Terrorism and U.S. policy

de Jeffrey Richelson, Michael Evans

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the abortive attack (possibly aimed at the White House or Camp David) that resulted in the crash of a jetliner in Pennsylvania has resulted in a new and extraordinary emphasis by the Bush administration on combating terrorism. During the last ten days key administration officials, particularly President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell, have repeatedly emphasized that their long-term objective is the destruction of terrorism -- a goal to be achieved by the death or apprehension of terrorists, the destruction of their infrastructure and support base, and retaliation against states that aid or harbor terrorists. Terrorism, however, was hardly ignored in previous administrations. In fact, at the beginning of the Reagan administration, Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced that opposition to terrorism would replace the Carter administration's focus on advancing human rights throughout the world. Although opposition to terrorism never really became the primary focus of the Reagan administration or successor administrations, each of these paid signifiacnt attention to the issue and produced many important documents that shed light on the policy choices faced today. Terrorism has been the subject of numerous presidential and Defense Department directives as well as executive orders. Terrorist groups and terrorist acts have been the focus of reports by both executive branch agencies (for example, the State Department, CIA, and FBI) as well as Congressional bodies -- including the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Congressional Research Service. The General Accounting Office has also produced several dozen reports evaluating the U.S. government's ability to prevent or mitigate terrorist strikes, including, one just yesterday, September 20, 2001. The following documents, some of which were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, include assessments of the terrorist threat and a CIA profile of Usama bin Ladin, presidential and Defense Department policy directives, the details about U.S. response to specific terrorist attacks, and evaluations of U.S. government preparedness to deal with terrorism.