NCJ Number
189493
Date Published
2000
Length
11 pages
Annotation
The document addresses the concerns of international terrorism and provides recommendations to protect Americans against it.
Abstract
State support of terrorist groups has become an insidious part of the global struggle for power. The State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism includes Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. These countries have given money, weapons, training, communications equipment, false passports, and safe haven to their client terrorist groups. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly among these countries, is a disturbing trend that threatens to raise the potential costs of terrorism dramatically. Making concessions to terrorists will not solve the problem. Allowing the President to become personally involved in a hostage crisis only drives up the perceived value of the hostages and makes the President, in effect, also a hostage. Intelligence plays a key role in disrupting terrorist networks. Accurate intelligence is essential if the United States (U.S.) is to have any reasonable expectation of targeting specific vulnerabilities of the states that sponsor international terrorism. An effective anti-terrorism policy requires a balance of offensive and defensive measures. Defensive measures aimed at protecting U.S. citizens and property include hardening embassies and military bases against terrorist strikes, providing military and diplomatic personnel with terrorist threat briefings, and disruption of terrorist networks. To protect Americans against the threat of international terrorism, the U.S. government must maintain relentless pressure against terrorist groups and the states that support them. In addition to seeking the arrest and punishment of individual terrorists, the U.S. must use diplomatic, economic, and military pressures to penalize the states that support terrorism.