TERRORISM ALERT
December 27, 1999

As State Department warnings intensify for Americans traveling abroad, suspicions about possible new year's attacks continue to rise.

Dec. 20, 1999: Government officials warn of terrorist activities Aug. 17, 1998: Arrests made in embassy bombings Aug. 25, 1998: Terrorism in America Aug. 12, 1998: Coverage of the Africa embassy bombings Aug. 15, 1997: What makes a terrorist? March 13, 1996: An anti-terrorism summit Complete NewsHour coverage of the military, the Middle East and international issues.     U.S. State Department Office of Counterterrorism US State Department Travel Warnings & Consular Information Sheets CNN's interview with Osama bin Laden Terrorism Research Center International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism RAND Worldwide Center for Strategic and International Studies	MARGARET WARNER: In the past two weeks, U.S. Government agencies have been warning of possible terrorist attacks on Americans over the Christmas and New Year holiday period. On December 11, for example, the State Department issued the following alert: "The U.S. Government has credible information that terrorists are planning attacks specifically targeting American citizens during the holiday period." The statement went on to warn of attacks at locations throughout the world where large gatherings and celebrations will be taking place. American citizens should avoid large crowds and gatherings, keep a low profile and vary routes and times of all required travel. Other warnings have come from the FBI, yet government officials, including President Clinton, have told Americans to go ahead with their holiday plans. A series of incidents have prompted the concern. The arrests in Jordan early this month of 13 men believed to be plotting terrorist attacks against Americans and Israelis. The arrest of an Algerian man on December 14 as he tried to enter Port Angeles, Washington from Canada carrying explosive and timing devices in his car and the arrest of a Canadian woman and an Algerian man on December 19 as they tried to enter the US along Vermont's border with Canada. Federal prosecutors say the woman has ties to Islamic terrorist groups. For more on these warnings and what prompted them, we turn to Graham Fuller, a consultant for RAND Corporation, a federally funded research organization. He had a 27-year career at the State Department; Brian Jenkins, a security consultant and author of a recent book "International Terrorism: A New Mode of Conflict," Philip Wilcox the State Department's ambassador at large for counter terrorism from 1995 to '97, and Edward Luttwak, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Welcome, gentlemen. Ambassador Wilcox, how unusual is it to have this many warnings from the government in such after short period of time about terrorism?
	A panel discussion
	PHILIP WILCOX: It is unusual, Margaret. I think the approach of the millennium is one reason for the heightened concern by the administration, but over the years, there has been an increasing frequency of terrorist advisory warnings by the Department of State. I think this reflects real and genuine and justifiable concern by the administration and it's a very tough balancing act to measure the need for warning the public against the anxiety and the concern that these warnings promote. My view is that perhaps there should be a more measured, careful judgment on the frequency of such warnings. Such warnings are necessary but if they're issued too often, they lose their credibility, and they tend to create more concern and alarm than the actual facts of terrorism justify. MARGARET WARNER: Brian Jenkins, do you share that concern, that perhaps these are too frequent, too many of them? BRIAN JENKINS: Well, certainly that concern is valid. I mean, we've had in the past two-and-a-half months now five warnings, worldwide warnings, put out by the State Department advising Americans that they may be targets of terrorist attack. That is an unusual frequency. These warnings do reflect a continued high volume of noise about terrorist activities, that is when terrorists are not carrying out attacks, they're planning attacks or at least contemplating, talking about attacks. And so if we have pretty good, intelligence sources, that is going to provide a steady stream of information. How many of these reports will ultimately prove valid? Probably not many of them, although the arrest in Jordan and recently in Washington are real events. MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Fuller, you have spent your life-- all four of you have-- looking at terrorism, studying terrorism from the events, at least what we know publicly, how credible would you say the threat is as the millennium approaches? GRAHAM FULLER: Well, I think given the fact that it's actually a millennium coming and we haven't had this experience before of a millennium on full-time television, I would take it fairly seriously. I think millennia traditionally attract all kinds of nuts and cooks and end of the worlders and apocalyptic visions. So it's very hard to know what is going to happen. I think though what is important is how much we are actually contributing to building up some of these terrorist organizations by frequent or perhaps over-frequent reference to them. Are we really improving security of Americans if we simply issue statements that there's a generalized danger? It begins to approach the danger of being struck by lightning, which is also very real under certain conditions. Finally I think what's really critical is: are we building Bin Laden into far more of a figure than perhaps he merits to be? There's no question he's charismatic. There's no question he's got a lot of money but when he's consistently... when almost every one of these events is traced back in some way to him, I think it must increase his bank roll, it increases his followers, it increases the feeling that he's really on to something, that I don't think necessarily assists our side in defending ourselves. MARGARET WARNER: You're referring of course to Osama bin Laden, the fugitive Saudi, who has been blamed for two embassy bombings in the past year-and-a-half. Edward Luttwak, how credible do you see - I mean, the FBI has put out statements both privately which different news organizations have gotten ahold of and also somewhat publicly, linking some of these arrests saying that these people work for Osama bin Laden or they were directed by him, how persuasive do you find that evidence?
	An interconnected plot?
	EDWARD LUTTWAK: Well, there is something to be explained here because I agree with what all the previous speakers said. We all know terrorism is not that important. More people died of lightning strikes last year, as a matter of fact, than terrorism. But within that thing, there is something quite serious here. The serious part is the fact that they've arrested 13 people in Jordan, the 13 people, let's say, belonged to an Islamic fundamentalist organization, yes, but no previous history of attacks against Americans -- American targets. There may have been terrorists, the organization, of course, proposes violence, favors violence, funds violence, but never against American targets. Suddenly these people are arrested. We go on the say-so of the people arresting them that they were talking about attacking American targets. This would be, say, American citizens outside and in fact if I remember correctly the first State Department warning said, "watch out, Americans who are outside the United States." Then there's the arrest of the Algerian, this Ahmed Rassem, at Port Angeles, in Washington. He is associated with a group of people who belong to or are affiliated or belong to an organization called the Group Islamic Ahmed. Now they're very bad boys. MARGARET WARNER: This GIA. EDWARD LUTTWAK: GIA, very bad boys. Terrorists, enormously violent, killed thousands of people. But no American targets. If anything, the GIA, as an Algerian group, has reasons to be, if you like, pro-American. They have never attacked American targets. They have no reason to attack American targets. Suddenly not only do we have a second group with no history of attacking but, moreover, it's no longer American citizens abroad; it's the fellows coming into the United States with bomb equipment. So the implication is the only possible logical inference that no logic applies, but the only logical inference is there is somebody outside a group organization or country, which is now mobilizing these groups and we happen to have heard of two of these cases. But if two rather marginal groups-- marginal, with no history of attacking Americans or American targets-- suddenly are aiming at the American target and the United States, the implication is that the same general contractor has gone out and solicited other, more plausible organizations which do have a history of attacking Americans. That's why there is reason for war. MARGARET WARNER: Brian Jenkins, do you connect the dots that way? BRIAN JENKINS: I would be careful not to see this in strict organizational terms. In the 1970s and 1980s, we were probably more confident in talking about identifiable terrorist organizations with leaders that we could identify, with modus operandis that we could identify. Today's terrorist world is organizationally much more fluid. In fact, it's very difficult to apply any sort of hierarchy to it. Instead we're forced to speak of a universe, of like-minded fanatics, in which there are clearly galaxies, constellations, individual conspiracies. Now one can enter that universe and take advantage of those linkages. I don't know that we should see this in terms of this organization connected with this other organization, but it's entirely possible that we have had... we have a case of individuals who may have been in one organization in the past and now are operating under a somewhat different banner.
	Reading the signs
	MARGARET WARNER: All right. Graham Fuller, how do you read these signs, in terms of whether there is some sort of organized attempt, anyway, to have an organized plot or whether these are a lot of self-starters who are all attracted by the coming millennium as a great, just, opportunity? GRAHAM FULLER: Well, I think what Edward pointed out earlier is very significant. I fully agree with him. In other words, if suddenly a group that has had nothing to do with Americans and no interest in Americans for several years, we now find members of that group possibly involved in terrorism against the United States, I have to say either it suggests that this organization has entirely changed its tactics, which is unlikely, or else there are people freelancing from that group. But there's another very complicating element in all of this as well, and that is what we've got states-- and let me be specific-- the Algerian state which has pulled a coup d'etat, which canceled legitimate elections, Islam is one, in 1991. The Algerian state is involved in a very brutal struggle against Islamists across the whole spectrum, some more democratic, some very, very violent. And so it's in the interest of the Algerian state and other states in the Middle East and the Muslim world to feed us information suggesting that everybody that the regime doesn't like and that maybe has something to do with Islam and politics is a terrorist. The term terrorist is being used extremely broadly for almost any group that these states don't like. That makes our job much tougher in trying to figure out the real bad guys, the real terrorists from people who are, yes, honestly carrying out armed insurgencies against their own states but with not a lot of interest in the American -- in the United States or the American position. MARGARET WARNER: So, Ambassador Wilcox, given the obvious murkiness of all of this, one is the US Government handling this right in your view with these warnings? Is there something else the US Government should do? And how should Americans respond, I mean civilian Americans?
	How should the Americans respond?
	PHILIP WILCOX: The US Government has done a very good job in identifying terrorists, going after them, prosecuting them and convicting them. They've been extraordinarily successful in the last decade in bringing terrorists to justice. But the real essence of terrorism is not the number of people killed which is minuscule compared to other forms of mayhem and violence. It's the fear that terrorists create. So, government officials and the media have to be very careful in treating, dealing with terrorism so that they don't inadvertently exaggerate the danger and thereby play into the hands of the terrorists whose real job is to create fear and give them a psychological victory. MARGARET WARNER: And, Mr. Luttwak, your view of both how the US Government is handling this now and how Americans should respond. EDWARD LUTTWAK: Well, from my own background as a journalist, I must say that I'm struck with the fact that we have made a lot of noise. We have talked a lot. Mr. Fuller was quite right in saying that it was a terrific mistake to give so much advertising to the Saudi which I will not mention, and at the same time we have not, in fact, used instruments that the taxpayer might think we have. For example, at one point apparently we knew who -- Mr. ... the unmentionable person was. Instead of going to get him the way governments have that around the world in dealing with terrorists, you send people to pick him up; you arrest his people, you take the documents, you read the documents, you blow up his stuff and you bring him home. Now we launched cruise missiles. On the one hand, terrorism is a terrifically important problem. But on the other, it is not sufficiently important to employ our special operations forces, our high-quality, high cost, special ops forces are not sent for that. Afghanistan is a very permissive environment, it's one of the easiest places in the world to do such an operation, obviously. We didn't do that. But instead, oh, yes, we could send cruise missiles. In other words it's a sort of... it's a threat that you emphasize because there are no other threats. You talk a lot about it but you don't actually do things that involve any cost or risk. So this I think is the balance there. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Gentlemen, we have to leave it there. Thank you all four very much.

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