Last Tuesday, a highly coordinated terrorist attack accomplished what Hitler’s rocket and bomber designers dreamed of and what the Japanese attack on Peal Harbor never accomplished: Inflicting massive casualties on Americans on their own soil.
Besides the obvious tragedy, nothing could have caused greater humiliations for our national pride, the intelligence community and a Defense Department still struggling to address new challenges to international peace and stability.
Unfortunately, only a few military and political leaders have shown a realistic grasp on the threats facing us. Most senior leaders believed the enemies of our democracy thought as we do and became overly mesmerized with national missile defense. As it turned out, international terrorism is the No. 1 threat, and it can strike in different forms — even at home.
Reforms of our forces must immediately shift to protecting America’s shores and borders and by enhancing critical capabilities to deliver decisive strikes against terrorist organizations or even a foreign government.
As incomprehensible and murderous the attacks of Sept. 11 proved, they could have included a nuclear device on any one of the hijacked planes. Chemical or biological terror is the other deadly option. While our government maintains that anthrax is the greatest biological threat today, many scientists warn that genetic engineers easily could turn simple bacteria and viruses into mass killers. Introducing any of the engineered silent killers into our cities’ water supplies would kill millions and return us to the dark ages of the plague.
The real deadliness of any terrorist option comes from its stealth and unpredictability. A terrorist easily can deliver nukes, chemicals and bugs undetected, rendering billion-dollar missile defenses useless. A “suitcase weapon” also doesn’t have to be delivered by the stereotypical turban-wearing terrorist. A rogue state most likely would use disgruntled American extremists, like Timothy McVeigh.
Despite the great tragedy and bloodshed, I believe America will emerge with vigor and a new determination to defeat international terrorism.
To set the international stage, we and our allies immediately must push for clear international policies and allow for pre-emptive measures, even the targeting of terrorist masterminds.
To precisely target and eliminate foreign terrorist threats, we must build a deep human intelligence network that penetrates the enemy’s nerve centers and supplements our current over-reliance on satellites and gadgetry.
Once a critical target is identified, we must strike pre-emptively and unexpectedly.
For target areas with difficult access, America must have a much larger pool of special operations forces — about twice the size of today’s capabilities in all services. These highly elite forces must be capable of infiltrating or conducting direct-action raids against targeted terrorists, rogue government leaders, weapons-manufacturing facilities and launch sites.
Our conventional forces must be of superior strength and mobility to decisively squelch the danger of a larger conflict anywhere in the world. These forces must include Guard and reserve units specifically tailored for homeland security and “projectable” combat forces for extended conflicts.
As America is rallying to the colors against international terrorism, I hope that our lumbering defense establishment now will move to acquire the means to wage pre-emptive and decisive war against terrorism and all its supporters.
The writer is a retired lieutenant colonel with more than 20 years experience in armor and reconnaissance, including command of a tank battalion. A decorated Desert Storm veteran, he has served in numerous overseas assignments. He can be reached at r6zimm@earthlink.net.
