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October 9, 2003For: BillJohnstoneand John Raidt
Hi,
You
may
have already read
the
report
of the Pan Am
103
Presidential
Commission,
which in my opinion was excellent. In the event you have not,I've attached
a
copy
of
Chapter
8
entitled "National Will".
I
believe it's
relevant
to some of the points I was trying to make during our meeting.Regards,
Pat
McDonnell
 
Chapter
8
National Will
The
free world
has
been
lurching from ter-rorist
attack
to terrorist attack, attempting toagree
on how to
respond
to
each event.
This
approach
will
not
work.
Several
facts
about terrorism have
been
dra-
matically
made clear:
—Terrorism
is a deadly weapon of the
weak
and the
cowardly.
Terrorism
lever-ages violence against innocent victims. AsLenin
put it:
"The
purpose
of
terrorism
is
to
terrorize."
—Terrorism
ischeap, especiallyintermsofthe political results it may achieve. One
act
of terrorism can cause changes in thepolicies of major nations.
—Unchecked,
terrorism creates a
shift
in
the
balance
of
power toward those nationsthatsanction terrorism
and use it as an in-
strument
of
foreign policy.
—Historically,
terrorism consisted
of
isolat-ed
acts
of individuals or small groups of fa-natics. Over recent decades, however, ter-rorismincreasingly is state-sponsored.
—Terrorism
is a
form
ofsurrogate warfare.Conventional warfareis too
difficult,
too
costly
and, indeed, impossible
for
some
na-
tions
to
conduct.
Terrorism
offers
an
alter-native.
—Acts
of state-sponsored terrorism againsta nation's citizens
are
acts
of
aggression
against
that nation.Intoday's world,theprincipal
targets
are the
values
and
inter-ests of democratic nations.
A
consensus must be reached among law-
abiding
nations that terrorism
is an act of ag-
gression
which
can and
must
be
deterred.
Those
outlaw
nations—properly
labelled "theleague
of
terror"
for
harboring
and
sponsoring
terrorism—should be
held accountable
for
their
"crime."
The
Commission believes strongly that
the
timeis now for theUnited Statestotakea
more
active leadership
role
in the fight
againstinternational terrorism.
The
American publicmust
be
prepared
to
exercise
its
national
will
and
support U.S. Government action
to in-
crease
dramatically
the
cost
to
terrorists
and
their patrons. Elected
leaders,
in
turn, must
be
prepared
to act on this national will as a foun-dation for taking
more
aggressive action
against both
terrorists
and
their
state
sponsors.Once
America clearly adopts this consistent,
aggressive
policy,
terrorist
groups
should
quickly
get the message that
terrorist,
acts
will
not be
condoned.
They
must understand that
if
they
pursue terrorist actions against the
Unfted
States, this country
will
act to protect its inter-
est
to
the
fullest
extent allowed
by
domesticand international law.
Air
travelers
are
particularly vulnerable
to
terrorist violence.
It is
estimated that over
one
billion passengers used commercial airlines
to
travel
throughout the world in 1989. Yet a
handful
of terrorist groups,
willing
to committheir cowardly and despicable crimes, have the
capacity
to
plunge
the
world's
passengers intoa hostage-like grip of fear.
Significantly,
the wave of
hijackings
of the
1960s
and
1970s
stopped
when nations refused
to
give refuge
to
hijackers.
In the
1980s, terror-
ists
turnedtobombsto
attack
passenger air-
113
 
In-Flight
Explosive SabotageIncidents
Period
1949-1958
1959-19681969-1978
1979-1988
Source:
.
Number
of
Incidents
8
11
18
12
Persons
Killed
97
254
624849
Average
Number
Killed
12
2334
70
Criminal
Acts
Against Civil
A viation
—
1988
lines,
resulting in 1,030 deaths and 112
injuriesin
the
last
five
years alone.
The
materials necessary
to
make bombs fromplastic explosives like semtexarereadily avail-able
to
terrorists. Czechoslovakian President
Vaclav
Havel said recently that
his
country,under
the
previous regime,
exported
to
Libya1000 tonsofsemtex,anamount Havel saidis
sufficient
for the
world terrorist community
to
make
bombs for 150
years.
Every
airport, every departure, every passen-
ger and
every suitcase, mail
bag or
cargo con-tainer, presents
a
possible opportunity
for a
terrorist
to
introduce
small
but
deadly amountsof explosives that are
effectively
invisible to X-
ray
and
other detection equipment currently
in
use at airports.The security of U.S.
civil
aviation has
been
increased.
The
Commission believes this secu-
rity
will
continue
to
improve, especially
if the
recommendations
of
this Commission
are
car-ried out. In reality, however,
there
will
neverbe 100 per cent security against every terrorist
technique.
The
more security measures
are
imposed,
the
more fundamental freedoms are restricted.
Searching
bagsandscreening passengers con-
stitute
intrusions upon
privacy.Flighf
delays
or
cancellations
for
security reasons
limit
the
free-dom oftravel. Moreover,thecostofsecurityprocedures
to
the public
is
incalculable, both
in
114
terms
of
higher fares
and
time spent
in
check-J
in
procedures.
Even
if
aviation
security
improves dramatical-
ly,
theterrorist
will simply
turntoother targetareas where
people
congregate. Securing gov-ernment targets,
like
embassies, has had theironic
effect
of directing terrorist attacks tomore vulnerable and more civilian targets.
With
an
infinite number
of
civilian
targets,
it
will
never
be
possible
to
defend against
all
terrorist
attacks.
Perhaps most importantly, no state hastaken aretaliatory actioninresponseto anair-
craft
bombing.While the world aviation system again moves
to
make this terrorist tactic
more
difficult,
through better detection equipment, tighterscreening, improved training practices and
better
access controls, we must squarely
face
the reality that even the combination of all ofthese improvements cannot guarantee
civil
aviation
security.
DEATHSANDINJURIES
Due to ExplosivesOnboard
Aircraft
1977-1989
350300
250200
150
100
50
Year
1977
19781979
•983•56119821383
1984
1965
!9B6
19861989
Deaths
c
a
D
3
2
i
;;?
0
3.10
23
287278
Injuries
i
2
11
I
L
1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989Year
•
Incidents
where the explosion
aboard
the
aircraft
occurred
during
a
hijacking
are not
reflected
inthese
summariesSource:
Federal
Aviation Administration
Deaths
Injuries
There
is,however,analternative: addressingthe problem of international
terrorism
at itssource.The current strategic
policy
of the UnitedStates on counterterrorism consists of four ele-ments:
First,
make
no
concessions
of any
kind
to
terrorists.
Do not pay
ransom,
of 00

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