Author: John J Lumpkin (AP)
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: May 22, 2002
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/220502/dlfor16.asp
Terrorists are sure to eventually
acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, US Defense Secretary
Donald H Rumsfeld warned Congress on Tuesday.
Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North
Korea are developing such weapons of mass destruction and will supply them
to terrorists to whom they already are linked, Rumsfeld said.
"They (terrorists) inevitably will
get their hands on them and they will not hesitate to use them,'' Rumsfeld
told a Senate subcommittee in Congress.
Meanwhile, Tom Ridge, who heads
the White House's office of domestic security, said new terror warnings
have not prompted US officials to raise the United States' nationwide alert
status because the intelligence on possible attacks is too vague.
Rumsfeld declined to discuss specific
terrorist threats, saying the government sees hundreds a day. As many as
90 percent of them are designed simply to test the government's response.
"They jerk us around, try to jerk us around, and test us," Rumsfeld said.
General Richard Myers, the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that while the war on terror has hurt
Al-Qaeda, the terrorist network remains a threat.
"Just like a wounded animal is the
most dangerous, they (Al-Qaeda) still pose a threat to our armed forces,"
Myers said.
At the White House briefing, press
secretary Ari Fleischer said he hadn't heard Rumsfeld's exact words, but
that "the secretary knows what the president knows, and that is that we're
in the middle of a war to protect the country and diminish the ability
of people who would do us harm from getting their hands on such weapons."
Ridge said predictions that terrorists
may target unnamed apartment buildings, for example, were not enough to
change the nation's security alert from "yellow" -- the third-highest of
five stages.
"It wasn't actionable in the sense
that we're going to change a national level of awareness, but it was informational,"
Ridge said.
Faced with criticism for belatedly
releasing terrorist information it had before the Sept 11 attacks, the
administration of President George W Bush may now routinely release intelligence
information, Ridge said.
"We have two choices: You can either
keep it to yourselves or you can share it," Ridge said. "And under the
circumstances, depending on the source and the specificity and a few other
circumstances and conditions, we may share it."
Ridge was the latest member of the
Bush administration to predict that more terror attacks on Americans are
"not a matter of 'if', but 'when."'
The predictions are based in part
on new intelligence suggesting plotting by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network
has been on the rise over the past few weeks, said a senior US official,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
The latest information shows an
increase in communications and other activity by Al-Qaeda over the past
few weeks, suggesting new attacks may be in the works, said the official.
But this sort of increase in volume
has happened several times before -- even since Sept 11.
The blunt new warnings also are
designed to give Americans better notice and protect Bush against second
guessing in the event of another attack, said a senior administration official
with knowledge of US intelligence and White House strategy.
Senator Bob Graham, a Democrat from
Florida and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the
intelligence "chatter" was coming from Mideast groups such as Hezbollah
and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, in addition to Al-Qaeda.
