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| May 23, 2002 |
State Department Releases Annual Terrorism Report
Christopher Hellman, Senior Analyst, chellman@cdi.org
This week the State Department released its 22nd annual report on international terrorism. The report, entitled "Patterns of Global Terrorism," reveals, despite the tragic events of Sept. 11, a few encouraging trends in international terrorist incidents and efforts to combat terrorism.
The report names 33 groups designated by the State Department as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), including seven groups not included on the list last year. The new groups are the Palestinian al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Lebanese Asbat al-Ansar, Pakistan’s Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Real IRA from Northern Ireland, the Revolutionary Nuclei of Greece, Algeria’s Salafist Group for Call and Combat and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.
The report also lists state sponsors of terrorism. The seven countries listed – Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria – all appeared on the list last year, and in fact, no nation has ever been removed from the list. In releasing the report, Frank Taylor, the State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, stated, "in order to be removed from the list, a nation has not only to renounce terrorism, but to demonstrate conclusively that no longer will it use terrorism as a tool."
Yet while none of the seven state sponsors were removed from the list, the State Department noted that Libya and Sudan had taken steps "to get out of the terrorism business." Libya was cited for its apparent reduced support for groups with links to terrorist activities, while it was noted that Sudan had arrested groups tied to terrorism. And while Iran was described as still "the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2001," the report credited Iran, along with North Korea and Syria, for making "limited moves" to cooperate in anti-terrorism efforts "in some narrow areas." The report did note, however, "Iran and Syria…seek to have it both ways. On one hand, they clamped down on certain terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda. On the other hand, they maintained their support for other terrorist groups." Nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism are not permitted to receive U.S. economic assistance or arms-related exports.
Statistically, the report shows that the number of terrorist incidents declined in the past year, from 426 in 2000 to 346 in 2001. The number of persons killed grew from 405 to 3,547 (the report, citing the absence of a final total, estimated the number of fatalities at the World Trade Center at 3,000. The New York Times (April 16) put the WTC total at 2,824 dead or missing, including 147 on the two hijacked planes, and not including the terrorists), while the number of wounded grew from 796 to 1,080. In addition to the U.S. citizens killed and injured on Sept. 11, there were eight others killed and 15 wounded in acts of terrorism in 2001.
The highest number of international attacks against U.S. facilities or in which U.S. citizens were injured occurred in Latin America (191), all in Colombia. The fewest occurred in Eurasia (2). Most international casualties occurred in North America (the report places the figure at 3,315, including 3,000 fatalities but no injuries from the World Trade Center), while the fewest occurred in Eurasia (0). Businesses continue to be the favorite targets of international terrorists, and were struck 397 times in 2001, up from 383 in 2000. This is far ahead of diplomats (18), government targets (13) and the military (4), all of which were less popular targets than in 2000.
The State Department's report is available on the internet at: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2001/. Also, see CDI’s Terrorism Project, for insights, in-depth analysis and facts on the military, security and foreign policy challenges as the United States, and the world, faces terrorism.
UN Holds Special Session on Children
Rachel Stohl, Senior Analyst, rstohl@cdi.org
The United Nations held a Special Session on Children on May 8-10, 2002. Originally scheduled for September 19-21, the three days marked the first time the General Assembly devoted a session exclusively to children and children’s issues.
The Special Session was a follow-up to the 1990 World Summit for Children and was meant to examine the implementation of the Summit’s goals and agenda. At the World Summit, 71 government leaders signed the World Declaration on Survival, Protection, and Development of Children and adopted a plan of action with goals including: "improving living conditions for children and their chances for survival by increasing access to health services for women and children, reducing the spread of preventable diseases, creating more opportunities for education, providing better sanitation and greater food supply, and protecting children in danger."
At the Special Session, states adopted a plan of action, known as "A World Fit for Children." The document contains 21 goals for child protection in four primary areas: promoting healthy lives; access to and completion of quality education; protection of children against abuse, violence and exploitation; and fighting HIV/AIDS.
As with many other recent multilateral initiatives, especially those held within a UN context or the UN system, the United States managed to alienate itself from the majority of its allies and found itself allied with unlikely bedfellows, including Iraq, Sudan, and Syria on some positions. In particular, the United States is one of only two UN countries, the other is Somalia, to not have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the most comprehensive children’s rights treaty in existence. As such, the United States did not want language included in the Session’s final document that referred to a country’s performance on protecting the rights and needs of children based upon the CRC standards. The United States also did not want a provision in the outcome document that prohibited the death penalty or life imprisonment for individuals under 18, as the United States is one of the few countries that continue to execute children for their crimes. Another fight that emerged during the conference was over references to reproductive health services. The United States did not want to include abortion in the list of reproductive health services offered to adolescents, even though the same language had been adopted at five previous UN conferences.
While UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy was "enormously proud and pleased at what has been accomplished" during the Special Session, many NGOs and child delegates left the meetings disappointed, believing the final document did not take the agenda far enough. Moreover, as with many other UN events, there was a lot of talk and political posturing, but few specifics as to how such protections would be provided for and funded. Further, the Special Session did little to further the legal protections guaranteed children, merely reaffirming the existing rights of children.
Joining the more than 60 heads of state and countless diplomats, and over 3,000 non-governmental organization representatives in the Special Session, were 400-plus children. Because it was a conference about children, the child delegates were given an opportunity to present their plan of action, "A World Fit for Us," to world leaders. In panels with youth and government leaders, the tone was often somewhat contentious. A 15-year old boy from Mali, Adam Maiga, said at one panel, "We must put an end to this demagoguery. You have parliaments but they are used as democratic decorations." Another 17-year old from Chad urged the government leaders to “Listen to the children not with your ears, but with your heart.” The challenge for the United Nations and government leaders is now to implement the commitments made in "A World Fit for Children" in a timely and effective manner.
The Nuclear Arms Pact: Storing the Legacy of the Cold War
Ben Friedman, Research Assistant, bfriedman@cdi.org
Announcing the completion of a strategic nuclear arms pact with Russia last week, President George W. Bush told Americans that the agreement would "liquidate the legacy of the Cold War." But the agreement, negotiated from the handshake agreement Bush and Russian President Putin reached in Crawford, Texas last November, liquidates nothing. The United States and Russia will reduce their arsenals of operationally deployed strategic weapons from 6,000 to 1,700-2,200 by 2012. The states might destroy some of these weapons, particularly Russia, but neither side is obligated to do so. Rather than mandating the destruction of the legacy of the Cold War, nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles, this agreement allows the two states to put them in storage faculties in partially disassembled states, where they can be rearmed in short order. This "hedge force," offers the United States "strategic flexibility," according to administration officials. We are not then liquidating the legacy of the Cold War; we are redefining its use.
Will this agreement enhance American security? Yes, but probably not much. The agreement does nothing to address what the Baker-Cutler commission called the most pressing threat to American security –- the risk of theft or illicit sale of Russia’s unsecured nuclear weapons and fissile materials. Russia has a untold number of small, tactical nuclear weapons, (estimates range from a few thousand to 15,000) some with explosive power around the order of Hiroshima. These weapons are most attractive to terrorists because they are easier to handle and use than strategic nuclear weapons. The Bush administration recently announced that it would not pursue a treaty dealing with tactical nuclear weapons, but might seek their destruction by less formal means. The agreement also does not address the problem of lax security of fissile materials in Russia, which terrorists could use to cobble together a "dirty bomb."
Some analysts have even suggested that by forcing the Russians to store its nuclear materials to mirror the U.S. hedge force, where they might be vulnerable to terrorists given Russia’s inability to adequately protect such materials, the agreement will detract from American security. This analysis probably overstates the case, since the materials least protected and valuable to terrorists are fissile materials and perhaps tactical nuclear weapons, which are largely unaffected by storage of strategic nuclear weapons. But what is clear is that this agreement should be accompanied by an effort to improve and deepen cooperative threat reduction, an array of U.S. run programs named for their founders, Senators Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar, which aim to secure and dismantle Russians nuclear weapons and keep Russian scientists from peddling their intellectual wares to rogue states.
Accelerating and strengthening Nunn-Lugar would have a far greater impact on U.S. national security than this strategic arms agreement. The Baker-Cutler Task Force on Nonproliferation Programs in Russia, a bipartisan commission of national security experts chaired by former Senator Howard Baker and former White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler, recommended spending $30 billion over a decade on Nunn-Lugar -– at the current pace the programs will cost around $10 billion over the same period. If that seems like a lot, note that the Bush administration’s FY 2003 budget calls for close to eight billion dollars for missile defense, almost eight times what is spent on cooperative threat reduction. The Nunn-Lugar programs, despite considerable success, have secured only about one third of Russia’s nuclear stockpile, leaving the rest vulnerable until they are dealt with in the coming years.
One solution to this funding shortfall has been proposed by the Bush administration. The plan, known as the "Ten plus Ten by Ten" plan, would ask major U.S. allies, principally the Group of Eight nations, to match the U.S. contribution to the programs, contributing a cumulative $10 billion over 10 years. This proposal, which would undoubtedly receive broad-based U.S. support, may be held up by European parliaments who are reluctant to spend on that order. A related proposal would forgive much of Russia’s vast debt (estimated around $41 billion) in exchange for greater Russian contribution to its non-proliferation efforts.
The agreement is a step toward the day when U.S./Russian relations are no longer guided by the prospect of mutual annihilation. But in 2012, when the agreement expires, each nation will still aim thousands of warheads at the other nation, able to destroy their allies’ citizens at a moment’s notice. That fact undermines the partnership growing between the two nations and demonstrates that overly cautious agreements, like this one, can preserve danger rather than hedge against it. In a sense this agreement is also is a wish for a return to the days of deterrence, when foes could be cowed by overwhelming firepower. But there is no deterring suicidal terrorists. In an age where terrorists threaten the United State far more than traditional rivals, our vast nuclear arsenal may be more trouble than it is worth.
Russian Poll Questions Relations with U.S. -– According to a poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (Wall Street Journal, May 22) the perception amongst Russians is that there is still a long way to go in improving relations with the United States. Fifty-eight percent of respondents saw the United States as "unfriendly" towards Russia, and only twenty-five percent saw the United States as "friendly." Only twenty-three percent said their personal attitude about the United States was "good," while twenty-three percent said "bad" and fifty-one percent where "indifferent." In response to the question "do you think that the United States plays a positive or negative role in today’s world?" fifty-three percent responded "negative," while only twenty-four percent responded "positive" and twenty-three percent said they didn’t know.
Army Commander Calls Crusader a Bad Fit for Afghanistan -– Responding to claims by supporters of the Army’s recently terminated "Crusader" artillery system that it would have been useful in Afghanistan, General Tommy Franks, the head of U.S. Central Command, commented that the requirements for "Operation Anaconda" did not match the system’s expected performance. "Would it have been employed in Anaconda had we had it?" said General Franks, in response to questions at CENCOM headquarters in Florida. "Candidly, I doubt it…mortars provide the sort of capabilities one would like to see in that cut-up sort of terrain."
NATO, Russia Reach New Agreement -- NATO and Russia will sign a new agreement on mutual relations at their May 28 summit. Negotiators reached a deal last week after several months of negotiations, and NATO Foreign Ministers approved the document at their May 14 meeting. The agreement creates a new NATO-Russia Council, which will allow Russia to formulate joint policy with NATO allies on a limited range of issues. Under the previous agreement, the 1997 Founding Act, Russia was only consulted on defense and security issues after the 19 allies had already reached a common position.
Boeing Combat UAV Makes First Flight -– The first Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) designed specifically for combat operations made its maiden flight on May 22. Boeing’s X-45 is jet-powered and designed to fly at sub-sonic speeds, with a 3,000 pound payload and range of 750 miles. The actual flight lasted roughly fourteen minutes, during which time the aircraft reached an altitude of 7,500 and a speed of 195 knots. The target cost of each of the aircraft is between $10 million and $15 million. Although the Predator UAV has fired air to ground missiles during operations in Afghanistan, it was originally designed only as a surveillance aircraft.
Quotation of the Week -– "Without major steps by Cuba to open up its political system and its economic system, trade with Cuba will not help the Cuban people. It's important for Americans to understand, without political reform, without economic reform, trade with Cuba will merely enrich Fidel Castro and his cronies," President George W. Bush, May 20, 2002.
This Week on SUPERPOWER: Global Affairs TV -- "The Cuban Embargo: Engagement or Isolation?"
Sunday at 12:30 pm on MHz2 (check local listings) "SUPERPOWER: Global Affairs TV" showcases international television coverage of world events. Host Lisa Simeone along with Mark Thompson of Time Magazine and Jefferson Morley of the washingtonpost.com, discuss current events with a regular rotation of foreign journalists, as well as other guests from the foreign military and diplomatic communities in Washington.
This Week’s Episode: "The Cuban Embargo: Engagement or Isolation?"
This week, Superpower examines U.S. relations with Cuba. What role does the embargo play in moving Cuba towards democracy? What role does it play in keeping Castro in power? How do other countries around the world view the embargo? Is the embargo hurting America's economy?
Joining Lisa Simeone will be Jose Carreno of La Universal (Mexico) and Paulo Sotero of O Estado De S. Paulo (Brazil).
Where to watch: http://www.mhznetworks.org/cable/listings.html
For more information, please send an e-mail to: info@superpowertv.org