MR. GIBSON: Brian Ross there. Well, Osama bin Laden, as he pointed out, has said it is his duty to try to get nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has been reconstituted and re-energized in the western part of Pakistan. And so my general question is: How aggressively would you go after al Qaeda leadership there? ...
An asteroid could slam into the Earth and wipe out life as we know it. A hurricane could flood a major American city. A terrorist could detonate a nuclear weapon on U.S. soil — or anywhere else in the world.
Quick: Which one of those events has never happened? Which of those events have U.S. policymakers and pundits selected as a basis for policymaking?
MR. GIBSON: Brian Ross there. Well, Osama bin Laden, as he pointed out, has said it is his duty to try to get nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has been reconstituted and re-energized in the western part of Pakistan. And so my general question is: How aggressively would you go after al Qaeda leadership there? ...
An asteroid could slam into the Earth and wipe out life as we know it. A hurricane could flood a major American city. A terrorist could detonate a nuclear weapon on U.S. soil — or anywhere else in the world.
Quick: Which one of those events has never happened? Which of those events have U.S. policymakers and pundits selected as a basis for policymaking?
It is a bit surprising that ABC framed the debate about U.S. counterterrorism strategy around the extremely low probability event of nuclear terrorism. It is even more surprising that not one of the candidates called the network on the way it framed the question. Thinking about terrorism in terms of worst-case, extremely low probability events hampers our policy response to it.
Osama bin Laden has called obtaining nuclear weapons a "top religious duty." He has also gone through the trouble of obtaining religious justification for the use of such weapons, though two of bin Laden's scholars have since recanted their approvals under pressure. There have also been persistent rumors that al-Qaeda acquired nuclear weapons during the 1990s.
In intelligence circles, however, the question of whether al-Qaeda has a nuclear weapon is something "We cannot rule out the possibility of." Here are some other things we can't rule out the possibility of: That a large asteroid will strike New York, that a large earthquake will send California into the Pacific Ocean, and that George W. Bush will declare himself King for Life. We don't base our foreign policy around any of those possibilities, and we should not base our foreign policy around the possibility of nuclear terrorism. Even if al-Qaeda has acquired a nuclear weapon, it still must overcome technical and logistical barriers to deploying the weapon. It must transport the weapon to its preferred target, and it must have operatives who are skilled enough to detonate the weapon.
While we should take sensible steps to make nuclear terrorism less likely — securing nuclear arsenals and improving port security are good starts — using the possibility of nuclear terrorism as the basis for a counterterrorism strategy leads to bad policies. Overstating the possibility of nuclear terrorism — as ABC did Saturday night — leads to the types of overreactions that have plagued our response to 9-11. It creates an environment in which the government can strip away civil liberties and an administration can turn an optional war into a national security imperative.
Terrorism itself is a low-probability event. The potential loss of life and effects on the psyche, however, demand that the United States have a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. The key question for the next administration is whether counterterrorism should continue to be the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy. Choosing the incorrect foundation for parsing the question will yield the wrong answers. Framing the counterterrorism question around the premise of nuclear terrorism — a low probability event that is too scary to ignore — keeps the United States on the same path it has been on since 9-11, and ensures the next administration's foreign policy will look much like the current administration's foreign policy.