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OPENING
STATEMENT OF
REP. JAMES SAXTON
SPECIAL
OVERSIGHT PANEL ON TERRORISM OPEN
HEARING ON BIOLOGICAL, NUCLEAR, AND CYBER
TERRORISM
This
afternoon, the Special Oversight Panel on
Terrorism convenes in open session to hold its
first hearing. This is, I think, an auspicious
day. I personally have been studying and
working actively on these issues for over ten
years. And many of us, from both parties, have
for years been watching terrorism evolve into
an ever greater threat. We have been
increasingly concerned that the growing threat
is not understood, or its implications fully
appreciated. For that reason, I and my
colleagues have sought the establishment of
this Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism.
Through
this panel, we hope to cast a spotlight on
terrorism and related emerging threats. One of
our chief goals is to illuminate the rapid
emergence of what amounts to a new terrorism,
different in kind and potentially vastly more
destructive than the terrorism that we knew
during the Cold War. This Panel will dissect
the evolving phenomenon that is terrorism. Our
objective is to understand how terrorism is
changing, and where the terrorist threat is
going, so that policymakers and the public
will be better positioned to make informed
decisions on what to do about that threat.
Therefore,
in keeping with the purpose of this Panel to
explore disturbing new aspects of terrorism,
it is appropriate that our first hearing deal
with cutting edge terrorist threats:
biological terrorism, nuclear terrorism, and
cyber terrorism.
Biological
weapons are becoming easier for state and
non-state actors to develop as
bio-technologies proliferate. Indeed, many of
the same technologies that are used for benign
medical research or for innocuous commercial
purposes-such as the fermentation of beer-can
be used for manufacturing biological weapons.
Biological weapons are relatively inexpensive
and easy to make, and yet are potentially
deadlier than nuclear weapons. Future
terrorists wishing to wreak mass casualties
may well turn to biological weapons.
Nuclear
terrorism, regarded as the stuff of fictional
novels and movies during the Cold War, is now
widely regarded as plausible. Lax security at
Russian nuclear weapon storage sites and at
laboratories and power plants where nuclear
materials are available raises the possibility
of theft or sale of nuclear weapons to
terrorist groups. Terrorists armed with
short-range missiles-which these days can be
purchased even by arms collectors and museums
on the international market-and armed with a
nuclear weapon could conceivably make an
electromagnetic pulse attack against the
United States. An EMP attack could
incapacitate power grids, communications,
computer systems and other electronic
infrastructure that makes modern society
possible.
Terrorists
could also build or acquire radio-frequency
weapons and use these non-nuclear devices to
selectively damage crucial parts of the U.S.
electronic infrastructure. For example, a
radio-frequency weapon detonated on Wall
Street could erase electronic business records
and cause billions of dollars worth of damage
to the U.S. economy. Or, a relatively small
radio-frequency weapon— built from readily
available technology could be used by a
terrorist parked at the end of an airport
runway to debilitate airplanes during take-off
or landing.
Cyberterrorism
could use information warfare techniques to
manipulate computer systems to disrupt or
incapacitate power grids and other
infrastructure, without resort to nuclear or
radio-frequency weapons. The ILOVEYOU virus is
a recent example of cybervandalism-that
disrupted governments and industry
worldwide-and may foreshadow far more serious
destruction that could be inflicted by
cyberterrorists.
We
have with us today a panel of independent
experts to address these various threats:
Ken
Alibek is Chief Scientist at Hadron, Inc.,
and was the Deputy Chief of Biopreparat, a
leading biological weapons laboratory in
the former Soviet Union.
Bron
Cikotas is a nuclear weapons expert, was
formerly EMP Division Chief with the
Defense Nuclear Agency, is one of this
nation’s foremost experts on
electromagnetic pulse phenomenon, and
invented the Ground Wave Emergency Network
to protect U.S. strategic communications
from nuclear attack;
Dorothy
Denning is a professor of computer science
at Georgetown University and an authority
on cyberterrorism and cybersecurity.
I
thank our panel of distinguished witnesses for
joining us today. But before proceeding to
hear their testimony, I want to call upon Mr.
Snyder, the Ranking Democrat on the Terrorism
Panel, for any statement he may wish to make.
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