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The Worst May Be Yet To Come
Friday, February 1, 2002
The Associated Press

Rumsfeld said that if a terrorist group linked up with a "terrorist state" and obtained nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, the group would have the power to put at risk "not thousands of lives but hundreds of thousands of lives."

WASHINGTON -- AP
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday the United States must prepare now for potential surprise attacks "vastly more deadly" than the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings.

In a speech laying out the Bush administration's justification for proposing a $48 billion increase in the 2003 defense budget, Rumsfeld said the nation is vulnerable to new forms of terrorism ranging from cyberattacks to attacks on U.S. military bases abroad to ballistic missile attacks on American cities.

"Our job is to close off as many of those avenues of potential attack as is possible," he said in a speech at the National Defense University.

His remarks coincided with new indications that terrorists have considered a range of possible attacks. The FBI warned on Wednesday that al-Qaida terrorists may have been studying American dams and water-supply systems in preparation for new attacks. And in a report to Congress made public Wednesday, CIA Director George Tenet said rudimentary diagrams of nuclear weapons were found in a suspected al-Qaida safehouse in Kabul, Afghanistan. Other evidence uncovered in Afghanistan includes diagrams of American nuclear power plants, although it is unclear if an attack was planned.
(More: TheDay.com News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

Dan