CIAO DATE: 07/02

Defending America: Redefining the Conceptual Borders of Homeland Defense
Terrorism, Asymmetric Warfare and Chemical Weapons

Chemical Weapons as Means of Attack

Chemical weapons have not been used effectively in attacks on the American homeland. Reports that the bombers of the World Trade Center considered trying to add a chemical weapon like sodium cyanide to their explosives seem to be untrue, and led to an unsubstantiated assertion by the trial judge. ₁ There have, however, been a number of attempts to use chemical weapons by domestic extremists and individuals. For example, in 1997, members of the KKK plotted to place an improvised explosive device on a hydrogen sulfide tank at a refinery near Dallas, Texas. ₂ There is a well-established, low-level risk that such weapons will be used in the future, although there is no way to predict the frequency of such attacks, their scale, potential success, or lethality.

There are a wide range of countries involved in the development of chemical weapons. Table 4.3 provides a recent unclassified US intelligence summary chemical weapons activities by nation. It is only a partial list. The US intelligence community is tracking a total of approximately 25 nations which are believed to be carrying out some form of state-sponsored chemical and/or biological weapons development. As has been discussed earlier, at least two foreign terrorist groups are also believed to have active chemical and biological weapons efforts.

Effective planning for Homeland defense must consider the fact that the US currently has limited ability to properly characterize the impact of chemical weapons in any form of attack. Many terrorist uses of chemical weapons will not be inherently more lethal or more painful than the use of explosives. At the same time, it must consider the risk that chemical attacks can produce much larger levels of damage than nominal lethality estimates indicate and virtually any use of such weapons will have a far different psychological impact. Chemical weapons are weapons of terror and intimidation as well as a means of producing casualties and physical destruction.

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Endnotes

Note 1: See John V. Parachini, The World Trade Center Bombers (1993), in Jonathan B. Tucker, ed, Toxic Terror, Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons, Cambridge, Belfer Center for Scientific and International Affairs, 2000, pp. 185-207.Back

Note 2: Robert M. Burnham, Chief, Domestic Terrorism Section, FBI, before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air, Wetlands, Private Property, and Nuclear Safety, March 16, 1999.Back