The Lessons Of Oklahoma

(CBS)  The Oklahoma City bombing shattered more than the Murrah Federal Building. Among the casualties was America’s sense of security— a belief that it was immune from terrorist attacks.

Immediately after the bombing, the federal government began a concerted effort to strengthen its defenses against terrorism.

Oklahoma City "was a wake-up call," said Neal A. Pollard, a founding director of the Terrorism Research Council, which was formed in the aftermath of the bombing, "that our primary terrorist threat is not limited to religious extremists from the Middle East, that we have an equally dangerous terrorist strain within our own borders."

In June, 1995, President Clinton signed the "U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism," committing the U.S. to a four-pronged strategy for fighting domestic terrorism: reducing vulnerabilities, deterring attacks, responding to attacks and dealing with the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Congress immediately funneled $77.1 million to the FBI to hire additional agents and purchase equipment. From 1995-1997, lawmakers approved over $350 million for more than 1,000 FBI staff positions dedicated to fighting domestic terrorism.

That money also helped law enforcement create new agencies to meet the new threat that terrorism posed. Among these are the National Defense Preparedness Office, the National Infrastructure Protection Center, a national Counterterrorism Center, and the Computer Investigation and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center at FBI headquarters.

Threat Assessment

The FBI identifies four major categories of domestic terrorist threats:

Right-wing groups
…believe that blacks, Jews and other ethnic minorities are inferior to whites and often subscribe to a "Christian Identity."

Militia Groups
…argue that they are exempt from the laws and fear a "new world order" consisting of a one-nation government.

Puerto Rican nationalists
…believe in the use of violence to secure the liberation of Puerto Rico from the United States.

Special-interest terrorist groups
…environmental groups, animal rights groups, etc.

"Most of the new agents and support positions are allowing us to double the 'shoe-leather' for counterterrorism investigations so that we can address emerging domestic and internationaterrorist groups," said FBI Director Louis Freeh in 1997 testimony to Congress. "We are also expanding the number of joint terrorism task forces that have proven to be extremely valuable in facilitating cooperation among federal, state and local law enforcement."

The expansion means cooperation among the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Department of Defense.

But Congress might have given the U.S. government its most powerful tool.

In addition to providing $1 billion for counterterrorism activity, the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act created a federal death penalty for terrorist murders, instituted new restrictions for the sale of explosives and made the use of chemical weapons in the U.S. a crime.

That law, however, also came under fire by civil rights advocates for measures such as one that allowed INS border officers, rather than immigration judges, to decide the asylum cases of people who claim to be fleeing persecution and who arrive without travel documents.

The FBI says their efforts may have already paid off in saved lives. They thwarted an effort by the Aryan Nation to conduct a series of violent acts against prominent Jewish Americans and Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Jewish film director Steven Spielberg.

Terrorism In The U.S.

Major incidents on American soil:

1920—A bomb placed in a wagon parked on Wall Street explodes, killing 35. Bolshevist or anarchist terrorists are blamed.
1950—Gun fight erupts outside of Blair House in Washington, D.C., between Puerto Rican nationalists and Secret Service agents protecting President Harry Truman. One D.C. cop is killed.
1954—Puerto Rican nationalists wound five members of Congress when they open fire in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives.
1975—Croation nationalists detonate a bomb in New York City’s LaGuardia airport, killing 11.
1975—Bomb explosion at Fraunces Tavern in New York City kills four and injures 50. Puerto Rican nationalist group FALN claims responsibility.
1976—Former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and an aide are killed by a car bomb in Washington, allegedly planted by agents of Chile’s Pinochet regime.
1993—Six die and 1,040 are injured when a bomb explodes in basement garage of Manhattan’s World Trade Center. Six men are convicted of planting the bomb to exact vengeance for Palestinians.
1995—Car bomb destroys the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168, including 19 children. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are convicted in a plot designed to avenge the 78 lives lost in the 1993 Branch Davidian complex siege and fire.
1996—Two killed, more than a hundred injured, when a pipe bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. Security guard Richard Jewel is suspected but then cleared. Eric Robert Rudolph, charged with the crime, is still at large.
1997—One person is killed and another seriously injured in bombing of Birmingham, Ala. abortion clinic. Eric Robert Rudolph is wanted for this bombing as well.

The FBI caught the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, as well as the men responsible for the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings.

In late December 1999, arrests of persons carrying bombmaking material in the states of Washington and New York may have prevented a terrorist attack on millennial celebrations.

"We’re a lot better than we were ten years ago. People do realize that there might be a problem out there," said Pollard, who grades America’s counterterrorism efforts so far a B+.

However, Pollard claims that so far, many of the new counterterrorism agencies aren’t working cooperatively. "Now I think were going to see a serious effort to get this stuff organized."

The reason for continued vigilance is simple: domestic terrorists still have the motives and means for violent action.

There is widespread resentment of gun laws in some rural areas, growing mistrust of federal law enforcement (especially after incidents like the Branch Davidian siege), taxes and the growing prominence of the United Nations, which militia groups perceive as the harbinger of a one-nation "new world order."

And thanks to technological advances, including the Internet, said Pollard, "Destructive technologies are cheaper, are more widely available."

That’s why the FBI’s 1998-2003 Strategic Plan lists "foreign intelligence, terrorist, and criminal activities that directly threaten the national or economic security of the United States" as its top priority.

In testimony to Congress this year, Director Freeh explained that while "the frequency of terrorist incidents within the United States has decreased in number, the potential for destruction has increased as terrorists have turned toward large improvised explosive devices to inflict maximum damage."

"One has only to look at the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, in Oklahoma City, to see the devastating potential for a terrorist act," he said. "Prior to April 19, 1995, no one would have believed that Americans would commit such a tragic act against other mericans. But they did, and the potential for another such incident continues."


By JARRETT MURPHY