WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: CASE STUDY In

Prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America, there were three other terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction (WMD): the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center by Muslim extremists, the 1995 sarin nerve gassing by the Aum Shinnkyo sect on Tokyo subway commuters and the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City by a domestic radical right group. In response, government at all levels significantly increased preparations for future such attacks. In January 1997, then Secretary of Defense (SecDef) William Cohen described terrorist-inspired WMD attacks "the greatest threat any of us will face in coming years" (USAWC, 2000, September, p. 99). According to Stanton (2001, February), the federal government since 1995 has spent many billions of dollars on countermeasures and substantially reorganized to meet such threats (p. 10). Nevertheless, Stanton says that "experts believe that little has been done to make the American public feel any more confident than it was five years ago in the nation's ability to cope with terrorist attacks" (p. 10). Vise (2000, December 15) said the presidential Gilmore Commission concluded recently that "the United States has no coherent national strategy for combating terrorism" (p. A8). The adequacy or inadequacy of the current national effort to combat and respond to WMD threats can only be ascertained by the results of such attacks in the fut