Editorial: Explosives are getting overlooked

Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2001 | 8:31 a.m.

Bioterrorism has received a great deal of attention in the wake of four anthrax-related deaths that have occurred after Sept. 11. The heightened interest in planning for, and warding off, bioterrorism is warranted, but unfortunately what's been lost in the shuffle has been the potential danger posed by the terrorists' use of explosives. For that matter, the hijackings could be considered a bombing of sorts since the terrorists essentially used jet fuel to create an explosion when the planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, acts of terrorism that killed more than 5,000 people.

As the Sun's Steve Kanigher reported Sunday, the use of explosives, not biological or chemical agents, has been the weapon of choice for terrorists for decades now. Dynamite and the ingredients to make bombs aren't always easy to obtain, but once they are acquired, they often are more simple to assemble and set off than are biological and chemical weapons. The results can be devastating. In 1983 a 12,000-pound bomb planted by the Islamic Jihad killed 242 Americans at a Marine barracks in Lebanon; Libyan terrorists used a bomb in 1988 to kill all 259 people aboard Pan American Airlines Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; and Timothy McVeigh in 1995 used a truck bomb to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

After the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 -- which killed six people and injured more than 1,000 -- and the Oklahoma City bombing, the federal government directed the National Research Council in 1998 to study terrorist bombings to determine ways that they could be prevented in the United States. Admittedly the use of explosives has occurred more frequently overseas, but the United States in the past decade has seen an increase in the use of explosives. The National Research Council recommended that tighter regulations be placed on the buying of commercial explosives and ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which was used in the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh was able to make the bomb because of lax state and federal regulations. But the National Research Council's recommendations to make it tougher to buy these materials have been ignored.

Now is the time for Congress to dust off the National Research Council's 1998 report. The states alone can't do the job, because even if one state imposes strict controls and background checks, all a terrorist has to do is go to a state that doesn't have tighter restrictions on the purchase of explosives. Congress should impose stricter requirements on who can buy explosives -- we don't need another act of terrorism to tell us that.