utilities, potable water, communications, electronic funds

transfers, and military networks.

Attacks, such as large truck bombs employed by terrorists in Lebanon in 1983, have killed hundreds of Americans.

Yet, such attacks pale in comparison to the terrorists use of chemical and biological agents which are readily available.

Chemical warfare agents, such as VX or GB, need not be

stolen or synthesized in order to obtain lethal nerve agents. It is easy to obtain TEPP or parathion, which are commercially available, potent insecticides that are almost as toxic as their military counterparts.

Cultures of anthrax, which can be readily grown and whose lethality is incredible, can be found in research labs, some hospitals, and in the soil of cattle country. The terrorist armed with chemical or radiological agents can kill hundreds, possibly thousands of people. By contrast, terrorists armed with biological weaponry, can in principle, kill tens to hundreds of thousands. While it is difficult to rationalize such acts, as regional conflicts expand and terrorism abounds, we would be foolish to believe that mass killing could not result. The use of chemical agents in the Iran-Iraq war is a case in point.

While government uses state-of-the-art technologies in detecting and dealing with nuclear materials and weapons, we are by contrast poorly prepared to cope with the chemical or biological incidents. Even if the probability of such a terrorist incident were low, the human cost of one occuring would be too high to ignore. Do remember, that as far back as 1975, Palestinian terrorists were known to have access to nerve agents. The tactics of tomorrow's terrorist are not limited to killing on a grand scale. The U.S. is a nation of exceedingly vulnerable networks. At critical nodes there is often little security. Key components are not stockpiled and the networks may not prove robust. It is important, therefore, to assess the extent of these vulnerabilities, analyze cost-effectiveness and

determine alternative means of protecting crucial elements of the networks. Thus, we should consider stockpiling very large transformers. Certainly, the big EHV transformers should be protected by more than chain link fences.

Moreover, natural gas

transmission is even more vulnerable than the electrical power network. Just as the very large custom-made transformers, big compressors should be better protected and possibly stockpiled.

Clearly, it is infeasible to protect every high tension
We need to be in the

line, switch, transformer, and compressor.
business of risk analysis and net assessment.
the GAO has noted these same vulnerabilities.

For many years,

Failing

Certainly, the best outcome would be prevention. that, we will be faced with the problems of containment and restoration. While our law enforcement and intelligence communities have done an absolutely first rate job in foiling many terrorist attacks, the risks of a major attack occuring in the U.S. are steadily increasing. Therefore, in addition to intelligence and law enforcement activities, we must understand that federal, state and local governments may have to cope with an extended blackout or the loss of natural gas transmission and other essential services. Just imagine, the New York metropolitan area without electricity for several weeks.

Think

of even a short term interruption of natural gas transmission and the problem of relighting pilot lights.

An obvious question arises: Is there an adequate

emergency preparedness mechanism, including contingency plans and training, to cope with disasters of this nature? Civil defence

has been funded, though meagerly, to cope with the effects of thermal nuclear war, but can we cope with the effects of an extended blackout?

In 1984, the two of us co-chaired America's Hidden

Vulnerabilities, a panel report of the CSIS Science and

Technology Committee.

The report dealt with precisely these

problems; its recommendations seem as valid today as they were

four years ago.

The study group recommended the following:

"That the leadership of the U.S. Senate and House of
Representatives establish a joint committee charged with
analyzing and, where possible, quantifying the critical
problems of network vulnerabilities; attracting
government and appropriate public attention to those
problems; and drafting legislation for enabling and
implementing appropriate counteractions.

"That the president establish in the White House a small
emergency preparedness and response staff to guide and
coordinate federal and state emergency activities and to
provide liaison with the joint committee.

"That the National Academy of Engineering establish, with three year initial federal funding, an Inter-Industry Emergency Preparedness Council of industry and academic representatives to provide an industry-government interface with the joint committee and the White House emergency staff and to serve as a pilot instrument for private sector cooperation in emergency planning and the setting of standards."

Let there be no mistake.

These recommendations are

important, but they are only a starting point. In the four years since these paragraphs were written, the threat of sophisticated terrorism has increased substantially. This means that there is an urgent need for even these modest steps, with much more to be done if we are to fend off potential disaster.

Senator LEAHY. Mr. Woolsey, on the study on vulnerabilities that you did with Dr. Kupperman, you talked about the Air Florida crash. Are there any ways that we can deal with a threat to what must be thousands of similar bridges?

I can think of some vital links on our interstate highway system and on our rail system, that would be just as vulnerable.

STATEMENT OF R. JAMES WOOLSEY

Mr. WOOLSEY. One cannot guard every power line or every bridge, Mr. Chairman. One can, I think, try to encourage gas and oil pipeline companies to so situate and protect their computers and their compressors so that a very few people in Louisiana could not knock out a very high proportion of the gas transmission to the east coast.

One cannot protect each and every computer net with encryption and special security features, but we could probably do a lot better with some of the very large networks than we do.

It is a process of looking at sensitive nodes, transformers for electric power grids, and so on, and seeing that we have some redundancy and perhaps some stockpiling of components that, in some cases, such as these transformers, often take years to produce.

It is sensible, high-leverage steps-to take away some of the easier things that a high-technology terrorist could focus on that— seem to me to be particularly needed. I think you are absolutely correct that one does not want a society in which all of our railway bridges are guarded. That is not what we are like.

Senator LEAHY. But there are steps that we do take. Mr. Revell mentioned the Tylenol case earlier. After that case, the pharmaceutical industry started putting the tamper-proof tops and containers, and so on, which we all found a little bit annoying at first. But, now, I suspect that if any one of us were buying something off the shelf and found that it did not have that protection, we would just put it right back.

Mr. WOOLSEY. Absolutely.

Senator LEAHY. I mean, you just become conditioned to certain steps that an industry can take.

Yes, Dr. Kupperman.

Mr. KUPPERMAN. I think the point is that there is no way of protecting everything. On the other hand, it is absolutely inexcusable, it is frightening to realize that very few nodes, comparatively, control much of our electrical power system.

In these cases, without getting into detail about them, they are guarded by no more than a chain link fence. That is dumb.

Senator LEAHY. Without leading the witness, something that I always tried not-well, I did not always try not to do it; I have to be honest about it. But do we not also have the situation that if some of the nodes were knocked out, we would have no quick and easy replacement for them?

Mr. KUPPERMAN. Not only do we not have quick and easy replacements, it is something on the order of 2 to 3 years. There are no sensors in many cases. They are not made in the United States in some cases.

I mean, if one goes beyond the terrorism problem to the more generic national security problem of the mobilization base of this country, we are in trouble.

Senator LEAHY. Mr. Ambassador.

Ambassador BREMER. A lot of what I had in my statement has been covered one way or the other, Mr. Chairman, but I think it is important in general to keep this subject in perspective.

We have to find, as we do in many things in terrorism, the medium ground between complacency and hysteria. I think it is important to remember that to date, anyway, when terrorists historically have been confronted with hardened targets, as they are increasingly overseas in the case of our embassies and military installations, they have preferred to go after other targets. In a word they have preferred to switch rather than fight.

I think that there are some constraints on moving to high-tech or NBC. We have talked about them a bit. It is more expensive. Often, the materials or weapons are harder to get. They require training, often specialized training, and often training areas.

For example, if you are going to use a stand-off RPG instead of running a car bomb into an embassy, you probably need a place where you can test-fire RPG's. Nuclear, biological, and chemical substances particularly also present to the terrorists themselves dangers which are not insignificant.

Now, I do not think there are, however, any grounds for complacency. We have seen what one could define as high-tech terrorism. I have given a number of examples in my statement already, and we pointed out that we think the most likely actors are terrorist groups which have state support or terrorist groups whose programmatic objectives attract to them high-tech people, people who are physicists or chemists, people with a high degree of education. These people then can get across that threshold more easily than many other terrorist groups.

In addition to the research and development and the NBC working group I mentioned, I would want to stress we have also instituted a rather vigorous exercise activity which involves both international and domestic agencies to exercise our capability to respond to these kinds of terrorist incidents. I think we are making some progress there. This is to answer your question about our ability for crisis management.

I think we need to continue to support additional research into these areas with funding, and I think Congress can pick up some of the suggestions that I have made-there are undoubtedly others around-on ways you can help us make it harder for terrorists to get their hands on and use these more exotic technologies.

Senator LEAHY. We also have got to find ways either by demonstration and sharing of intelligence or by setting up models to get private industry to take some of these steps that Dr. Kupperman talks about-the electric nodes and the fact that some key parts are produced outside this country, maybe custom-produced, and it could take 2 to 3 years in some cases to replace them. These are obvious vulnerabilities, as with our discussion of Louisiana and their gas pipelines, and so on.

Do you see it as a legitimate issue for government to start working with private industry or to continue working with private in