Dangers from terrorism scant compared to other risks, experts say

By Miles Benson
Newhouse News Service

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WASHINGTON — The terrorists can't win. They can't wreck the economy or inflict other forms of irreparable damage on the nation, despite their ability to impose great inconveniences, disruptions, expense and occasional scary periods of elevated alert, many experts say.

To be sure, bombs or other forms of attack on the homeland could take lives, and the respite since Sept. 11, 2001, may not last. But the danger of average Americans or their loved ones becoming casualties in the war on terrorism is scant compared, say, to the daily risks they face from automobile accidents, crime or weather-related menaces.

"A false sense of insecurity" grips the nation, spurred partly by war rhetoric from President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, warns John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University.

The election campaign intensifies "a general tendency to exaggerate worst-case scenarios — that terrorists can destroy our way of life," Mueller said. "That strikes me as basically wrong. Most likely there is some destruction here and there, which is very tragic — we can't downplay the horror to the people directly involved — but the idea that a tiny group of terrorists on the run can actually destroy the U.S. is extremely questionable."

Other experts agree that the climate of danger and concern is out of proportion to the reality of terrorist capabilities.

Al-Qaida might target the U.S. financial-services industry — that threat triggered the current elevated alert in New York, Washington, D.C., and Newark, N.J. — but even a successful attack would not bring the nation's economy to a halt.

"Blowing up the International Monetary Fund or the New York Stock Exchange would be calamities, but not in that category, because the economy recovers from personal tragedies quite readily, in a heartless kind of way," said Henry Aaron, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

"We should not be complacent," said Chester Crocker, a former assistant secretary of state under President Reagan, now a professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University. "But there is danger of people who don't know how the world is organized getting spooked and hysterical by the hype and emotional overreaction at the popular level."

Terrorists may attempt to tear the fabric of society, but can they accomplish that?
 
"No, not tactically," said Frank Cilluffo, associate vice president for homeland security at George Washington University and a former senior terrorism adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. It's not "within the realm of probability. But they are in the business of inflaming fear. They can win battles, but in the long term they cannot overcome our resilience and who we are as a nation."

While there is always the chance of losing hundreds of lives or critical parts of the infrastructure, "there is no danger of massive defeat of the United States" by terrorism, said Anthony Cordesman, a senior defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Factors like the weather attack us all the time and produce casualties, but we are a great deal more resilient than most people understand."

"Terrorism has become one more actuarial risk, like getting out of bed. Americans have shown they can live with the risks of getting out of bed, and terrorism as well, particularly if terrorism is as low as it has been."

The National Center for Health Statistics, which tracks 113 causes of death in the United States, reported that in the same year that nearly 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks, 43,788 died in motor-vehicle accidents, 30,622 by suicide, 20,306 were murdered (including 11,348 by firearms), 14,078 died by accidental poisoning and 3,021 died as a result of complications from medical care. An additional 700,000 Americans died of heart disease, the No. 1 killer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while 553,768 died of cancer and 32,238 died of blood poisoning.

"It's hard to compare the dangers of terrorism with other threats to life," said Dr. Robert Lifton, a psychiatrist who has studied and written extensively about the ways people react to extreme situations.

"With terrorism, with Sept. 11, there was a shocking experience of violation of America's sense of safety," said Lifton, author of "Superpower Syndrome," a book about the nation's response to the terrorist threat.

Some critics think the Bush administration has manipulated warnings about the timing of possible terrorist attacks for political purposes. Cilluffo, a Republican, dismissed such suggestions as "truly preposterous."

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national-security adviser to former President Carter, is not so sure, and he worries about the degree to which perceived political imperatives drive leaders in both parties.

"My grave concern is that we are hyping ourselves into a state of panic which is going to discredit us internationally even if it has some utility in the short run for the administration," Brzezinski said. "It reinforces the theme that we are at war. In a war you don't change your commander in chief. This is a pretend war. If it was a real war, we would have a draft, special taxes and a sense of sacrifice, posters with Uncle Sam pointing a finger at you and saying, 'I want you.' "

Brzezinski acknowledged that Democratic presidential nominee Kerry also is talking "war" and using other language similar to Bush in describing the terrorist threat.

"I suspect it's unnecessary," Brzezinski said. He blamed other party leaders, including Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and former House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri.

"Democrats were stampeded into supporting Bush and enlarging the scope of the conflict," Brzezinski said.