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Prevention
of Chemical Terrorism
 lthough the extent
of the CW terrorist threat is hotly debated, the existence of terrorist
groups seeking to inflict large numbers of civilian casualties can no
longer be disputed. Some of these groups appear to be actively seeking
chemical weapons. The following measures are being taken to prevent chemical
terrorism:
Intelligence
Collection and Analysis
The best way to
avoid a release of chemical agents by terrorists is to prevent it from
happening in the first place. Disrupting an attack requires information
about the terrorists' plans, whereabouts, and other details. To prevent
chemical terrorist attacks, governments and intelligence organizations
need to know:
- who is buying,
selling, or producing chemicals agents or weapons, as well as the key equipment and materials that could be used to make those weapons;
- which groups
intend to carry out mass-casualty attacks;
- when and where
these attacks will take place.
The best way to
obtain such knowledge is by infiltrating terrorist groups, intercepting
their communications, and recruiting informants. In the United States,
international intelligence-gathering on terrorist groups is performed
by the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), while domestic intelligence-gathering
is the responsibility of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
After September 11, many people
criticized the U.S. intelligence community for its failure to prevent
the attacks. Some argued that the United States had neglected human
intelligence (HUMINT) because of an overemphasis on signals intelligence
(SIGINT), including electronic interception methods. Although the
intelligence community is trying to improve its HUMINT capabilities, it
has a structural bias toward technical intelligence-gathering and
analysis. A further problem is competition and turf battles within the
U.S. intelligence community, which has impeded the sharing of
information among agencies. An important role of the Director of
National Intelligence is to improve the coordination of intelligence
collection and analysis, but only time will tell if this effort is
successful.
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