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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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