
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 27, 1991                   TAG: 9102270224
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

POSTWAS TERROR RISE PREDICTED/ SENATE WARNED OF SECURITY NEEDS

The threat of terrorism is expected to increase as the Gulf War moves toward a seemingly humiliating defeat for Iraq, but the U.S. government is skimping on the money to develop counterterrorist technology, experts told a Senate hearing Tuesday.

A top State Department official reported a sharp surge in incidents of terrorism - more than three times the usual number - since the start of the war. Most of the incidents have resulted primarily in property damage.

"The threat of terrorism will continue in the future," said Morris D. Busby, coordinator for counterterrorism. "There has been an aftermath of terrorism to every conflict in the Middle East for the last three decade and, although we hope it will not be the case in this one, we must assume and plan for the worst."

Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, the chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs committee who presided at Tuesday's hearing, said that, besides bombs, chemical and biological agents soon may be employed in terrorist attacks against the United States.

"The increasing number of terrorist threats is not the only story here - the weapons that terrorists use are getting deadlier each year," Glenn said.

But the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment said the government was sharply reducing money for a key coordinating agency - the Technical Support Working Group - in antiterrorism research. From a peak of $10 million in 1986-87, the office reported, Congress now provides only $2 million a year for the working group, delaying development of devices that could improve bomb detection devices at airports or thwart chemical or biological attacks.

"This steady and drastic reduction in funding is ill-advised," said Anthony Fainberg, director of the agency's project on counterterrorism research, who recommended a return to the $10 million level for the interagency group. Busby, speaking for the Bush administration, agreed that more money should be allocated to speed development of anti-terrorism technology.

But the experts reported that no sure-fire method has yet been found to detect small quantities of the type of plastic explosives such as those used in the bombing of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.

"OTA finds no technological `silver bullet' that will protect against the introduction of bombs onto airliners," said Alan Shaw, the agency's manager for international security. "Rather, we should seek to devise a system with multiple complimentary parts that . . . together provide great breadth of coverage than any single detection method can. There are many promising areas of technology . . . but no one that can do the job alone."

by CNB