WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- The war on terrorism must be prosecuted more urgently -- and it may need a stronger ground dimension -- if weapons-of-mass destruction attacks on the United States are to be prevented.
The time for a leisurely bombing campaign is running out, not because of the approaching Muslim holiday month of Ramadan but because in two weeks, the Taliban's General Winter will take command.
The harsh Afghan winter weather will limit severely the reach of U.S. air power and special operations forces.
And if the al Qaida international network, its terrorist capabilities and its cells in the United States are not disabled soon, the clear and present danger facing America will be from Osama bin Laden's ability to launch a non-conventional attack on cities. This is the opinion of U.S. government military analysts and senior decision-makers of past administrations who have shared their views with UPI.
The threat of al Qaida launching a nuclear, radiological, chemical or bacteriological attack seems higher than ever. During an Oct. 15 Pentagon briefing, a U.S. military spokesman did not rule out the existence of a nuclear weapon in the hands of al Qaida. However, he suggested a "dirty nuke" -- a primitive device that combines enriched uranium or plutonium with conventional high explosives, is more likely to be bin Laden's weapon of choice.
On Thursday, The Hindustan Times disclosed the arrest of senior retired Pakistani nuclear scientists who aided and abetted the Taliban's nascent WMD program. Umma Reconstruction, a "charity" headed by one of the scientists, is suspected of buying nuclear materials for the Taliban and al Qaida.
Two of the arrested scientists were founders of the Pakistani nuclear weapons programs and were deeply respected in their country. Apparently, the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf viewed their activities with particular concern.
The same Pentagon spokesman said bin Laden is likely to have simple chemical weapons, such as phosgene and chlorine gas, which were used in World War I. But states in the Middle East, such as Syria, have attained much more deadly binary chemical weapons. Separate chemicals, called precursors, can be transported without poisoning their handlers but can kill thousands when combined.
Several suspected al Qaida operatives in the United States and Canada have obtained drivers' licenses to transport hazardous materials in 18 wheel tractor trailers. Such low-tech systems can be used to transport large amounts of chemical weapons or precursors for binary weapons to U.S. cities for attacks that could surpass the Sept. 11 terrorist acts in New York and near Washington.
According to Pentagon officials, bin Laden's terrorists are working on some biological weapons. It also is widely known that several countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Iraq and Syria, have active bioweapons programs. According to available public opinion polls, between 18 percent and 30 percent of the population in these countries hold views highly critical of the United States and support terrorist attacks allegedly ordered by bin Laden.
Thus, al Qaida may have many collaborators among Middle Eastern government officials, intelligence officers and scientists.
The Times of London, quoting the German Bild newspaper, claimed Saturday an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague, who was expelled from the Czech Republic for espionage in April, transferred a vacuum-sealed vial of anthrax to the hijacker Mohammed Atta.
The Bush administration has repeatedly stated in public, and informed foreign leaders visiting Washington, that it expects new attacks against American civilians. The Israeli left-of-center Ha'aretz newspaper, quoting sources close to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, disclosed senior administration officials told him the United States had to brace itself for more massive attacks.
However, the Bush administration seems to be in the dark as to the nature and source of the threat. Its intelligence "early warning" system remains weak. This is evidenced by the series of contradictory leaks about the foreign source of the anthrax culture mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office and the chemicals that may have been used to weaponize it, followed by statements about the purely domestic origin of the threat.
While hundreds were apprehended in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, little actionable information was retrieved from the detainees. This was clearly indicated by FBI leaks to the press about how the suspects refused to cooperate, and that barring truth serum and possibly torture, neither of which it is permitted to utilize, the Bureau was unable to obtain the information it needed.
Some of those arrested already are being released, as no admission of guilt and no evidence denies the FBI the ability to press charges.
Domestic investigations into the U.S.-based terrorist cells and preventive operations aimed at thwarting future attacks are being hampered by the anthrax scare. This may have been the initial purpose behind this so-far rather low-level campaign of bioterrorism.
But the attacks also are aimed at the leadership of the United States, including the Supreme Court, Congress, the White House and CIA. Decapitation is a known military strategy, an act of war committed with biological weapons of mass destruction. It is aimed to paralyze the government of the United States.
A government source who requested anonymity told UPI most agents on an FBI anti-terrorist unit have been pulled to investigate the anthrax attack. And according to the Washington Post, 30 percent of FBI agents are working the anthrax probe. With so many agents committed to the bio-terrorism investigation, the FBI may be understaffed in other vital areas of the war on terrorism.
America's intelligence weakness includes not just the domestic, but also the foreign angle. For example, the United States could not warn the charismatic Pushtun anti-Taliban leader Abdul Haq that he was walking into a trap when he crossed the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan, and failed get him out when Haq ran into an ambush.
The CIA's antiterrorism center lacks analysts fluent in Pushtu and Dari, Afghanistan's principal native languages, and is employing young Spanish-speaking analysts to work the crucial Afghanistan accounts instead.
According to anti-terrorism experts, many domestic targets are wide open to terrorist attacks.
"Somebody in this country better wake up, or you'll be living in Beirut in two years ... You better wake up," said Heinz Altmann, founder of the International Strategic Services Special Operations Division, which specializes in counter-terrorism training and overseas corporate security. He participated in an anti-terrorism seminar organized by the Vienna-Tysons Regional Chamber of Commerce on Oct. 7.
But many in the government and the U.S. military still do not recognize the crucial role special operations and intelligence must play in the current conflict.
"The military doesn't do arrests, and they don't do kidnappings," said a U.S. Army colonel who spoke on condition of anonymity. "If you need to arrest someone, go to the police ... In Afghanistan, we have bombings and some Special Forces operations. But only in extreme cases you may try and capture prisoners of war. That is legitimate, but such operations get people killed."
The war in Afghanistan and antiterrorism operations in the United States and around the world are quickly becoming a race against time. If these far-flung campaigns are disconnected from each other and no breakthroughs are achieved on the intelligence front, it is safe to predict more civilians will be killed.
Only by boosting the number and quality of FBI agents and intelligence officers who understand radical Islamic terrorist networks, and who have at least some language and cultural capabilities, can the kinds of breakthroughs America now needs be facilitated. Well thought out operations by the United States and British special forces in Afghanistan, designed to capture key sources of information regarding al Qaida's WMD capabilities and plans, also are urgent and vital.
Cooperation with Pakistani, Turkish, Russian and other foreign security services may be necessary to pull off such operations. Without more special forces attacks and intelligence successes, all of America's air power may not be enough to prevent al Qaida's next blow from falling on US civilians.
(Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.)
