Preparing for the War on Terrorism
Abstract
Based on a firm appreciation of terrorism threats, both foreign and domestic, an overarching strategy should now be developed that ensures that the U.S. is capable of responding across the entire technological spectrum of potential adversarial attacks. The focus of U.S. counterterrorism policy in recent years has arguably been too weighted towards the "high end" threats from biological and chemical weapons and was based mainly on planning for extreme worst-case scenarios. This approach seemed to assume that, by focusing on "worst-case" scenarios involving these more exotic weapons, any less serious incident involving a different, even less sophisticated weapon, could be addressed simply by planning for the most catastrophic event. Such an assumption ignored the possibility that these less catastrophic, though still high casualty incidents, might present unique challenges of their own. The consensus from a series of first-hand interactions I had last year with state and local first responders from three different regions of the United States strongly implied-as last week's events d%the shortcomings of this approach. At each of these training sessions, complaints were voiced repeatedly that state and local authorities were unable to use federal funds earmarked for the purchase of anti- and counterterrorism equipment to obtain essential life-saving equipment such as concrete cutters, diamond (glass) cutters, and thermal imaging, body-sensing devices that would aid in the rescue of victims in building collapses caused by bombings (or, for that matter, other man-made or natural disasters). Instead, these funds apparently could only be applied to orders involving a range of paraphernalia exclusive to addressing and handling "bioterrorism" situations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA396611
Entities
People
- Bruce Hoffman
Organizations
- RAND Corporation