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CIAO DATE: 03/04

Report on External and Domestic Consequences of the War on Terrorism

Alexander Nikitin

Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

October 9-12, 2003

Introduction

The Second Pugwash Workshop on Terrorism took place in Como, Italy. In eight sessions over two days, 20 participants from 13 countries discussed issues of terrorism/anti-terrorism, as well as reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. As always, this report is the responsibility of the rapporteur alone, and the Pugwash Conferences extends its deepest thanks to the Municipality of Como for its hospitality and support.

The Workshop had three thematic parts:

Effect of Anti-Terrorist Campaign on Human Rights and Civil Liberties

During discussions of effects of the terror/anti-terror campaign on civil liberties, participants stressed that use of the term "war" implies certain legal consequences. The phrase "war on terrorism," for example, implies an obligation to follow certain legal regulations, such as the Protocols to the Geneva Conventions. Participants of the Workshop discussed five aspects of this problem:

Presenters explained the specifics of several cases relating to arrested immigrants. Included in the discussions was a very critical report issued recently on the practices of the US Department of Justice and Immigration and Naturalization Services after 9/11. In addition, many of the problems discussed were connected to persons captured in Afghanistan and kept at the Guantanamo Bay prison. For instance, of the prisoners brought from Afghanistan, 32 have attempted suicide. . Participants also discussed the "combatant privilege" of "prisoners of war" (POWs). Unprivileged combatants, in contrast, are treated as civilians and are subject to criminal law.

The US position, as explained to Workshop participants, is the following:

Participants argued that the US manipulates the non-state status of detainees, including Al Qaeda members and the Taliban. Although the Taliban were not recognized as a legitimate regime by most nations of the world, Taliban-related prisoners are nonetheless entitled to either POW status or civilian prosecution. Six individuals (from UK, Australia, etc.) are subject to military commission prosecution for war crimes.

Regarding the negative influence of post-9/11 changes on civil liberties, it was stressed that changes seriously touched upon the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution which protects citizens from "unnecessary searches." Since 1978 there has been a separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which established more severe rules for the surveillance of foreigners. The USA Patriot Act developed this precedent further: authorities need only to have a "significant purpose" to justify intrusion into individual homes or curtailment of rights. The Act, therefore, removed a filter between domestic and foreign intelligence norms. In order to reestablish rights, the US legal system would need to restore "primary purpose" requirements for searches. However, while it is possible to work with interpretations of the Patriotic Act, there is no chance for disregarding Patriotic Act entirely.

Some participants raised concerns that this is a mirror situation. Rights of prisoners kept at Guantanamo require social work, but rights of victims of terrorists require social attention, too. There should be priorities: rights of crime victims are more important than rights of crime suspects.

Has there been any evidence that the curtailment of civil liberties enhanced the effectiveness of anti-terrorist activities? The relationship between the two has yet to be measured. Many participants agreed that the correlation between enlarging/limiting liberties and increasing/decreasing of terrorist threat to society needs to be analyzed.

Does a change in legal regulations intrude into the lives of average Americans? The influence of post 9/11 measures on immigration policy remains high, and almost all regulations in this area have yet to change. Though the right to privacy is limited by FISA and the Patriotic Act, more than 200 American cities have passed statements or clarifications which contradict certain regulations of the Patriotic Act.

One must differentiate between measures aimed against international terrorism and measures targeting domestic terrorism. International law does not deal much with terrorism. In particular, because the Protocols to the Geneva Conventions are not directed towards non-state actors, they are somewhat legally irrelevant for governing state actions against terrorism. In current international law, the closest analogy to terrorists stems from 1940s (when the Protocols were created) language regarding would-be "guerrillas." Obviously, new definitions in humanitarian law are needed.

Reconstructing and Debating US Motivations and Policy on Anti-Terrorism and Regime Change

Participants stressed that there are visible electoral implications in the current Bush policy on anti-terrorism and regime change. Most obviously, Bush welcomes UN assistance in Iraq, but only to a very limited degree. Three overlapping debates cover United States policy on Iraq: 1) retrospective debates - i.e. how did the Administration enter into war; 2) analysis of the current status; and 3) speculation of future policy paths.

For the retrospective debate, it is important that Saddam and Bin Laden have not been caught and that WMD have not been found. At the same time, the accuracy of CIA information is not a debatable issue in the USA, in contrast to UK. The US claims to have destroyed primary state sponsors of terrorism and the Al Qaeda infrastructure in Afghanistan, detained Al Qaeda bases, captured more than 3000 operatives, and prevented numerous attacks. Further, there have been no further catastrophic attacks on US soil, terrorist financial routs are damaged or blocked, and statistics show that the number of terrorist attempts is decreasing.

But there is another school of thought which believes the war on terrorism is being lost. Rather than continuing to foster the growth of anti-American sentiment, the USA needs to win the hearts and minds of people in Islamic world. Polls show instead that the US image abroad has deteriorated; moreover, fewer and fewer Arabs respect the US. The number of Pakistanis with a positive opinion of America fell from 45% to 16%, while the number of US policy supporters dropped to 18% in Jordan. The war against Iraq more than likely is responsible for spreading perceptions that "the US is against Islam."

Terrorists remain active globally, including in Bali, Moscow, and Morocco. Indeed, the Bali attack was one of the worst in terrorism history, second after 9/11 in casualties. The US continues to be vulnerable to terrorist attack, and, because the Iraq campaign proved to be a huge distraction from the war against terrorism, critics argue that the Administration lacks priorities. Though some claim that, in and of itself, the campaign against Iraq was successful, the war has ultimately proved harmful for the US anti-terrorist campaign.

On the other hand, optimists maintain that good progress has been made and that current difficulties can be attributed to normal transitional tensions. In effect, this group argues that, though the administration is on the right track, the media misrepresents events and focuses exclusively on bad news. Yet, if things were going well, argue members of the media, the civil administration in Iraq would not be housed behind barbed wire, nor would NGOs and the UN be afraid to send more personnel.

Some propose bringing more troops to Iraq; the RAND Corporation published an analysis which concludes that Iraq needs three times as many troops. Others advocate a reduction to 40,000 troops on Iraqi soil; any more, they claim, would increase tensions on the ground. In addition, there is a concept that something like "Vietnamization" is needed; command and control of the country should go to Iraqis stage by stage.

Washington itself doesn't know whether it is close to victory or close to defeat. Neoconservatives, who were mostly enthusiastic for the war, stress the moral dimension of having ousted a dictator and bringing democracy to Iraq. Others support the war for more pragmatic ambitions. Some, for instance, realize the value in democracy but argue that we cannot know gauge its effects on Iraqi society. To hedge against the unintended consequences of democratization, the US needs to maintain a stabilizing force in Iraq. Alternately, others argue that the primary goal of the war was to maximize American influence in Islamic world.

There are several ways in which the US can extract itself from Iraq. Minimalists argue that, having removed Saddam, the US job is done. The US, therefore, should declare victory, remove US troops, and pass all responsibility for reconstruction to the UN. Other possible options include "staying on course" and "wrapping it up." According to the first option, success may be defined differently - from democratizing Iraq to freezing the situation. On the other hand, with "wrapping it up," the US should declare victory and get out before the situation gets any worse. The correct strategy seems to lay somewhere between these two options, and whichever strategy is chosen, it must prevent the return of Saddam, ensure reasonable security for Iraqis, foster some sort of functioning Iraqi police and judicial system, eliminate the capacity to produce WMD, and prevent terrorists from seeking haven on Iraqi territory.

Has the American presence proved helpful or harmful? Is a stable coalition government in Iraq is feasible? How will a transitional coalition government be created? Does the US have the capacity to play a balancing role within Iraqi politics? In addition, the potential partition of Iraq and possible Turkish intervention if a Kurdish state is proposed will define the success of the situation. One suggestion to pass all Iraqi post-conflict regulation to the UN would allow the US to save face and exit with dignity, and the UN could be a neutral regulator for Iraq.

Participants from the Middle East stressed that, historically, attitudes toward America in the Middle East were generally positive (in contrast to attitudes toward the British and French colonial powers), yet feelings towards the US have deteriorated in recent decades and especially in recent years.

Participants drew attention to the fact that the US is still trying to resolve the current situation through the use of force. However, regime change is a complicated social situation, and force is not enough. After all, the situation is not about terrorism, or even Saddam's regime; instead, it concerns the social/political/economic organization of life in a group of Third World societies in the whole of the Middle East.

Continued chaos, the "Lebanization" of Iraq, could affect all of Europe. Therefore, the question of liberation cannot be isolated and resolved as an isolated issue. If you define the main problem as an issue of how to organize political and social processes in Iraqi society after Saddam, then Americans have no right to proclaim victory and leave.

What Americans have already done in the region contradicts their own strategic task of creating roots and space for the stable projection of American interests into the Islamic world and finding a "modus vivendi" with the Islamic and Arab world.

Comparisons to the Vietnam War and its damage to the US image were raised more than once. Participants asked whether Americans would be able to draw any lessons from the Iraqi campaign. Is Washington ready to do it again in Iran? Did the regime change formula prove or undermine itself?

Some participants called the US support of Israel "a blind support." They stressed that, rather than democratizing Iraq by force, efforts would have been better spent creating a truly democratic state in Palestine.

It would be harmful to bring in the UN if nation-building is to be done under command of the USA. Such a configuration of power will end up devaluing the image of the UN. Instead, the UN should be given full control over the civilian sphere, leaving military control in US hands. However, it would be difficult to clearly differentiate between the two spheres.

The formula "proclaim victory and leave" originates from the idea that no American administration would think of proclaiming defeat or recognize its own inability to deal with consequences of a war campaign. The US position on inviting the UN to assist in the reconstruction of Iraq is somewhat like "the UN should give us troops and money and obey our orders." Iraq is too important, Bush thinks, to give it to somebody else's responsibility, especially since the UN is perceived as anti-American, unreliable, and unpredictable. However, the current logic belies an internal contradiction: why is the US trying to pass around unfinished business? Bush even thinks that there are numerous forces, including France, who want America to fail.

There are other scenarios of internationalizing the campaign in Iraq than just giving responsibility to the UN. Specifically, one alternative is to simply bring more NATO troops and expand the "coalition of the willing." The coalition counts more than 40 states, at least according to the White House.

The President has asked for $87 billion for Iraq in the 2004 budget; yet the EU announced it would only contribute 200 million Euros for the reconstruction of Iraq. Such a response by the Europeans is perceived by America almost as a "calculated insult."

Among critics of the war there was a common argument that to run post-war Iraq would be expensive, difficult, and imbalanced. Even before the first war in Iraq in 1991, the same questions were asked, and this uncertainty prevented Saddam's overthrow at the time. Bush thinks that strong messages should be sent to other members of the "axis of evil." Americans didn't know in what bad shape Iraqi oil centers were. Rather, they expected that oil money would be switched on soon after the end of military phase. Now there is a necessity to pump money into Iraq's reconstruction much longer than was planned.

Some participants mentioned that the belief that Iran can take a greater role in creating stability and balance in the region is widespread in Europe. Instead of putting a new "Musharraf" in power in Baghdad, there is a possibility of nation-building through local coalition. Countries affected by the post-Iraq instability (like Iran) should have a bigger say in local conflict resolution. Despite such arguments, American experts replied that Bush would not involve Iran in the Iraqi reconstruction because it considers Iran among its targets. Rather than cooperating with Iran in the interest of strengthening the country, Bush works with Iran mainly in the hope of playing on differences between political forces there or facilitating covert operations, oil policy, sanctions, etc. Such an approach for regime change is even more complicated and multi-layered than that for Iraq or even North Korea.

The decision to overthrow Saddam should not be perceived in a simplistic way. Instead, it incorporated multiple components, including WMD, the Middle East, and terrorism. All components were of genuine concern at certain stages. To understand properly the logic of American actions, it should be recognized that Bush considers himself at war against extremely dangerous, persistent, and pluralist external (and internal) radical hostile elements of Islam. According to this vision, the war has two components: the sub-state component (Bin Laden and Al Qaeda), and the state component (Saddam in Iraq, but also Syria, Libya, Sudan, etc.).

International Law and Terrorism

Problems of interaction between domestic and international law were discussed to better understand how to give legal treatment to terrorism. Some time ago the UN passed Resolution 1373 to create the Terrorism Affairs Working Committee whose task is to elaborate the legal definition of terrorism. This task has not been resolved due to political reasons. The UN approach is to allow some autonomy when applying the label of "terrorism" without necessarily requiring the heavy mechanism of UN Security Council voting each time.

The RAND Corporation produced a study on the cost of anti-terrorist measures. Three terrorist scenarios (moderate, severe, and nuclear) were considered. The study showed that around 95 billion USD need to be spent directly and urgently for counter-terrorist measures. Including indirect costs, a total of 190 billion USD are needed. In comparison, the costs for nuclear deterrence over a period of 45 years cost the USA on average 120 billion per year. The study comes up with figures of 20 billion per year for moderate, 120 billion per year for severe, and 500 billion for preventing the nuclear terrorism scenario.

Neoconservatives allied with Bush stress that the US spends 4 % of GDP for defense, while under Reagan this figure was 8% and 15% under Eisenhower. This group thinks that spending on security is not a real burden, and that more should be spent.

There was a proposal to elaborate mechanisms in international law which would enable the world community, rather than national authorities, to try and punish individuals for terrorist activities directly. At minimum, the equalization of national norms on terrorism among countries is required.

An opinion was expressed that instead of elaborating a unified definition of terrorism, it is possible to better implement the 13 existing conventions and acts of international law which deal with various aspects of terrorism. However, even if a universal definition or convention on terrorism could be negotiated, the matter of punishing terrorists would likely still be left to national courts and laws. After all, some authority needs to be responsible for catching, keeping, and trying terrorists. Definitions help but cannot solve the problem in its entirety, for even the Iraq war was waged under an anti-terror umbrella. There are efforts to create a forum for cooperative security aimed at preventive measures. Participants discussed whether both terror and anti-terror can be considered "communication strategies" and came to conclusion that in part they are.

International Law and Legitimacy of Use of Force

International law did not perform well during the anti-terrorist campaign. Conventions were not adopted, and agreed-upon definitions are still absent. It is unclear how to try and punish Al Qaeda operatives if they are not holding a "smoking gun." Further, the legitimacy of pre-emptive strikes and preventive operations is questionable. War against Iraq was explained by the American administration as a "preventive measure" or "pre-emptive measure". However, pre-emption is only ambiguously recognized in international law, because any use of force until World War I was considered purely legal and was not limited. Given that the UN Charter defines only two cases where the use of force is permitted in international relations (self-defense and collective action of international community under UNSC decision), the US has only two options: to assure a UN resolution (and it is remarkable that they attempted to secure a resolution for such a long period), or to proclaim war in Afghanistan and Iraq as pre-emptive actions under the broadly-defined and overstretched justification of self-defense.

International law also does not contain clear definitions of "humanitarian intervention,", which can be found in UN Charter only "between the lines." As a result, the USA can't use it for pretending "to save Iraqi people from dictatorial oppression." At the same time, some criticism of such an interpretation was expressed by other participating experts. Use of military ships for sea blockade of Cuba in the 1960s, another example of the pre-emptive use of force, was also interpreted as extended self-defense.

Legalization of actions through UNSC resolutions is tricky. The UN Security Council is not a democratic institution by itself. While a combination of old SC resolutions (adopted between 1991 and 2003) regarding Iraq could be interpreted as indirect legal permission, every SC resolution is subject to interpretation. Yet, participants argued that it is better to have some international legal regulations than have none, which could lead to anarchy. However, international law often works only if no strong country is seriously interested in protecting its national interests from the law. Now, for example, the US is blocking the creation of International Criminal Court, thereby undermining this international initiative. In addition, the IAEA was trying to keep the decision regarding use of force in Iraq on a legal track by insisting that the UNSC decision be based upon results of objective inspections. However, the IAEA proved too slow, and America was not ready to wait.

International law must elaborate and provide a spectrum of instruments; as of yet, however, this arsenal of measures is narrow. Though there were casus belli arguments in cases of Kosovo and Afghanistan, none existed in the case of Iraq.

Many participants agreed that UNSC is not a democratic institution, but the General Assembly would never produce a decisive resolution on the use force. The UNSC resolutions at least are legally clear: they either contain the word "authorization" or not. While there was such a definition regarding Iraq in 1990, Bosnia, and Somalia, there was no such authorization in case of Iraq in 2003.

Iraq After the War: Political and Social Situation and Role of International Community

Interesting and active discussion of the post-war situation in Iraq took place with the participation of witnesses who had just come from Iraq, as well as Iraqi experts who know well the situation inside the Iraqi émigré community.

Among the 15 political parties that exist in Iraq and in exile, many would be interested in early elections. The more elections are delayed, it was thought, the less will be the influence of the ayatollahs and the greater the influence of democratically inclined parties returning from exile. The passing to time will also allow vested economic interests to manifest themselves by establishing connections with parties; the oil factor, therefore, could pose a greater and greater influence on politics.

An alternative opinion was expressed that attempts to avoid an Islamic state in Iraq by prolonging the American presence would be damaging in the long run. It would be better to release Iraq's own potential, instead of going through path of externally imposed Westernization.

It was noted that there is a group of political and religious figures working to draft a constitution, and the majority of them are from abroad. Among this group, the ayatollahs participate actively, and many are intellectually influenced by precepts set out in the Turkish Constitution. Many people describe this political situation as the "Iraqi Rainbow coalition" or rather "Iraqi mosaics." Because this Iraqi mosaic lacks a strong national unifying theme, Islam is the most likely element to unite the diverse groups within Iraq. In a country which doesn't have civil society, no real NGOs, and the only existing strong vertical structure with a nation-wide mobilizing network is the Shiite clergy, Islam is likely to emerge as a strong political theme. A similar outcome can be seen in Iran, where the clergy had unique networking capabilities and won.

Unlike the first Gulf War, the Arab League did not contribute forces to the US-led effort, and is not involved in the reconstruction process. The League has refused to recognize the provisional Council as the real government of Iraq, and is waiting to recognize a democratically established government.

The issue of delegating authority to local political forces (like tribal chiefs in Afghanistan) is less of an issue in Iraq. The country is more homogeneous (after several decades of a highly centralized regime). Rather, the biggest problem is the absence of a state infrastructure. It may be a mistake to dismiss all former police and employees of local administrative offices because not only do they add to the army of unemployed, but they also prevent infrastructure from early repair. Well trained professionals should be used by the new regime, if they don't have a record of criminal activity under previous regime.

It seems that a gap between the occupying military and the population is deepening and widening with each month. Initial sharing of food and joint football matches are now substituted by rising alienation and hostility. There is also a problem with reconstruction funds: only about 10 billion USD will go to reconstruction as such; the rest is used for expenses incurred by the coalition and for supporting the infrastructure of occupying forces.

Westerners may underestimate the quite developed character of the justice system in Iraq under the previous regime. Though the regime was repressive, individuals were protected from crimes committed against them. City life was also safe before the war. Now police are again patrolling the cities, and the highway from Baghdad to Amman has to be protected by the Iraqi police force and Coalition troops.

While the governing Council incorporates a mixture of all 15 major political parties. US officials were not able to include those individuals of real influence in most parties, so that the structure of the Council does not accurately reflect existing interests in society. To help rectify this situation, participants stressed that a greater UN role, an increased role for NGOs and the international community, and the activization of internal political and social life of Iraqi society is ultimately necessary.

Reconstruction of Afghanistan: Prospects, Impasses, and Problems

The world is approaching the two-year eve of the collapse of the Taliban. The economy of Afghanistan has increased by 15-20% during this period, yet general situation is disturbingly marked by steady increases in violence and security problems. The UN confirms that one third of the country is beyond its ability to operate, and there are continuous attempts to obstruct the reconstruction process.

Major obstacles in the reconstruction process include:

US strategy in the region has included providing weapons to some local war-lords and even training "anti-Al Qaeda" brigades of former militia members. This effort has not been supported by either Karzai or Afghan central authorities, who are against any further strengthening of regional or local forces.

Some 31 different nations compose the peace-keeping coalition in Afghanistan under NATO leadership. A concept advocated by the provisional government is a civil-military hybrid: teams of 60-100 military (too little for any concrete territory) are to be projected to provinces, with NGOs operating the under umbrella of the military operation.

With so much insecurity, ordinary people do not see many benefits of the new regime. There is a big project of the Kabul-Kandahar road, which proved unsuccessful - only 2% of the road has been completed, and the project failed to provide more than 100 new jobs. In 2 years, only 2000 military have graduated from the Afghan military school. What is needed are teams of 2000-3000 well trained personnel military in every important provincial center.

Opinion was expressed that it would be wrong to accuse in equal proportion Pakistan, Iran, and Russia in external interference. The main problem is created by Pakistan. And the USA tolerates insurgence and interference from Pakistan

.

Opinions were expressed that the US has no clear strategy of how to deal with the region: it collects information, controls cases on an ad-hoc basis, and yet little progress is made towards providing stability or democracy. Taking into consideration differences in population size, aid to Afghanistan is actually extremely low. It is about 63 USD per capita, while in Kosovo it was 198 USD per capita. Even in Rwanda it was 128 USD. Moreover, aid funds are siphoned into the pockets of local bureaucracy; what is needed is more infrastructural aid and reform and continuing assistance.

There are 73,000 policemen according to ministerial lists, but the majority of them were in fact mujahaddin fighters. Retraining is dramatically needed. Germany established a police academy with a 2-3 year program and the capacity to graduate 2,000 policemen per year. That is not enough for immediate change. What is needed is 2-3 month long police courses for lower level policeman. It should be taken into consideration that 40% of retrained officers disappear in the process of retraining.

The situation with women has proven contradictory: women's NGOs say that they most need security for women, even more than liberation and rights. Now, however, security has decreased dramatically.

The draft of the Constitution seems to be very liberal; it has no strong religious component, except the formal statement that Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic. On the other hand, since elections scheduled for 2004 (as predefined by UN) may not happen on time anyway. It was thought that the attempt to impose a Western model of organized democracy almost inevitably will fail in the tribal society of Afghanistan. There is also a question of Karzai's legitimacy, as he lacks public support.

Doubts were expressed that Al Qaeda can redevelop in Afghanistan with all the pressure from the USA. In comparison to Iraq, some participants even called situation in the Afghanistan "more promising".

Some thought that the Bush administration doesn't care much about Afghanistan, considering it "done." Passing control to NATO designates exactly this attitude. Some studies show that you need about 20 military personnel per 1,000 inhabitants for effective control and stabilization. In Afghanistan this figure is about 0.4 per 1,000 of population. Moreover, reconstruction of Afghanistan is a multi-pillar process; the fall of one pillar undermines the whole process. For example, the very slow pace of judicial reform (for which Italy is responsible) undermines the efforts of Germany to retrain the Afghan police.

Afghanistan is often portrayed as a site of ethnic conflict. But in fact there is a multi-layer conflict over territories (including fertile territories to cultivate drugs), weapons, representation of tribes in power, and relations between highlands and valley tribes, etc. The time available for reorganizing society is limited, and participants expressed great concern regarding the ability of the international community to act effectively in this limited time frame.

Study of suicidal terrorism

Results of a study on suicide terrorism were presented at one of sessions, derived from work on Palestinian terrorist acts in the Middle East. The psychology of suicide attacks was a particular specific focus. Suicide terrorism, more than other types of terrorist actions, results in strategic consequences. For example, an attack on the American marines in Lebanon in the 1980s led to the withdrawal of the multinational peacekeeping force. Attacks in Israel in 1996 shifted public opinion to the right, allowing the right-wing to take office.

Sometime attacks are high-risk but not suicidal for terrorists. Psychologically, the act of self-demolition aimed at killing others is a very deeply motivated action, different from simple politically motivated actions. An interview with a jailed "Hamas" military wing terrorist showed that shahids believe they will reach paradise after suicidal death. But such individuals are allowed to proceed to paradise only after mission is accomplished. Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Chechnya/Russia have become sites of suicidal attacks. In 1981 the first registered suicide attack occurred at the Embassy in Lebanon.

The notion of "religious fanaticism" is often used to describe the rationale underlying suicidal political behavior. The idea of sacrificing oneself for certain "holy" purposes has been employed for the sake of Islam (as well as Christianity and Judaism), but experience gained by Israeli intelligence suggests that political rather than religious fanaticism is the dominant motive. Out of numerous cases studied, the vast majority were highly politicized acts, with no serious religious connotations. Elsewhere, the Tamil Tigers (Sri Lanka) and PKK (Kurds) have committed dozens of suicidal attacks, with no element of religious fanaticism of promise of "going to paradise."

In the Islamic faith, suicide is in fact forbidden. Regular suicide rates in Islamic countries are about 10 times lower than in Western countries. There is a concept that suicidal terrorists are just a suicidal-oriented people irrespective of political component. But there are arguments and examples against such an explanation. For instance, ten IRA activists in prison died during a hunger strike in 1981 while aiming to obtain status as political prisoners. Rather than being suicidal, they demonstrated a remarkable ability to survive, rather than die, in an attempt to reach a political goal. The power of group commitment and group solidarity worked in this case instead of religious fanaticism.

Interviews with families of Palestinian suicide bombers revealed some interesting results. The few things in common between suicide bombers included an average age close to 21 (for Tamils it was 16), and unmarried/no children family status. Gender composition of trained terrorists seems to be a matter of organizational policy (for the PKK, 11 of 15 suicide terrorists were females; among the Tamil Tigers, around 30%). There were few psycho-pathological cases; most suicide bombers were normal men and women, with only a small having psychological tendencies towards suicide (depression, drug abuse, etc.). The individuals were not excessively religious, and their level of education was higher than average for their ethnicity. Further, when survivors were asked for motivation, they didn't mention religion as the primary factor. Main motivations did not include personal revenge, either (only small percent had lost close relatives in the conflict). Instead, revenge for national humiliation was among the major motivations for these terrorist acts.

Two main factors seem to have influenced the emergence of the suicide terrorism phenomenon. First is the role played by the media and public opinion. About 70% of Palestinian population supported suicidal terrorism on Israeli territory against the Israeli population. Suicidal acts over the years developed an aura of "heroic behavior, " with such acts associated with patriotism. The second factor was group loyalty and group behavior. Previously, the practice of training shahids was long, and they often spent months or years in group preparations. Now, however, preparations sometimes are limited to days, but group psychology still works. Videotaping the last address of the shahid also works by surrounding the suicidal act with public attention.

The role of political organizations is also obvious and central: there are no cases when an individual performed an act of suicidal terrorism without going first through training and brain-washing in one of political organizations.

Responding to results of the study, some participants pointed to the importance of national humiliation as a primary motivator. Suicide bombers themselves feel it is a legitimate use of force in prolonged social conflicts because, while it may cause death to civilians, it has its roots in the violence carried out against their civilian population. Participants stressed that to end the phenomenon of suicidal terrorism is possible only in combination with the political resolution of conflicts in which such terrorism is used.

The most serious global consequence of suicide terrorism would be a suicidal act carried out by a state, particularly a suicidal nuclear strike that unleashes a retaliatory nuclear strike.

Bioterrorism

Important events in the area of bioterrorism during the past decade have included the emergence and research of infectious diseases (AIDS and SARS among them).

As a response to these and other events, the World Health Organization has undertaken to improve "biological intelligence." Attempts to make more deadly viruses need to be countered with bio-defense measures. One problem, of course, is that even bio-defensive measures should probably be classified, thus inhibiting the timely flow of information about possible outbreaks. To this end, improved national and international procedures and cooperative efforts are needed. There is also the prospect that knowledge gained about the human genome raises new dangers about its misuse for bioterror purposes.

In the area of biological weapons, negotiations on adding a protocol and verification measures to the Convention on Biological Weapons (of 1972) have been blocked by US opposition. The US has justified its position by arguing that enormous progress in biotechnology has made verification too intrusive for the commercial sector.

Components of necessary strategy include improving the ability of national health systems to recognize new and unusual diseases, improving the connectivity and ability to pass and spread samples, rapidly undertaking laboratory work to elaborate defensive measures, and creating ways of quick distribution of defensive agents to the population. Significant state financing is needed to implement all this, and only the USA has the necessary resources.

Despite the difficulties of classified and proprietary information, however, effective measures against bioterrorism will require broad international cooperation.

IAEA Strategy for Protection Against Nuclear Terrorism

The possibility of nuclear terrorism and measures against it were discussed as the next case in the terrorism/anti-terrorism continuum. It was stressed that the international community underestimates the probability (and relative ease) of the creation of a crude terrorist nuclear device. The main mechanisms of combating nuclear terrorism need to be:

Among international efforts, the IAEA has created the International Physical Protection Advisory Service. The Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials was adopted in October of 1979, entered into force in 1987, and united 86 state parties. In recent years it has been strengthened and developed by the so-called "Information Circular 225/Revision 4" and a series of additional protocols and technical conditions.

As an indication of the scale of the problem, at least 10,000 radioactive sources are missing in the USA, and even more in the European countries, admittedly not all of them of interest to terrorists. The IAEA maintains a database on the illicit trafficking of nuclear materials, which lists more than 400 cases of illicit HEU trafficking and some cases regarding weapon grade plutonium.

Participants of the second Pugwash Workshop on Terrorism in Como stressed the necessity of better and more intensive international coordination of activities aimed against terrorism, and they expressed understanding that terrorism can only be overcome through the positive resolution of underlying conflicts and social contradictions. The Pugwash Workshops provided good and serious grounds for exchange of opinions of national and international experts, establishing new scientific and academic ties, and providing important political mediation for parties in conflict.