak or it is a deliberately caused outbreak. Therefore, the response of public health responders and medical people will be the same regardless of what it is. It is only after 2, 3, or 5 days that you can determine this. This could have been a terrorist or biological attack. At that time, the police enters into it, and there is a whole--then you try to get evidence. Mr. Shays. It is interesting because we had an example of encephalitis in my District and in New York City, and the New Yorker or New York magazine had some unnamed source who talked about the possibly that this might be a terrorist attack, and then we got a lot of calls. And it was interesting how just even the inference got people very excited. Mr. Zilinskas. I got a lot of calls from reporters on that incident, and it happens each time there is an unusual disease outbreak. For example, the hantavirus outbreak in 1993 was like that. I was getting calls from Albuquerque, Denver, asking, could that have been a biological attack? I said, no. Mr. Shays. We are going to try to finish before we leave-- we have like 10 minutes. Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you. Dr. Zilinskas, if I can just followup, you are suggesting that the enhancement of the ability of public health and health delivery systems to respond to these disease outbreaks is essential. Can you give us some more suggestions on how you would enhance the public health sector so they can respond properly? Mr. Zilinskas. What happens when you have a disease outbreak of any type, you suddenly have a lot of people who become sick. First of all, you have to treat these people in an adequate way. The problem of treating a large number of people might overwhelm local systems. Therefore, we have to do an assessment of what local systems can do. And then, if they are in a situation where they can't handle a large outbreak, what kind of assistance can be immediately available at the State level and eventually, the Federal level, and that includes military forces. I would imagine that a large disease outbreak there would create a lot of logistical problems, and maybe, problems having to do with deciding who has authority and so on. All of that has to be solved. That is the treatment part. The second part is the investigation to find out what the etiology of the disease was, and that involves using trained people in epidemiology, both molecular and classic epidemiology, and having them immediately available for this kind of work. So I think that is important, to increase our capabilities at the local and at the State levels especially to immediately investigate disease outbreaks. Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you, Dr. Zilinskas. Mr. Jenkins, you also suggest that, rather than focusing on probability predictions and infinite vulnerabilities, we instead work toward creating capabilities that will help us with or without chemical or biological attack. You mention enhancing intelligence and improving food safety. What do you think should be done to help prepare the public infrastructure with regard to that? Mr. Jenkins. I think some of the comments just made would address that particular issue. My point is to find areas where we can devote resources, since we are spending this money, that we will get permanent benefit out of it. If we go back in our own history in this country, we have had experience with large-scale outbreaks of infectious diseases. We at one time had a very powerful U.S. Public Health Service with extraordinary authority granted to it to deal with outbreaks of typhoid, yellow fever, Spanish flu and things of this sort. As we have become a somewhat safer society, we have lost some of that capability. Now that we are faced again with the reappearance of some of these diseases as a result of increased global travel, global food supplies, some of these issues have reemerged, and we have to go back and develop some of these capabilities. Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you. Mr. Shays. Mr. Parachini, I was struck by the fact that you wanted to look at the events that have already taken place and try to analyze the behavior, and I was just struck by the fact that I didn't feel that they were as relevant because I don't think they are a precursor of what is going to happen in the future. Now, I guess I would have no likely basis for making that, but it seems some of it was domestically focused. In other words, in many instances they were domestic terrorism. I am struck with the information that I have seen that our biggest concern is not domestic. Mr. Parachini. Most of the cases now that the FBI is looking into, about 85 percent are domestic threats. The variety of threats we face now, we previously had always thought of foreign threats. We did not think that this would happen here in the United States, but Oklahoma City should be the clear signal that there are threats here that are domestic. If indeed it is right that there are all of these capabilities here in this country to procure materials, many of them commercially available, there are plenty--this is a large country with a lot of people with different agendas. It seems to me no accident that the FBI is mainly following domestic cases and not foreign cases. Mr. Shays. Right. But when we were overseas--I was struck by the fact that in one country they were trying to explain to us that the United States can bully every nation--and I don't mean that in a pejorative sense. We have incredible military powers, so we force our adversaries to look at other ways to deal with the United States. Mr. Parachini. So they may be looking at asymmetrical attacks, and I want to draw a distinction on asymmetrical attacks on our forces abroad and asymmetrical attacks here within the United States. I think it is harder--the closer you get into the United States, it is harder to do. And we have within our own borders many people who have strong grievances against the Federal Government or against other people who are willing to do that. Mr. Shays. I guess what I am going to say is that I think your analysis is more valuable as it relates to how we would respond to a domestic attack. It would probably be a little easier for us to take that information and then translate it into something useful. But I think we are facing a whole new potential level of activity that we can't draw on the past. Let me ask the other two to respond to that in any way that you want. Mr. Jenkins. Could I add a comment to that? I think there is some relevance in the historical analysis that has been done here. First of all, there are incidents drawn from various parts of the world. There is Aum Shrinrikyo. There are other things that have happened outside of the United States. During the same period of time, if we take those incidents that have happened since 1970, discarding the first one on the top of that list, there were 11 incidents; 11 incidents out of what are more than 10,000 international terrorists incidents. If we indeed add domestic terrorists incidents around the world, we are talking about a universe of tens of thousands. The fact that there have been very few. It doesn't give us an actuarial chart, it doesn't give us the scientific confidence that we would want to have, but, nonetheless, it does permit an inference that this is a pretty rare event. Mr. Shays. Let me respond to that, because you really triggered something. I was here in 1968 as an intern for what I think was the first hijacking of an airliner to Cuba. The first became--we lost track of the number. So I am struck by the fact that if we use that kind of analysis, we never would have thought that there would be a hijacking of a plane and then wouldn't have been able to deal with the plethora of attacks that followed. Mr. Jenkins. I agree with the fact that history does not suggest that things cannot occur. There are always going to be unprecedented events. However, a number of groups have looked at this, a number of groups have certainly contemplated this, and some attempts have been made. What is striking is the lack of imitation, to go back to your own analogy. The first politically motivated hijacking took place in 1968. Within the following 4 years, we were dealing with hundreds of hijackings that forced us to take extraordinary security measures. In the 4 years since Tokyo, we haven't seen anything. Mr. Shays. You have made that point. Let me tell you the challenge. We have a series of votes. We have your statements in the record, and they are all valuable and helpful. We are just scratching the surface. I am going to adjourn the hearing because we will be tied up for a bit, and I do not want to hold you. Thank you very much. [Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] <all>