Domestic, Global Threats Must Compel U.S. To Focus On Security
Joe Bell

The “Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack,” released in 2004, was not widely covered by the press. It should have been. Weighing in at 62 pages, Volume 1 of the Executive Report is short. The information included offers hard evidence as to why America must be fully engaged in the war against the global terrorist network. It is also an example of why it is imperative for those who criticize President Bush for doing what is needed to protect America abstain from their objections and offer support.
 

An EMP attack would involve a nuclear missile, probably fired from a ship off the U.S. coast, exploding high in the atmosphere over the nation. A nuclear explosion generates a tremendous amount of heat and radiation. Gamma rays would interact with the atmosphere and create a radio-frequency wave that would impact everything in the line of detonation. These electromagnetic shock waves would strike America’s telecommunications and transportation infrastructures.

The report said the waves produced by such an explosion “have a high likelihood of damaging electrical power systems, electronics, and information systems upon which American society depends. Their effects on dependent systems and on infrastructures could be sufficient to qualify as catastrophic to the nation. …unprecedented cascading failures of our major infrastructures could result. …a regional or national recovery would be long and difficult and would seriously degrade the safety and overall viability of our nation.”

Incapacitating the power grid would impact everything Americans depend upon every day - telecommunications, energy, the financial system and the delivery of health care, food and water.

Ominously, the report warned, “The recovery of any one of the key national infrastructures is dependent upon the recovery of others. The longer the outage, the more problematic and uncertain recovery will be.”

America has knowledge of the consequences of such an attack. In 1962, the U.S. conducted Operation Starfish, the detonation of a nuclear device 250 miles above Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. When the EMP reached Hawaii, about 700 miles away, it put out the streetlights in Honolulu, tripped burglar alarms and damaged a telecommunications relay facility.

The 2004 report said power outages could “become mutually reinforcing until at some point the degradation of infrastructure could have irreversible effects on the country’s ability to support its population.”

One need only look at how Hurricane Katrina hobbled the Gulf Coast states. The nation knew when and where that storm would strike and yet it was difficult to cope with the aftermath. Imagine the catastrophe that would follow a surprise EMP attack.

After the Cold War, EMP simulation facilities were mothballed or disassembled and research for securing systems from EMP decreased. Given the number of outlaw nations and terrorist groups that either have access to nuclear weapons or may have access within the next 15 years it is critical that the EMP threat receive more attention. America must reinvigorate its research into the EMP phenomenon, upgrade its intelligence at home and abroad and ensure the survival of its ability to respond to an EMP attack, both militarily and with respect to the civilian infrastructure.

Domestic threats are real. In April 2004 the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana released a newsletter addressing numerous concerns. At a counter-terrorism conference Saulius Puzikas, a former member of Soviet Special Forces and currently a security consultant, asked a group of law enforcement officers to consider how they would respond to a terrorist attack in their community. Many large targets, like nuclear power plants, are well-protected; less secure are soft targets, like small town schools and shopping malls across America.

The newsletter said FBI officials remain concerned that terrorists might use crop-dusting planes to mount a biological or chemical attack.

Also in the newsletter was a story about Italian authorities seizing 7,500 Kalashnikov assault rifles and other combat firearms from a ship bound for New York. The armaments were worth more than $6 million.

U.S. domestic and international intelligence must be equally robust. As such, Americans should snub partisan rancor and acknowledge the risk of applying a civilian legal system to war. To do so would silence most critics of the Bush Administration’s wiretapping efforts.

In October 2003 testimony before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, former Attorney General William Barr offered a convincing evaluation of the differences. There has been confusion about what legal model to apply to domestic counterterrorism activities. Some suggest such investigations are law enforcement activities rather than matters of national defense. The two are different because the scope of government power, and the limits on that power, differs according to the function the government is performing. Barr said when the government is acting in a law enforcement capacity its role is disciplinary. It is punishing a criminal for breaking a law.

Barr said, “In this realm, the government’s actions are subject to the greatest constraints. Indeed, the presumption largely lies against the government; the accused is afforded numerous rights to which the government’s interests are subordinated; courts are interposed as the arbiter; and the government must satisfy strict standards – ‘probable cause’ and ultimate proof ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ The premise in this realm is that it is better for the government to fail than to make a mistake. …When a foreign enemy threatens the nation, our body politic is not using its domestic disciplinary powers to sanction an errant member but rather is exercising its national defense powers to protect against an external threat and preserve the very foundation of all our civil liberties. When there is a state of armed conflict, Presidential war powers are at their apex. The Constitution vests in the President - both as Commander-in-Chief and as an inherent element of ‘Executive Power’ - the ultimate responsibility for determining what actions are necessary to defeat the aggressor. Here, the Constitution gives no rights to foreign forces attacking the United States. …The Constitution is concerned with one thing – destruction of the enemy. Having chosen war, the enemy’s fate is judged by the rules of war. Within the realm of national defense, the premise must be that the government cannot be permitted to fail.”

Barr said the terrorists challenging America “are well-organized foreign forces that have publicly declared war on the United States; called for the killing of Americans wherever found; built up a global network of facilities and cells geared to make war on the United States; carried out a series of attacks on Americans, including the attacks on a naval vessel, barracks, embassies, and the highly-coordinated attacks of September 11 in our homeland; actively sought weapons of mass destruction; and vowed to continue these attacks.”

Clearly, terrorists are enemy combatants and not criminal suspects.

Former Attorney General Edwin Meese has written that the presumption of presidential initiative in war, as granted by Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, “appears to be bolstered by other constitutional provisions. Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3, essentially prohibits states from ‘engaging in war…’ By contrast, no such limitation on engagement in war by the president can be found in Article II.”

Throughout 2005 political rhetoric drowned out rational discourse about the war. Let 2006 be the year when America comes together with respect to security. Let 2006 be the year America becomes as serious about winning the war as are its enemies.