Adi2010 [licensed for non-commercial use only] / Arizona ...
Terrorism DA Index
Terrorism DA Index 1
1NC Shell 3
1NC Shell 4
UQ Extensions: Visa Screening O-Stretch 5
UQ Extensions: Visa Screening O-Stretch 6
UQ Extensions: Visa Screening O-Stretch 7
UQ Extensions: Visa Screening O-Stretch 8
UQ Extensions: Sqo Security Solves 10
UQ Extensions: Sqo Security Solves 12
Link Extensions: General Immigration 13
Link Extensions: General Immigration 14
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas 15
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas 16
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas 19
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas 20
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas 21
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas 22
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas 23
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas 24
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas 25
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas 26
Link Extensions: Asylum 27
Link Extensions: Guest Worker Programs 30
Link Extensions: Open Borders 31
Link Extensions: Open Borders 32
Link Extensions: AT Link Turns 34
Impact Extensions: Bioweapons 35
Impact Extensions: Terrorist Attack Feasible 36
Impact Extensions: Terrorist Attack Feasible 37
Impact Extensions: Terrorist Attack Feasible 38
Impact Extension: Attack = Extinction 39
Impact Extension: Terrorist Will Attack 41
Impact Extensions: Terrorists can get nukes 42
Impact Extensions: Targeting Now 43
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes 45
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes 46
Impact Extensions: Terrorists can get nukes 47
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes 48
Impact Extinction: Attack = Extinction 49
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes 50
Impact Extension: Economic Collapse 51
Impact Extensions: Terrorist Have Nukes 52
Impact Extensions: Terrorist Have Nukes 53
Impact Extensions: Terrorist will use nukes 54
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes 55
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes 57
Impact Extension: Crime Module 59
Impact Extension: Crime Module 60
Impact Extensions: Crime Module 61
Impact Extensions: Crime Module 62
****Aff Answers**** 63
Aff Answers: Link Turns 64
Aff Answers: Link Turns 65
Aff Answers: Link Turns 66
Aff Answers: Link Turns 67
Aff Answers: Link Turns 68
Aff Answers: No Link 69
Aff Answers: Impact UQ 70
Aff Answers: Impact D: Screening Fails Now 71
Aff Answers: Impact D: Screening Fails Now 72
Aff Answers: Impact D: No Risk of Attack 73
Aff Answers: Impact D: No Risk of Attack 74
Aff Answers: Impact D: Won’t Use Nukes 75
Aff Answers: Impact D: Extinction Takouts 76
Aff Answers: Impact D: Bioweapons Takeouts 77
Aff Answers: Impact D: Chem Weapons Takeouts 78
Aff Answers: Impact D: Dirty Bomb Takeouts 79
Aff Answers: Impact D: No Risk of Attack 80
Aff Answers: Impact D: No Risk of Attack 81
Aff Answers: Impact D: Acquisition Takeouts 82
Aff Answers: Impact D: Escalation Takeouts 83
Aff Answers: Impact D: No Risk Of Attack 84
Aff Answers: Impact D: Acquisition Takeouts 85
Aff Answers: Impact D: Acquisition Takeouts 86
Aff Answers: Impact D: Acquisition Takeouts 87
Aff Answers: Impact D: Acquisition Takeouts 88
Aff Answers: Impact D: Retaliation Threats Solve 89
Aff Answers: Impact D: Retaliation Threats Solve 90
Aff Answers: Impact D: Retaliation Threats Solve 91
Aff Answers: Terrorism Inevitable 92
Aff Answers: Crime 93
1NC Shell
A. Uniqueness –
Funding for additional visa security programs has been frozen in the status quo – the system is at capacity and couldn’t effectively process additional visa requests with any level of competent detail
CNS News 10 “Obama Freezes Budget for Program Designed to Stop Terrorists from Getting U.S. Visas”
Four months after the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit and nine years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, only 14 of the 57 U.S. consulates identified as being at “high risk” for potentially providing visas to terrorists have been furnished with units of the Department of Homeland Security’s Visa Security Program (VSP). President Barack Obama, meanwhile, is planning to freeze the program’s budget for fiscal 2011. The VSP, established by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, puts Department of Homeland Security officials in the field at U.S. consulates to vet the backgrounds of people applying for U.S. visas. DHS uses a broader range of databases than the State Department to review the backgrounds of visa applicants. Also, many policymakers believe DHS officials tend to be more security-minded than State Department consular officers when reviewing visa applications. While administration officials have said publicly that five additional VSP units should be in place at high risk consulates by the end of 2011, President Barack Obama’s fiscal Year 2011 budget for DHS--submitted almost two months after the Christmas Day bombing attempt—does not increase funding for the program from its fiscal 2010 level. In fiscal 2010, Obama requested $32.2 million for the Visa Security Program and Congress approved $30.7 million, of which $7.3 million was earmarked for opening four new VSP units at high risk consulates. For fiscal 2011, Obama requested $30.7 million for the DHS, the same amount Congress approved for this year. According to a March 8 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, a lack of funding could hamper expansion of the Visa Security Program to the many high-risk consulates that still do not have a unit. “The Obama administration is requesting that the VSP be funded at the same level in FY 2011 as Congress’ funding in FY 2010--$30.7 million,” says the report. “The modest size of VSP with 67 full-time equivalent staff has led some to question how many VSP units DHS will be able to realistically staff.”
B. Link - Expanding visa programs pose the greatest risk of terrorist strike on the U.S.
Hutchinson 10 (Asa, 2/9/10, “Analysis: Visa security is critical to preventing terrorist attacks” Asa Hutchinson, president and chief executive officer of Hutchinson Group consulting in Little Rock, Ark., is former undersecretary for border and transportation security at DHS.)
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed attempt to bomb Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day is another reminder that a visa is priceless to a terrorist. It is the golden key that allows easy passage to the United States. If the intelligence on Abdulmutallab had been properly analyzed, his visa would have been quickly revoked and he would have been denied access to Flight 253. We must go back to basics and strengthen the role of the Homeland Security Department in visa issuance, review and security. Certainly, we must continue to improve methods and technologies for screening and detecting explosives carried by airline passengers, but our highest priority is to remember the lesson of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the attempted Christmas Day bombing: Our first line of defense against terrorism is intelligence and visa security. Yes, visa security. It's not an easy, 30-second sound bite and it takes a little more explaining, but it might be our best defense. Without a valid visa, America's enemies will not be able to lawfully enter the United States at all.
1NC Shell
C. Impact – A nuclear terrorist attack against the United States would end the world
Corsi 5 (Jerome, Ph.D. from Harvard, Atomic Iran, 176-178)
In the span of less than one hour, the nation's largest city will have been virtually wiped off the map. Removal of debris will take several years, and recovery may never fully happen. The damage to the nation's economy will be measured in the trillions of dollars, and the loss of the country's major financial and business center may reduce America immediately to a second-class status. The resulting psychological impact will bring paralysis throughout the land for an indefinite period of time. The president may not be able to communicate with the nation for days, even weeks, as television and radio systems struggle to come back on line. No natural or man-made disaster in history will compare with the magnitude of damage that has been done to New York City in this one horrible day. THE UNITED STATES RETAILATES: "END OF THE WORLD" SCENARIOS The combination of horror and outrage that will surge upon the nation will demand that the president retaliate for the incomprehensible damage done by the attack. The problem will be that the president will not immediately know how to respond or against whom. The perpetrators will have been incinerated by the explosion that destroyed New York City. Unlike 9/11, there will have been no interval during the attack when those hijacked could make phone calls to loved ones telling them before they died that the hijackers were radical Islamic extremists. There will be no such phone calls when the attack will not have been anticipated until the instant the terrorists detonate their improvised nuclear device inside the truck parked on a curb at the Empire State Building. Nor will there be any possibility of finding any clues, which either were vaporized instantly or are now lying physically inaccessible under tons of radioactive rubble. Still, the president, members of Congress, the military, and the public at large will suspect another attack by our known enemy—Islamic terrorists. The first impulse will be to launch a nuclear strike on Mecca, to destroy the whole religion of Islam. Medina could possibly be added to the target list just to make the point with crystal clarity. Yet what would we gain? The moment Mecca and Medina were wiped off the map, the Islamic world—more than one billion human beings in countless different nations—would feel attacked. Nothing would emerge intact after a war between the United States and Islam. The apocalypse would be upon us. Then, too, we would face an immediate threat from our long-term enemy, the former Soviet Union. Many in the Kremlin would see this as an opportunity to grasp the victory that had been snatched from them by Ronald Reagan, when the Berlin Wall came down. A missile strike by the Russians on a score of American cities could possibly be preemptive. Would the U.S. strategic defense system be so in shock that immediate retaliation would not be possible? Hard-liners in Moscow might argue that there was never a better opportunity to destroy America.In China, our newer Communist enemies might not care if we could retaliate. With a population already over 1.3 billion people and with their population not concentrated in a few major cities, the Chinese might calculate to initiate a nuclear blow on the United States. What if the United States retaliated with a nuclear counterattack upon China? The Chinese might be able to absorb the blow and recover.
The North Koreans might calculate even more recklessly. Why not launch upon America the few missiles they have that could reach our soil? More confusion and chaos might only advance their position. If Russia, China, and the United States could be drawn into attacking one another, North Korea might emerge stronger just because it was overlooked while the great nations focus on attacking one another.
UQ Extensions: Visa Screening O-Stretch
Visa screening program is overstreched in the status quo – can’t risk adding additional visa’s to their workload
Seminara 8. (“No Coyote Needed: U.S. Visas Still an Easy Ticket in Developing Countries” Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). (tenured member of the U.S. Foreign Service from 2002-2007) )
Reasons for this include: • Foreign service officers tend to have a diplomatic rather than a law enforcement mindset. • The crushing volume of visa applicants. Most visa processing posts are woefully understaffed, which results in very brief interviews. Managers value speed of adjudication over clarity of decision making, so many borderline visa cases that deserve closer scrutiny end up being issuances. • Developing countries place great importance on visas in bilateral discussions. • Consular managers are required only to review visa refusals — not issuances — forcing consular officers to routinely justify denials. • There is a lack of accountability and emphasis on adherence to the law as a promotion criterion. • There are no quality control measures — evidenced by the fact that the State Department never requires posts to conduct visa validation studies to estimate visa overstay rates. • Consular officers’ tend to value applicants’ purpose of travel over their legal qualifications for the visa. • DHS has failed to implement meaningful exit controls or to share entry/exit data with consular officials overseas, leaving officers without adequate information on visa renewal applicants. • The lack of feedback to consular officers on visa overstays leads many to underestimate how serious the overstay problem is. • Officers evaluate how well-off visa candidates are by the standards of their home country, rather than by U.S. standards, and often fail to understand how a school teacher in Romania might prefer to be a cab driver in Chicago, or why a nurse from Ecuador would wash dishes at a restaurant in New York. • Refused applicants, their relatives, and members of Congress place pressure on consular officials to overturn visa refusals, and sometimes manage to “wear down” consular officers. • Consular officers often assume that visa applicants won’t overstay their visas because they will be confined to doing poorly paid jobs as illegal immigrants in the United States, when, in fact, many who overstay non-immigrant visas are able to eventually legalize their status and get good jobs. • The simple reality that it is far easier to say “yes” to applicants than to shatter their dreams by telling them that they don’t qualify to come to America.
UQ Extensions: Visa Screening O-Stretch
Visa security program is underfunded – can’t handle influx of new visa applications
Bilirakis, 10. (Bilirakis Op-Ed: Washington Times | “Stop handing visas to wannabe terrorists” )
In the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt, much was made about the need for our intelligence community to do a better job of "connecting the dots" to stop terrorists before they board planes bound for the United States. After weeks of mixed messages, self-examination and congressional investigations, the Department of Homeland Security recently unveiled its budget request to Congress for the coming year. Because budgets reflect priorities, I had hoped to see that the near-miss on Christmas Day had served as a wake-up call to get serious about stopping these killers before they strike again. I was greatly disappointed. The Visa Security Program (VSP), which places highly trained security officers at overseas posts to thoroughly investigate and scrutinize visa applications so those who are trying to gain entry into our country to do us harm are stopped before they get here, is a logical countermeasure to terrorist attempts to enter the United States. However, the administration has not seen fit to support the aggressive expansion of this protection. Just 14 of the 220 Department of State posts around the world have Visa Security Units (VSU). More than 40 locations have been identified as high priority because terrorists may seek to exploit their potential weaknesses. At the pace outlined in the administration's budget, it would take nearly two decades to bridge the gap and bring the 40 high-risk locations up to speed. We need to maximize our resources immediately and bolster our visa-screening capabilities at American consulates around the world before the next attack results in a tragic loss of life. The VSP is literally the nation's first line of defense against those who wish to gain entry to our country for the wrong reasons. Yet this administration continues to shortchange the program, failing to ask for necessary resources to place units in needed areas as quickly as possible and allowing ambassadors to veto the expansion of VSUs because they fear it will insult the local citizenry. In my view, it's worth a few hurt feelings in foreign countries to make our country safer. Concerned about inadequacies in the screening process and background checks conducted on those seeking temporary admission to our country, I proposed legislation during the last Congress to require more thorough scrutiny of those seeking student visas and better monitoring of their activities once foreign students enter the country. In June, the House adopted my amendment to the 2010 homeland security appropriations bill, which shifted $1.7 million from administrative functions at the Department of Homeland Security to be used solely to open additional Visa Security Units. Unfortunately, the final version of the bill that was enacted into law scaled back that amount to include only an additional $500,000 for this purpose
Budget cuts stretching capabilities too thin
McNeill 10. (“The FY 2011 Homeland Security Budget: Spending Doesn't Match the Missions” Heritage Foundation. )
Yet, the Obama Administration's budget avoids these challenges--and sets aside very little money for resources to improve the way that USCIS does business. In fact, the USCIS budget decreases by $47.6 million. The only budgetary highlight of the FY 2011 request pertaining to USCIS is $18 million to promote citizenship through education and preparation programs...and expansion of innovative English learning tools."[56] Promoting citizenship is certainly a worthwhile goal; however, improving the processing of visas and making the citizenship process more efficient must also be a priority for the Administration. The immigration services and enforcement budget is actually quite reflective of the Obama Administration's attitude toward immigration reform. The new budget focuses enforcement efforts on the employers, while the Administration has dramatically slowed the identification and deportation of all illegal aliens except serious criminals, while pushing aggressively for amnesty as the cornerstone of the Administration's comprehensive immigration-reform agenda. The Administration continues to push large amounts of dollars into the E-Verify program in order to look tough on enforcement, while decreasing enforcement measures that might impede a mass legalization effort
UQ Extensions: Visa Screening O-Stretch
The system is on the brink – impossible to effectively deal with an influx of new applications
West 7 (Bill – Former chief of National Security for ICE, May 17, “Immigration “Reform” Will Be National Security Disaster,” ) JJN
The Federal immigration bureaucracy that will be tasked with administering any of these reforms will be the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). CIS is already unable to effectively deal with its existing benefit adjudication missions. Virtually all internal and external Government reviews of CIS performance have established significant problem areas, including lack of resources and management performance. The bad ghosts of the old INS, from where CIS sprang, linger in a big way. To expect an already overburdened and poorly managed Federal agency to properly deal with a sudden huge increase in mission workload is a fantasy. CIS has indicated it would need to bring in private contractor personnel to help deal with the monumental workload increase from reform legislation. Such contractors will invariably be quickly hired, poorly trained, probably low-bid, barely vetted and far more subject to bribery and corruption than permanent Government employees. Not that bribery and corruption will necessarily be that necessary. In short order, the system will be overwhelmed. Whatever minimal fraud detection and prevention safeguards might be erected won’t last long in the face of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of applications and petitions to be adjudicated. What that means is the information provided on those applications and petitions, and whatever supporting documents they may have (if any), will essentially be taken at face value. Whatever the applicant alien tells the adjudicator will essentially be taken at face value. There will be little time or process available to verify anything, perhaps beyond running the applicant’s name through a standard battery of computer databases (and, even that may become so time consuming some will slip through the cracks). And those names of the applicant aliens...those aliens who, for whatever time period they have been “undocumented” (illegal) in the United States, wherein so very many have procured and utilized false and fraudulent identification documents often in false identities...suddenly the Government will accept as true whatever those applicant aliens tell the Government on those applications and in those interviews. An undocumented alien who procured and used false documents would lie? Well, not when applying for genuine status in the US...right? So, we can be absolutely certain of who all these newly legalized persons truly are, correct? Their statements will be truthful and their support documents not fraudulent and false, right? So, when the overburdened CIS personnel...to include those minimally trained contractors...quickly process all those applicant aliens, with the primary mission of reducing the huge case backlog, the American public can feel confident in the integrity of that process that no foreign criminal or terrorist will possibly slip through the system and be granted legal status...a “path to citizenship”...like so many others have during normal immigration times. Add to the inevitable processing breakdowns will be the inevitable “me too” class action lawsuits. Large segments of excluded illegal alien populations will invariably obtain savvy legal counsel who will initiate Federal Court legal challenges to the law, claiming their clients should also be entitled to the benefits extended to others under the statute. This happened as a result of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the other supposed one-time only legalization/amnesty, and those lawsuits lasted more than a decade resulting in many tens of thousands more illegal aliens ultimately being allowed to remain in the US. It will surely happen again. The devil truly is in the details. Conveniently for the politicians on both sides of the aisle pushing for a feel good bill, they are ignoring real world details in all this. If what is being proposed on the Hill becomes law, contrary to what some political leaders claim, there will be significant security risks emanating from the process.
UQ Extensions: Visa Screening O-Stretch
Visa security measures will fail – too risky to issue new ones
Vaughan 10 (Jessica, Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, the Providence Journal, 1/12, ) JAS
But these revocations were the result of recommendations from intelligence agencies such as the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center. Judging from this case, embassy officials have become overly reluctant to act on their own to revoke visas, even though they have the authority to do so under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and even when “dots,” such as a concerned father, should need no connecting.
Even though the officers in the field clearly had enough to go on to justify the revocation, the message they receive constantly from Washington is to look for reasons to let someone travel, not to err on the side of caution. If a traveler turns out to be a threat to public safety, that is another agency’s problem. Of course, visa revocations should be handled carefully, but the event is hardly a life-altering blow. Individuals whose visas are revoked can try to have them reinstated after being checked out more thoroughly by embassy officials.
The State Department finally announced on Jan. 5, 11 days after the failed attack, that Abdulmutallab’s visa had been revoked as a result of the president’s security review.
Just as appalling is the recent revelation that not only did the embassy officers not revoke Abdulmutallab’s visa, they reportedly did not even bother checking to see if he had one. Their lack of curiosity about the young man is troubling and suggests that national-security concerns are not a high priority for foreign-service officers. Current visa-issuance statistics indicate that the State Department has slipped back into its pre-9/11 complacency with respect to the admission of foreign travelers. Global issuances have risen by about 35 percent in the last few years, from a low of 4.8 million in 2003 to 6.6 million in 2008. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security believes there are about 3.7 million illegal immigrants living in the country who entered with a valid visa and overstayed.
UQ Extensions: Sqo Security Solves
SQO immigration policy isn’t perfect but it can prevent terrorists from entering the country
McNeill, Carafano, and Zuckerman 10 (30 Terrorist Plots Foiled: How the System Worked, 4/29/10, ,
Jena, is Policy Analyst for Homeland Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, James, is Deputy Director of the Davis Institute and Director of the Allison Center and Jessica, is a Research Assistant in the Allison Center at The Heritage Foundation. accessed 7/30/10) GEC
Abstract: In 2009 alone, U.S. authorities foiled at least six terrorist plots against the United States. Since September 11, 2001, at least 30 planned terrorist attacks have been foiled, all but two of them prevented by law enforcement. The two notable exceptions are the passengers and flight attendants who subdued the “shoe bomber” in 2001 and the “underwear bomber” on Christmas Day in 2009. Bottom line: The system has generally worked well. But many tools necessary for ferreting out conspiracies and catching terrorists are under attack. Chief among them are key provisions of the PATRIOT Act that are set to expire at the end of this year. It is time for President Obama to demonstrate his commitment to keeping the country safe. Heritage Foundation national security experts provide a road map for a successful counterterrorism strategy. In 2009, at least six planned terrorist plots against the United States were foiled. This has led some to wonder whether the U.S. is experiencing the results of a resurgence in terrorism. However, these latest acts were not a new phenomenon: At least 30 terrorist plots against the U.S. have been foiled since 9/11. It is clear that terrorists continue to wage war against America. President Barack Obama, however, took office determined to shed the idea of a war on terrorism. Besides an obvious change in lexicon—from the “global war on terror” to “overseas contingency operation” and from “terrorism” to “man-made disaster”—there were even more consequential actions, including the decision to prosecute foreign terrorists in U.S. civilian courts.
Border security high now and able to contain current threats of illegal crossings
Mora 10 (Edwin- Journalist, April 29, CNS News, “Napolitano: U.S.- Mexico Border ‘As Secure Now As It Has Ever Been,’” ) JJN
“It is impossible for me and any other serious Democrat to get this body to move forward until we prove to the American people we can secure our borders and, quite frankly Madame secretary, we got a long way to go,” said Graham. “But once we get there, comprehensive reform should come up, will come up, and I believe we can do it by 2012.”He continued, “If we are smart and we address the big elephant in the room -- and that is that our borders are broken and there is a war going on -- that’s going to affect the future of this issue until we get that solved.” During the hearing, the secretary of homeland security said that border security has deterred many undocumented immigrants from crossing the border in Arizona. “Six, seven years ago, the number of illegal apprehensions in Tucson sector of the border was over 600,000, now is 200 [thousand],” said Napolitano. "The Border Patrol is better staffed than at any point in its history -- more than 20,000 personnel,” she said. “Since 2004, the number of boots on the ground along the southwest border has increased by 80 percent.”
UQ Extensions: Sqo Security Solves
SQO policy keeps us safe -
Harris 6 (“Five years after 9/11, question is: Could it happen again?” By Shane Harris, expert on international security, National Journal, September 1, 2006 ) GEC
Did remedies for existing weaknesses create new ones? The answers to those questions bring us closer to knowing whether another 9/11 is in our future. Entering The United States Then: Months before he piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center, Mohamed Atta had come to the attention of U.S. authorities. In January 2001, he persuaded an inspector with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to let him into the country so that he could continue pilot training at a U.S. school, even though he presented no student visa. Now: After 9/11, the INS, widely viewed as dysfunctional, was disbanded. Today, stricter regulations for issuing student visas are in place. Any foreigner entering the United States on a student visa must be registered in a government computer system. However, the schools themselves have generally been responsible for entering the data, and have borne the burden of alerting federal officials when students don't show up for classes. In that case, federal officials are supposed to track them down. In August, several Egyptian students who were granted visas to attend a summer program in Montana never showed up at their assigned school, and the FBI launched a nationwide manhunt to apprehend them. Then: The hijackers who boarded United Airlines Fight 175, which struck the south tower, had also talked their way into the United States to take flight training without student visas. Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, who boarded American Airlines Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon, had visitor visas. The Central Intelligence Agency knew this, but officials there didn't inform the State Department and other authorities when the two men -- who had been under agency surveillance as suspected terrorists -- boarded a United Airlines plane in Bangkok and came to Los Angeles on January 15. Now: Laws and regulations have been changed to encourage, and in some cases require, intelligence agencies to share terrorism information with law enforcement agencies. Officials credit the interagency Terrorist Threat Integration Center with bringing together streams of intelligence that historically were kept separate, and with alerting the Transportation Security Administration, now in charge of aviation security, and military officials to threats against airplanes and airports. Then: Had officials at the National Security Agency been alerted, they might have found records of al-Hazmi in their databases. Now: The NSA is known to have shared information about suspected Al Qaeda operatives with law enforcement agencies immediately after the attacks. It has since increased monitoring of communications involving suspected Qaeda operatives both inside and outside the United States, some of it under the controversial "terrorist surveillance program." Then: And had officials at State been told of the men's identities and suspected ties, they would have discovered that al-Hazmi and al-Midhar had been issued U.S. visas in the same city -- Jidda, Saudi Arabia -- within days of each other. Now: The State Department determines who gets U.S. visas, but the Homeland Security Department controls U.S. ports of entry. The latter department has undertaken a multibillion-dollar effort -- the US-VISIT program -- to log the entry and exit of every visitor; the system, however, is not yet fully deployed nor fully integrated with other tracking systems, such as the one that monitors foreign students. And visitors from many nations, mostly in Europe, can enter the United States without a visa -- just as Americans can enter those countries without a visa. Then: On 9/11, all but one of the hijackers were here on visitor visas, which allowed them to stay in the country for six months. That gave them time to finalize the plot and to obtain state-issued identification cards needed to board the airplanes. Although one hijacker didn't have a state ID, he was allowed on the plane anyway. Now: Anyone entering the United States through an airport, seaport, or border crossing that has the US-VISIT entry-exit system must submit a biometric identifier -- fingerprints and a photograph -- if the visitor hasn't already done so at the U.S. consular office that issued the visa. The visa's expiration data is logged into VISIT, and if the holder has not left the United States by that date, his visa is voided and immigration enforcement can detain him. The VISIT program is far from perfect, according to analysts, and will take some time to deploy at every U.S. port of entry. Then: Once in the country, some of the hijackers aroused suspicion, particularly among flight instructors who noticed that although the men wanted to pilot commercial jetliners, they had little interest in learning how to land them. Reports of Middle Eastern men at flight schools also attracted the attention of FBI officials in at least two field offices, but superiors rejected their requests for more intense surveillance. Now: In the half-decade since 9/11, the FBI has tried to improve its intelligence-gathering and information-sharing capabilities. The bureau has created a national security division that is responsible for assessing terrorist threats.
Link Extensions: General Immigration
Stemming flow of immigrants is critical to combating risk of terrorism
Spencer 8 (Specialist in terrorism and international politics for the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute for Politial Science, “Linking Immigrants and Terrorists: The Use of Immigration as an Anti-Terror Policy”, ) SEW
Apart from governments some scholars and think tanks, especially in the United States, have argued that immigration and terrorism are linked and that immigration policies are essential in the „war on terror‟. “[T]here is probably no more important defensive weapon in our arsenal than a well-functioning immigration system” (Krikorian 2002) One leading terrorism expert on al-Qa‟ida, Rohan Gunaratna, has highlighted that “[a]ll major terrorist attacks conducted in the last decade in North America and Western Europe, with the exception of Oklahoma City, have utilized migrants” (cited in Leiken 2004: 6). The fact that the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were of Arab origin and nationals of countries outside the western cultural hemisphere has created a link between foreignness and threat. It is possible to argue that it is totally rational to treat Arab and Muslim foreigners differently now, in light of the fact that al-Qa‟ida, the group presumably behind the attacks of 9/11, is made up almost entirely of Muslims of Arab origin and has threatened to continue attacks against western civilians.
Restricting the number of immigrants is the only way to reduce the terrorist threat
Spencer 8 (Specialist in terrorism and international politics for the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute for Politial Science, “Linking Immigrants and Terrorists: The Use of Immigration as an Anti-Terror Policy”, ) SEW
We were attacked by foreigners and therefore it makes sense and is justified to focus our efforts in combating terrorism with immigration policies which can stop threatening foreigners from entering our countries. There are a number of studies and books which aim to highlight this link between immigration and terrorism and argue that immigration restrictions are essential in the fight against terrorism. For example Steven Camarota (2002) emphasizes the link between immigration and terrorism by examining the immigrant background of 48 foreign-born terrorists who committed crimes in the United States between 1993 and 2001. He examines how these terrorists entered the U.S. and concludes that they used a large number of different ways of entering the country including temporary tourist, student or business visas, crossing the border illegally and filing asylum applications. Furthermore, he notes that thirty-six percent of the examined foreign-born terrorists were found to be legal permanent residents or naturalized U.S. citizens. As a result he calls for tighter controls and the reduction of all kinds of immigration and points out that a countries immigration system is one of the most important tools in the „war on terrorism‟ “because the current terrorist threat comes almost exclusively from individuals who arrive from abroad” (Camaroty 2002: 5).
Link Extensions: General Immigration
Liberal immigration policies allow terrorist networks to expand in the US
Spencer 8 (Specialist in terrorism and international politics for the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute for Politial Science, “Linking Immigrants and Terrorists: The Use of Immigration as an Anti-Terror Policy”, ) SEW
In a more detailed study of 212 known terrorists arrested or killed in the North America and Europe, Robert S. Leiken (2004) highlights that all were visitors or first- or second generation immigrants. He believes that terrorists exploit generous Western immigration policies to infiltrate the country in order to recruit new members, create facilities to aid their cause and form sleeper cells ready for new terrorist attacks. He concludes that global terrorism and immigration are clearly entwined or linked as nearly all terrorists in the West have been immigrants (Leiken 2004: 24). More recently Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke (2006) have reinforced this claim in one of the leading terrorism research journals by examining 373 terrorists and emphasizing “a close link between immigration and terrorism”. Along similar lines Michelle Malkin (2002) makes weak immigration policies responsible for the terrorist attacks in the United States. In her bestseller book Invasion she claims to highlight the inadequacies and failures of the U.S. immigration service in letting terrorists and other menaces into the country. In a very aggressive, sensationalist and extremely nationalist style she argues that the U.S. government should not allow any travelers or immigrants into the United States from regions were al-Qa‟ida has a foothold and introduce visa-requirements for all countries in world. Furthermore, she calls for a crack down on all illegal immigrants and suggests that they should be placed in detention facilities and deported as quickly as possible. To name but a few of the extreme measures proposed, Malkin suggests that the United States should secure its ports of entry and militarize the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada as well as not accept any new asylum seekers.
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas
Terrorists use temporary visas to gain access to U.S.
Graham 4 (Chadwick. WHITHER GOES CUBA? PROSPECTS FOR ECONOMIC & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PART I OF II: STUDENT NOTE: Defeating an Invisible Enemy: The Western Superpowers' Efforts to Combat Terrorism by Fighting Illegal Immigration. Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems. 14 Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Probs. 281. LN)
Clearly, most illegal immigrants have no connections with terrorism. However, evidence supports the proposition that there is a strong tie between the terrorist acts committed in the United States and the legal status of the perpetrators. n34 This tie necessitates a careful analysis of current immigration [*286] policy. The overwhelming majority of violations by known terrorists were internal violations that occurred subsequent to legal entry with a temporary visa. INS commissioner, James Ziglar, disclosed information indicating that at least three of the September 11 terrorists were illegal aliens. n35 "All of them entered the country legally on a temporary visa, mostly B-1 business visas or B-2 tourist visas. One is known to have received an M-1 vocational training visa and two received F-1 student visas." n36 It is alarming to know that those who perpetrated the most destructive terrorist act on U.S. soil n37 were essentially welcomed guests. Indeed, the United States itself provided the resources and information necessary to carry it out. n38
Temporary visas allow terrorists to gain access to the US and then become illegal immigrants which is their most effective strategy
Graham 4 (Chadwick. WHITHER GOES CUBA? PROSPECTS FOR ECONOMIC & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PART I OF II: STUDENT NOTE: Defeating an Invisible Enemy: The Western Superpowers' Efforts to Combat Terrorism by Fighting Illegal Immigration. Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems. 14 Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Probs. 281. LN)
Internal controls to locate illegal immigrants are even more urgent today because terrorists over the past decade have provided other terrorist cells with evidence that their method of entry works. Indeed, legislation aimed at tracking temporary visa holders became a legislative priority in the United States after it was discovered that sixteen of the twenty September 11 attackers legally entered the United States under this guise. n72 Permissive illegal immigration policies are a danger to national security, because terrorists are most effective at advancing their cause when they perpetrate acts from within the borders of the target country, rather than attacking its embassies and other overseas interests. n73 Strong emotions are stirred when terrorism hits close to home. This is why terrorists have frequently violated immigration laws. They want to get close, and they want to remain undetected. The lesson to be learned from September 11 is that those who would destroy innocent life and otherwise create terror might already be living inside the country they intend to attack
Temporary visas are the most common way for terrorists to gain access to the U.S.
Graham 4 (Chadwick. WHITHER GOES CUBA? PROSPECTS FOR ECONOMIC & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PART I OF II: STUDENT NOTE: Defeating an Invisible Enemy: The Western Superpowers' Efforts to Combat Terrorism by Fighting Illegal Immigration. Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems. 14 Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Probs. 281. LN)
This disparity in border control priority made the U.S.-Canada border more accessible to terrorists. n185 "Canada's generous political asylum laws, a shortage of law enforcement resources and difficulties tracking aliens who enter the country and then disappear, have made Canada a haven for terrorists." n186 Thus, overcompensation in the South has left vulnerabilities in the North. Terrorists have proven to be adept at uncovering such weaknesses. Illegal immigration [*302] enforcement mechanisms should be careful to allot resources in the most efficient way, which brings up the next problem with the heavy concentration of immigration controls on the U.S.-Mexico border. It is monopolizing the precious few available resources in order to deter illegal immigration as a whole. These resources should first be utilized to fight illegal immigration with the purpose of promoting national security. This effort should not be made on the border of Mexico. Rather, it should take place in those areas that terrorists have been exploiting. While several known terrorists have entered the United States illegally through Canada, many more have violated U.S. immigration laws after entering with legal visas. n187 This is because, until relatively recently, legislators had not recognized the essential need for internal enforcement mechanisms to reduce the swelling corpus of illegal aliens, among which terrorists had been able to go undetected.
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas
Empirically terrorists use H1-B visa to stay in the country
Wall Street Journal 5-4-10
Details are emerging on how Faisal Shahzad, arrested as the owner of the bomb-laden SUV left Saturday in Times Square, integrated into American life and eventually gained citizenship. In December 1998 he was granted an F-1 student visa. Immigration officials noted then that there was “no derogatory information” on Mr. Shahzad in any database, a law enforcement official said. He first attended Southeastern University in Washington, DC, then transferred in 2000 to the University of Bridgeport, Conn., where he received a B.A. in computer science and engineering. He next appears in April, 2002, when he was granted an H1-B visa for skilled workers; he stayed in the U.S. for three years on that visa and gained an M.B.A. It is not clear what company sponsored the visa, which is used to attract workers with a “specialty occupation,” such as information technology. Then on October 20, 2008, he reported his marriage to a woman he identified as Huma Asif Mian, an American citizen. He became a naturalized as a U.S. citizen on April 17, 2009. While law enforcement officials don’t have exhaustive details of his travels after he was naturalized, one trip in particular stands out: he left New York on June 2, 2009, on an Emirates flight to Dubai. He stayed overseas for eight months, returning on February 3, 2010, on another Emirates flight from Dubai. Mr. Shahzad was arrested late Monday on board an Emirates flight from New York City to Dubai and was heading to Islamabad.
H1-B visas link –
Cutler 9 (Michael. Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.
A citizen of India, Rajendrasinh B. Makwana attempted to sabotage the computer database at Fannie Mae. He was, according to news reports, employed as a so-called temporary foreign worker who had been authorized to work in the United States temporarily under the provisions of the H1B visa that had been issued to him. Here’s how this appalling situation can be summed up: This is the real threat to society, not the sinking of Fannie Mae. But the strange case of Makwana does bring up a number of issues. The main one is the use ofH1B visa workers – and holders of other alien-worker documentation – in sensitive areas. Why was Makwana working at Fannie Mae in the first place? Are you telling me no American citizen could have done his job? This is not a new concern. It has long been believed that in most cases H1B visas in technology have been exploited by companies such as Fannie Mae only because programmers coming from India work cheaper. But there is no way of knowing much about any of these folks, and that immediately becomes a homeland-security issue. The issue of this Fannie Mae employee actually illuminates an even broader issue that can be summed up with a simple question: "What constitutes critical infrastructure?" An individual who is intent on attacking our nation would find that the United States offers so many tempting targets, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. On May 5, 2005, I was called upon to testify before the House Subcommittee in Immigration, Border Security and Claims at a hearing that was entitled “New ‘Dual Missions’ of the Immigration Enforcement Agencies." During the hearing, as I sat next to one of the other witnesses, Richard Stanna of the GAO (General Accounting Office- as that agency was then called), I was more than a bit astounded that Mr. Stana made the point that there was still no mission statement for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). As he made that incredible admission of the incompetence of our government some several years after the worst terrorist attack ever committed on our nation's soil – which was carried our entirely by foreign nationals who had easily gamed the immigration system – my head felt as though it was going to explode! Rep. Steve King (the current ranking member of the House Immigration Subcommittee) asked me about the issue of the attrition problem at ICE. Certainly, attrition is a major issue. It has been estimated that it costs well over $100,000 to recruit and train each new special agent, and it takes upwards of five years for a new special agent to truly be "up to speed." Additionally, the massive attrition crisis at ICE contributes to a loss of "institutional memory" at that agency. I started to respond to Rep. King's important question and then, with the words of Richard Stana still reverberating in my head, I asked King if I could please comment on the lack of amission statement for ICE more than three years after the attacks of 9/11. I was given permission, and I wound up speaking for far longer than the normal time limit, doing everything I could to make it clear that this was an utterly unacceptable situation. Here is the transcript of the initial part of my response: We can't look at immigration enforcement and say, well, we're just going to go after illegal aliens, or we're just going to go after terrorists. Sleepers, which, as you know, Robert Mueller, the head of the FBI, talked to the Senate Intelligence Committee at a hearing back in February, talked about his concerns about sleeper agents. Sleeper agents aren't people that just simply come into the country and dig a hole in the ground like a cicada and hide there for a year or two waiting for a phone call; they are people that hide in plain sight. If it's employment that draws the bulk of the illegal aliens across the border; it's immigration fraud that enables them to stay here and hide in plain sight. And if we don't address that issue, and if we are told that there's still no realmission statement 3 1/2 years into what's been billed as a war on terror, it gives me cause for pause. And if you go to the ICE website, the Homeland Security website, what is amazing to me – because I just checked it yesterday, because you would think that the home page of any organization would be where you set forth your number one, number two, number three priority. Well, there wasn't a single thing on that Website that related back to the enforcement of immigration law other than an I-9 and the fact that they've gone to electronic I-9s. Now, if this is supposed to behomeland security, I have yet another reason not to go to sleep this evening. The one point I did not address at the hearing, but wish I had, was the point that Richard Stana made about how as a component of DHS, ICE had to prioritize the use for its extremely limited resources and needed to focus on "trophy targets" rather than address the normal immigration issues of aliens working in industries such as the food industry. This the direct quote from Mr. Stana on that point: Mr. STANA. I would put it this way: I think it is more of a matter of what is the mission of ICE and CBP. Being in DHS, whose mission is to enhance national security and to fight terrorism, they are taking their cues from the broader organization. So when we talk about ICE not doing some things now in the interior enforcement of immigration policies, it's understandable. The ICE mission is now national security and antiterrorism. So what's happening is, at ICE and CBP, they are fulfilling that mission by, for example, in work site enforcement, by targeting their efforts to trophy targets, whether they be nuclear power plants, airplane tarmacs and so on. They are not going to the food processing plants like they used to because the mission of DHS is national security and antiterrorism. If we wanted a fundamental shift to bring the mission back to what it was in INS, and that is to enforce immigration law and to provide benefits to eligible aliens, then that would require a fundamental shift of structure. But that is not what the DHS mission is right now. That is number one. As I asked before, "What constitutes critical infrastructure?" Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, our flat-footed government has been putting much emphasis on airline safety and screening passengers boarding airliners because we know that the terrorists of 9/11, in effect, turned passenger airliners into de facto cruise missiles with devastating results. Of course the screening process of those passengers is far from perfect, an issue I plan to write about in the near future, but the point is that while our government has paid an awful lot of attention on airliners, they are ignoring other areas of extreme vulnerability. We often hear about ICE conducting field operations to go after illegal aliens who work on military bases doing construction work. Similarly, we hear about other illegal aliens who are arrested for working on power plants and other venues that have national security implications. In reality, people who process our food are working in an industry that has major national security implications. Imagine how much damage a terrorist or a group of terrorists could do by poisoning food that is distributed around the United States to thousands, if not millions, of people. Think about how many people are made ill by eating tainted food. The current problem food, peanut butter, has made headlines all aroundthe United States. Outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli have raised similar concerns about public health. I am not an expert in biology or chemistry. However, from what I have read, while concerns are often raised about protecting our reservoirs, almost no attention is paid to our food supply. I am not attempting to criticize Richard Stana. In fact, I have respect for him. He is attempting to do the best job possible. The problem is that our government needs to think "outside the box." Another area of vulnerability that is virtually never addressed is the issue of immigration fraud. By not mounting a meaningful effort to weed out fraud in applications for immigration benefits, we hear of those aliens who succeed in becoming United States citizens by committing immigration fraud and then use their United States citizenship to acquire security clearances to either work for sensitive government agencies such as the FBI or CIA to gain access to sensitive databases. I do not know what motivated Rajendrasinh B. Makwana to attempt to wreak such havoc on Fannie Mae. He may simply have been "wacky," for lack of a better term, or he may have had a clear purpose in coming to the United States to work at that important government agency. Hopefully, the investigators who are involved in this case will do a good job of "connecting the dots" and determine who he may have been affiliated with. I hope that these investigators will also seek to uncover if he had accomplices in the United States. This may help them to determine what motivated his actions and neutralize any further such actions if others are involved. It has been said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." The problem is that there is little done to properly screen aliens who seek to obtain visas to enable these aliens to enter the United States. The expansion of the Visa Waiver Program creates other vulnerabilities. Additionally, of course, I reiterate the issue raised by Mr. Dvorak in the article linked above, which is one that all Americans must raise: Why was Makwana working at Fannie Mae in the first place? Are you telling me no American citizen could have done his job? There have been members of Congress who are demanding that a cap be placed on the salaries of executives of companies that have received massive amounts of taxpayer money to bail out their respective companies. Here is my suggestion: No company that receives taxpayer bailout money should be able to hire foreign workers unless they can truly prove that there are no Americans who can do those jobs. Furthermore, those companies should be subject to a scrutiny by special agents of ICE to make certain that the employees that they hire are lawfully present in the United States, to make certain that there are no illegal aliens working for them! If the point to the government economic stimulus program is to get money into the hands of the citizens of our nation and to keep the money circulating throughout our nation's economy to create a "multiplier effect," then it is absolutely counterproductive to pay foreign workers whose goal is to send money back to their home countries and out of our nation's economy. Each and every year, tens of billions of dollars are wired or otherwise sent from the United States to the countries from which foreign workers come. This applies to illegal aliens as well as foreign workers who have temporary work visas. It is better for the economy of the United States to pay an American worker more than to pay a foreign worker, because a better paid American will spend, save and invest his money right here, inside the United States of America. When a person is nearsighted and fails to wear his glasses, he may walk into a wall. When our government is nearsighted, our nation may hit the wall with horrific results.
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas
Visa decision have a direct relation to homeland security – a policy that doesn’t coordinate those effort just exacerbates those security problems
McNeill, Carafano, and Zuckerman 10 (30 Terrorist Plots Foiled: How the System Worked, 4/29/10, ,
Jena, is Policy Analyst for Homeland Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, James, is Deputy Director of the Davis Institute and Director of the Allison Center and Jessica, is a Research Assistant in the Allison Center at The Heritage Foundation. accessed 7/30/10) GEC
The tools provided by these acts have been vital in thwarting many of the 30 plots discussed above. Nevertheless, key provisions of the PATRIOT Act expired in December 2009. Congress has since extended these provisions until the end of 2010; further steps must be taken to ensure their permanence. • Increase visa coordination. America’s first line of defense is its borders. Careful screening of those who wish to cross them allows for the opportunity to apprehend terrorists and other criminals before they enter the country. Visa decisions thus have key homeland security implications, yet very little coordination occurs between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State on visa affairs. This relationship and coordination must be enhanced through implementation of programs such as the Visa Security Office program, which would place homeland security officials in consular offices overseas. • Develop a detainment framework for terrorist detainees.
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas
Visa security measures are barely adequate in the status quo – we can’t risk expanding the programs under those conditions
Hutchinson 10 (Asa, 2/9/10, “Analysis: Visa security is critical to preventing terrorist attacks” Asa Hutchinson, president and chief executive officer of Hutchinson Group consulting in Little Rock, Ark., is former undersecretary for border and transportation security at DHS.)
As DHS' first undersecretary for border and transportation security, it was my responsibility to fulfill the congressional mandate to establish a visa security office, deploy visa security agents to priority and at-risk embassies, and identify visa seekers who might pose a risk to the United States. Before DHS was created, visa security checks were limited. Consular officers would interview visa applicants at U.S. embassies worldwide, they would conduct automated name checks against watch lists of known terrorists, and they would obtain the applicants' fingerprints and a digital photograph. Now a visa security agent complements the State Department's efforts, applying a keen law enforcement perspective to further check applicants who are either "not yet known" or flagged, to stop them from reaching the United States. The DHS visa security office's deployment of agents to embassies has been limited due to resistance from the State Department and a lack of funding. State contends its employees do the job adequately and that visa security agents can do their work remotely in Washington. Clearly the former is inaccurate; the Christmas Day bombing attempt is a case in point. But what of the latter assertion? The DHS inspector general has found that the successful vetting of visas requires a hands-on presence at the embassy. On the ground, visa security agents can better connect local intelligence (such as that given by Abdulmutallab's father to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria). They also can re-interview applicants if necessary, applying trained law enforcement and security perspectives the State Department simply does not offer. In one instance cited by the IG in a July 2008 report, an applicant applied for a student visa at an overseas embassy. Based on available information, the consular officer initially approved the application. The visa security agent further vetted the applicant and produced information revealing that the applicant's uncle was the subject of a terrorism investigation. Because of the agent's work, additional information was provided to the FBI about the uncle and, based on the agent's recommendation, the consular officer denied the student visa. In 2007 alone, DHS visa agents recommended denials due to security concerns for more than 700 visa applicants. Regrettably, agents are posted in fewer than 15 embassies, which is less than 10 percent of all U.S. embassies and consulates. This needs to change immediately. Logic suggests that if hundreds in high-risk areas have been denied visas, other locations might also require a close look. What is more, America's enemies are smart and resourceful. Soon they will figure out where their chances of obtaining a U.S. visa are greatest, if they haven't done so already. There is another advantage to the role of Homeland Security deploying visa security agents, and that is another avenue of redress in the event an error is made and a legitimate traveler is wrongly denied a visa. A visa security agent can review the intelligence and provide checks and balances for an imperfect human system. Congress must place a priority on funding these critical visa security positions. The Obama administration needs to make sure the State and Homeland Security departments are working together on this important mission because, as it is, nearly a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, terrorists still are arriving on planes. As President Obama said, this is "totally unacceptable." Asa Hutchinson, president and chief executive officer of Hutchinson Group consulting in Little Rock, Ark., is former undersecretary for border and transportation security at DHS.
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas
Al Queda will exploit expanded visa programs
Abrams 2010. (“Thousands From Terror-Sponsoring Nations Entering U.S. on 'Diversity Visas'” )
Though Umar Farouk Abdulmattallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian accused of trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day, used a tourist visa -- not a diversity visa -- to enter the country, Goodlatte said he worries that Al Qaeda members will game the system. He fears they will submit the names of young acolytes from Saudi Arabia or Yemen who have clean records and could gain entry to the U.S. to wreak havoc. More than 1,000 such visas have been granted to Yemenis in the past decade alone. "You can take young people out of the madrassas that have no record of any activity with a terrorist organization but are loyal followers of Usama bin Laden," he said. The State Department's Office of the Inspector General recommended in a 2003 report that terror-sponsoring nations be removed from the diversity visa program. "OIG believes that this program contains significant vulnerabilities to national security as hostile intelligence officers, criminals and terrorists attempt to use it to enter the United States as permanent residents," the office's deputy inspector testified to Congress in 2004.
Liberalized immigration policy poses significant risk of terrorist attack in the US
Camarota 1. (Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Gov’t Information, ) SEW
The nation's responses to the horrific attacks of September 11 will clearly have to be in many different areas: including military retaliation, freezing terrorist assets, diplomatic initiatives, improvements in intelligence gathering, and expanded security measures at airports, utilities and other public places. But one aspect of increased preparedness must not be overlooked — changes in immigration and border control. Though all the details have been released, it seems clear that the 19 terrorists of September 11 were foreign citizens and most entered the United States legally as tourists, business travelers, or students. This was also true of the perpetrators of previous terrorist acts, including Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Mir Amal Kasi, murderer of two CIA employees the same year, and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted in 1995 of plotting a terror campaign in New York. While it is absolutely essential that we not scapegoat immigrants, especially Muslim immigrants, we also must not overlook the most obvious fact: the current terrorist threat to the United States comes almost exclusively from individuals who arrive from abroad. Thus, our immigration policy, including temporary and permanent visas issuance, border control, and efforts to deal with illegal immigration are all critical to reducing the chance of an attack in the future.
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas
H1-B Program vulnerable and easily exploited
Thibodeau, 9. ( “H-1B Visa Program Under Increased DHS Scrutiny” ComputerWorld. )
An internal report by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services examining the H-1B visa program has found evidence of forged documents and fake degrees, and even "shell" companies giving addresses of fake locations. The USCIS report, released Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), indicates that serious violations of the H-1B program by employers are so common that one in five visas are affected by either fraud or "technical violations." This means that potentially thousands of employers may be violating the rules, some willfully. Employers didn't pay prevailing wages in some cases and benched employees when there wasn't work, while some employees worked at jobs that differed from what the application claimed they would be doing. In one bizarre case, an H-1B holder was found "working in a laundromat doing laundry and maintaining washing machines," the report said. "This report validates the major flaws in the H-1B visa program," Grassley said in a statement. "It's unacceptable that these fraudulent activities are slipping through the cracks when there is so much legitimate demand for H-1B visas."
Terrorists exploit gaps in visa security programs
Lieberman & Collins 10. (“Collin, Lieberman examine visa security urge DHS, State Department to work together” Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
)
Collins said: “It is clear that terrorists will continue to seek to exploit any vulnerabilities in our visa system. We must continue to strengthen our visa issuance and revocation process. Since this is a primary means of preventing terrorists from traveling to our nation, it must work effectively and it must be a priority. Visa holders with possible connections to terrorism should shoulder the burden of proving they do not intend to harm this nation or its citizens. If they cannot meet this burden, then we cannot take the risk of permitting them the privilege of traveling to our country.” This was the fifth in a series of hearings HSGAC has held to examine the intelligence and security systems that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board a U.S. bound airliner and attempt to blow it up. The State Department witness, Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Janice Jacobs, described changes that have been implemented since Christmas Day to strengthen the visa issuing and revocation process. She said State has put measures into place to more swiftly revoke visas to people linked to terrorism and has deployed software to check multiple possible name spellings for visa records to avoid the error that occurred in the Christmas Day case when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s name was misspelled, leading officials to believe he didn’t have a visa and thus did not pose an immediate threat. But, even if his visa-status had been known when his father raised concerns to the embassy in Nigeria, it would not necessarily have been revoked. Jacobs noted that as a result of the changes State has implemented, the concerns expressed by Abdulmutallab’s father would now lead to the revocation of his son’s visa. Gaps remain, however. “Nine years after September 11, we still do not have an automated system in place to check for revoked visas as individuals board airplanes,” Lieberman said.
Overburdening the visa system allows terrorists to gain access to the US
Verdery 6 (C. Stewert, Jr. – J.D., Former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 19, "Immigration Enforcement at the Workplace: Learning from the Mistakes of 1986," ) JJN
Most such migrants are gainfully employed here, pay taxes, and many have started families and developed roots in our society. And an attempt to locate and deport these 10 to 12 million people is sure to fail and would be extraordinarily divisive to our country. But others seeking to cross our borders illegally do present a threat – including potential terrorists and criminals. The current flow of illegal immigrants and people overstaying their visas has made it extremely difficult for our border and interior enforcement agencies to be able to focus on the terrorists, organized criminals, and violent felons who use the cloak of anonymity that the current chaotic situation offers.
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas
Our legal system would not be able to cope with a massive influx of applicants – terrorists would exploit weaknesses
Cutler 10 (Michael, Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, Family Security Matters, ) JAS
One of the principle goals of terrorists who succeed in entering our country is to acquire, in any way possible, lawful immigrant status and United States citizenship. Generally this involves committing fraud.
If you doubt this, please check out the 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel.
I can assure you that there is absolutely no way that our government and especially the beleaguered adjudicators at USCIS would be able to determine the true identities of any of the millions of undocumented aliens who would line up in front of federal office buildings across the nation to obtain lawful status but who have no way of providing reliable evidence as to their true identities.
What is infuriating was that the reporter in the first segment noted that when they attempted to contact the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, she refused to be interviewed or even return the calls made by the reporters.
I would remind you that Ms Napolitano is the same individual who declared that anyone who wants our nation's borders secured against the illegal entry of illegal aliens into our country were "extremists."
I also find it ironic that the same federal government officials such as the Obama administration and members of Congress yelped like scalded cats when the governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer and members of the Arizona state legislature attempted to address the failures to secure our nation's borders and create an immigration system that has real integrity. The White House and many journalists publicly condemned Governor Brewer about the potential that local and state police officers might engage in "profiling" our federal "leaders" believe that the adjudicators at USCIS would be able to discern the difference between illegal aliens from Latin America and the Middle East when these aliens cannot provide a shred of documentation to attest to their true identities, if the national suicide pact known as "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" is enacted!
It is astounding that politicians from other states would call for boycotting businesses in Arizona because the state government of Arizona is attempting to combat alien smuggling, drug trafficking, kidnapping, home invasions and national security related issues!
What chutzpah! What a demonstration of complete and utter stupidity!
I think everyone in the United States should be sending Governor Brewer and the members of Arizona's state legislature thank you cards and make a point of visiting Arizona when vacation time roles around!
The greatest threat to our nation is that far too many of our nation's "leaders" are so intent on furthering trade and globalism that no matter the risks to national security and no matter the harm it may do to the average American citizens who simply want to support themselves and their families and grasp their share of what we used to call "The American Dream" that they will do and say anything to keep our borders open and encourage a limitless flow of cheap and exploitable workers and potential voters to come to the United States both legally and illegally.
Of course the legal system is not really a legal system in all too many instances because the system lacks any real integrity. Visa fraud and immigration fraud enable aliens to easily game the immigration system and acquire lawful status including resident aliens status as signified by the issuance of a "Green Card" and even United States citizenship to which they would not be entitled if the system had integrity.
The goal of the terrorists is to gain entry into our country and then hide in plain sight. In the parlance of the 9/11 Commission this is known as embedding.
Of 94 terrorists who were identified as operating in our country in the decade before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 some 59 were identified as using immigration fraud and immigration benefit fraud to enter our country and/or embed themselves in our country in communities across our nation
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas
The vast majority of terrorists are visa overstayers – the visa is the primary tool by which they enter the States
Stock 6 (Margaret D., Associate Prof in Department of Law at U.S. Military Academy, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 5/11, ) JAS
But perhaps most important is the issue of visa overstays. (Strictly speaking, it is not the visa itself, issued by the State Department, which expires and turns the foreign visitor into an illegal alien, but rather the length of stay granted the alien by the immigration inspector at the airport or land crossing.) Estimates are that as many as 40 percent of illegal aliens are overstayers, who entered the country legally but did not leave when their time ran out, representing perhaps 4 million or more people. And, in fact, the majority of those terrorists who were illegal aliens when they committed their crimes were overstayers. Of the 12 al Qaeda operatives who were illegal aliens in the United States when they took part in terrorism between 1993 and 2001 (out of the 48 examined in the Center for Immigration Studies report, The Open Door), seven were visa overstayers. These include two conspirators in the first World Trade Center attack, Mohammed Salameh and Eyad Ismoil. Other terrorist overstayers were Lafi Khalil, who was involved in the New York subway bomb plot, and four of the 9/11 terrorists: Zacarias Moussaoui, Satam al Suqami, Nawaf al Hamzi, and Hani Hanjour. In addition, Fadil Abdelghani, who took part in the plot to bomb New York land- marks, had overstayed a tourist visa in 1987. He obtained permanent residence in 1991 through a sham marriage to an American. The murderer of two CIA employees in 1993, Mir Aimal Kansi, overstayed a business visa and later applied for asylum. Given the prevalence of overstays among terrorists in the United States, it’s an important security goal to limit this phenomenon as much as possible. This can be done in two ways: keeping likely overstays from being issued visas in the first place, and detecting overstays once they do happen. Section 214(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act states that ‘‘every alien shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer . . . that he is entitled to nonimmigrant status.’’ Individuals who appear likely to overstay their temporary visa are called ‘‘intending immigrants’’— that is, they will try to settle permanently in the United States. Consular officers are not to issue ‘‘nonimmigrant’’ (i.e., temporary) visas unless the applicant can demonstrate that he has a residence abroad to which he is likely to return (with some exceptions), that the visit to the United States will be temporary, and that the applicant has enough money to finance the visit and return trip. Officers are trained to look for evidence of strong ties to the applicant’s home country, such as family, a good job, property, and other things that would increase the likelihood that an applicant will return, and to be skeptical of applicants who fit the profile of a probable overstayer. The criteria vary from country to country, but these individuals are generally young, unemployed or earning a low income, and unmarried. Section 214(b) is by far the most common reason for applications to be refused. This is specifically relevant to terrorism because ordinary intending immigrants and terrorists often have similar characteristics—youth, no families of their own, no consistent career, no property or other deep attachments in their home countries. In other words, stricter standards for the issuance of visas to prevent ordinary overstays could be a powerful tool to reduce the terrorist threat as well.
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas
Terrorists can get visas immediately in the squo – allowing more visa applicants would ensure even looser adherence to screening and more attacks
Stock 6 (Margaret D., Associate Prof in Department of Law at U.S. Military Academy, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 5/11, ) JAS
Nor is this merely supposition. The visa applications of 15 of the 19 hijackers were examined by current and former consular officers and every one of the experts told Joel Mowbray of National Review magazine in 2002 that every one of the applications should have been denied for conventional reasons. Of the applications of two of the hijackers, Mowbray wrote: Brothers Wail and Waleed al-Shehri applied together for travel visas on Octo- ber 24, 2000. Wail claimed his occupation was ‘‘teater,’’ while his brother wrote ‘‘student.’’ Both listed the name and address of his respective employer or school as simply ‘‘South City.’’ Each also declared a U.S. destination of ‘‘Wasantwn.’’ But what should have further raised a consular officer’s eyebrows is the fact that a student and his nominally employed brother were going to go on a four-to-six- month vacation, paid for by Wail’s ‘‘teater’’ salary, which he presumably would be foregoing while in the United States. Even assuming very frugal accommodations, such a trip for two people would run north of $15,000, yet there is no indication that the consular officer even attempted to determine that Wail in fact had the financial means to fund the planned excursion. They appear to have received their visas the same day they applied. Therefore, stricter adherence to the expectations of the statute, a stronger prevailing attitude of skepticism among consular officers, and greater understanding of the need to invoke Section 214(b), the keystone of non-immigrant visa law, could be a highly effective tool against terrorism. With some four million overstayer illegal aliens, strict adherence to 214(b) could also have a significant impact on efforts to reduce illegal immigration. Screening visa applicants for intending immigrants has security benefits because ‘‘intending terrorists’’ have similar characteristics. But if the terrorist gets in anyway, there’s also a significant likelihood that he’ll actually overstay, because of the time involved in organizing and preparing for any significant terrorist attack. And this is why detecting and removing overstays is important not merely for ordinary immigration control but also for security reasons.
Plan boosts visa overstayers – creating a gaping hole in security that risks 9/11-style terrorism
Vaughan 8 (Jessica, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, Statement before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, 2/28, ) JAS
Immigration policymakers on the Hill and in the Executive Branch have understood for well over a decade that visa overstayers represent a significant share of the illegal alien population. Estimates range from one-third to one-half of the illegal alien population, or between four to six million illegal aliens. They present a possible national security risk -- several of the 9/11 hijackers were visa overstayers, and others have been caught working in critical infrastructure facilities or other sensitive locations. They commit crimes. For example, among the most violent criminal gangsters arrested under ICE’s Operation Community Shield were several murderers who entered on non-immigrant visa. In addition, like other illegal immigrants, visa overstayers are costly to taxpayers. The total net cost of illegal immigration runs about $10 billion per year, after taxes are accounted for, so the share of that cost attributable to visa overstayers is likely $3-5 billion per year.
With all we know about the risks and costs associated with visa overstayers, it is hard to understand why DHS has displayed so little curiosity about this population. Most observers agree that collecting and analyzing information on visa overstayers is key to maintaining the integrity of the immigration system. Congress first mandated the development of an entry-exit system in 1996, after the first World Trade center bombing. In addition to producing actionable enforcement leads, a true entry-exit recording system would enable policymakers to assess which travelers are not complying with the law. Visa overstay data provide information on how travelers actually behave, and are less speculative than refusal rates, which reflect the aggregate of consular officers’ assessment of possible behavior.
This data is important to consular officers, who crave better information to use in making visa issuance decisions. It is especially important in making an objective and sound determination of which countries might qualify for the Visa Waiver Program. How DHS can contemplate expanding the system before the entry-exit system is ready is beyond my comprehension, but that is exactly what is happening.
Link Extensions: Temporary Visas
The system is exploited – expanding access only exacerbates the problem
Huessy 10 (Peter, Senior Defense Consultant at the National Defense University Foundation, Fox News, 5/7, ) JAS
1. Dozens of bomb plotters in attacks on the United States have used the immigration system to marry women here in America and thus gain citizenship faster and with less scrutiny than they otherwise would. This includes the bombing suspect arrested for attempting to blow up people in New York City and Times Square, a point made eloquently and most recently by Michelle Malkin.
2. In 2008, I testified before the Maryland State Assembly that driver licenses should not be given to those illegally in America. Remember Muhammad Atta had a driver’s license and when stopped in North Carolina for a traffic violation, the local police officer could not access immigration records to determine that Atta was here on an expired visa. After testifying, I remained outside the hearing room and listened to a local Montgomery County representative to the Annapolis Assembly being interviewed by Mexican television about the oppressive nature of such a law as forbidding those illegally in the U.S. from getting driver licenses. She told a Mexican television reporter that there was really no such thing as an illegal immigrant: “They are all here simply waiting to adjust their status. 3. Then there is the news that Syria, probably via Iran and North Korea, has transferred Scud missiles to Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based terrorist subsidiary of Iran. Remember, Scud missiles used to be what we thought about when thinking about missile threats from Saddam’s Iraq and Kim’s North Korea. It appears everyone has graduated—Kim to long range rockets and Hezbollah to Scuds! 4. Finally, there's the likelihood that Iran will get a nuclear weapon and transfer it to a specially created and trained terror group to smuggle it into the United States. Open borders make that an easier job. Scam marriages do too. So, here we are congratulating ourselves for capturing the Times Square suspect when our own immigration system is so riddled with holes that terrorists can drive right across our borders in an explosive laden truck and with a driver’s license secured in any number of states blind to current threats. And we congratulate ourselves when our supposed potential peace partners, with whom were are so eager to engage, are either sending rockets to terrorists or building nuclear bombs destined for an American city.
Link Extensions: Asylum
Liberalized asylum policies are a primary tool for terrorist to the enter the U.S.
Spencer 8 (Specialist in terrorism and international politics for the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute for Politial Science, “Linking Immigrants and Terrorists: The Use of Immigration as an Anti-Terror Policy”, ) SEW
Similar to Camarota, Janice L. Kephart (2005) wants to show how “[t]errorists have used just about every means possible to enter the United States, from acquiring legitimate passports and visas for entry to stowing away illegally on an Algerian gas tanker” (Kaphart 2005: 7). The study examines 94 individuals considered to be linked to terrorist organizations. In this case to make the link between immigration and terrorism even more visible, only terrorists linked to immigration violation are included. This goes as far as only including six of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers who actually seem to have violated any immigration rules. Apart from linking immigration to terrorism she also focuses specifically on political asylum and refugees as potential terrorists. Kephart argues that claims for political asylum are a good way for terrorists to enter a country, by pointing out that it keeps them from being deported quickly and gives them the opportunity to move around the country. Furthermore, the fact that many asylum decisions are not based on hard evidence but are made on the basis of the word of the applicant, makes fraudulent claims easier for terrorists (Kephart 2005: 26).
Amnesty links -
Kobach 7 (Kris-J.D., chief A.G. advisor on immigration 01-03, June 19, The Senate Immigration Bill: A National Security Nightmare, ) JJN
Proponents of the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill are attempting to rhetorically recast the massive amnesty proposal as national security legislation. "It's a matter of our national security," insisted Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), a sponsor of the legislation. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez has echoed the point repeatedly: "This is a national security bill. We are fixing a national security problem." The legislation, proponents claim, would encourage or even compel all illegal aliens--terrorists included--to come forward and reveal their true identities as well as any criminal or terrorist connections that they may have. In reality, however, the legislation would actually create a national security problem by providing new opportunities and advantages for alien terrorists currently operating on American soil.
The revelation of the terrorist plot to bomb JFK Airport serves as a timely reminder that alien terrorists are operating in the United States. Terrorists are busy thinking of new ways to kill innocent Americans while the Senate thinks of new ways to grant a massive amnesty to 12-20 million illegal aliens. The four JFK terrorists include two nationals of Guyana, one of Trinidad, and one former Guyanan who was granted U.S. citizenship. The Fort Dix Islamic terrorists who were arrested in May included five foreign nationals from Yugoslavia and Jordan. A sixth, from Turkey, eventually obtained U.S. citizenship. Of the five aliens, three were illegal aliens who snuck across the southern border years ago near Brownsville, Texas. It is a certainty that many more illegal alien terrorists are quietly at work in the United States. In fiscal year 2005, the Border Patrol apprehended 3,722 aliens from nations that are designated state sponsors of terrorism or places in which al-Qaeda has operated, and for every one alien whom the Border Patrol apprehended, there were likely three aliens who were not caught. If so, it is probable that more than 10,000 aliens from high-risk, terrorist-associated countries illegally entered the United States in fiscal year 2005 alone. Assuming conservatively that only one in 100 was an actual terrorist, that is still over 100 terrorists who snuck across the border in a single year. Inexplicably, proponents of the Kennedy amnesty bill assume that its enactment will allow the federal government to identify these terrorists. On the contrary, the bill will make it easier for alien terrorists to operate in the United States by allowing them to create fraudulent identities with ease. To understand what will happen if the bill becomes law, assume the perspective of the illegal alien terrorist operating within the United States. Within 180 days after the President signs the legislation, the Department of Homeland Security must start handing out amnesties, in the form of "probationary" Z visas. (No border security triggers need to be met; the amnesty comes first, according to Sections 1(a) and 601(f)(2) of the bill.) At that point, the terrorist can choose whichever of three options suits him best. Terrorist Option #1: Continue to Operate as an Illegal Alien. The terrorist can simply continue engaging in terrorist planning while remaining unlawfully present in the United States. This option is particularly easy if the terrorist lives in a sanctuary city, in which the police refuse to inform the federal government when they come into contact with illegal aliens. Most major U.S. cities are now sanctuary cities, including New York City, Los Angeles, and, most recently, Detroit. Detroit's huge population of Middle Eastern immigrants provides perfect cover for newly arrived terrorists from the Middle East. Terrorists know all about sanctuary cities and the concealment that such cities provide. The Fort Dix terrorists are a case in point. The group's three illegal aliens were pulled over a total of 19 times by local police for traffic violations. But because of sanctuary policies, they were never reported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Sanctuary cities have been prohibited under federal law (8 U.S.C. §§ 1373 and 1644) for more than 10 years. Nevertheless, sanctuary cities defy this federal law with impunity, because the statute does not impose any penalty on cities that adopt sanctuary policies. If proponents of the Senate bill were seriously concerned about national security, they would include a provision in the bill denying federal law enforcement funds to sanctuary cities. Such a provision would quickly bring the lawbreaking cities back into line. Moreover, even if an alien terrorist operates in a city that is not a sanctuary city, the bill would not impede his operations. Indeed, the Senate immigration bill will make life easier for him by reducing the risk of deportation, because the legislation transforms Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from a law enforcement agency into an amnesty distribution center. Under Sections 601 (h)(1) and (5) of the bill, if an ICE agent apprehends any alien who appears eligible for the Z visa (in other words, just about any illegal alien), the agent cannot detain him. Instead, ICE must provide the alien a reasonable opportunity to apply for the Z visa. This stands in stark contrast to the status quo, in which ICE can place the alien in detention and immediately initiate removal proceedings.
Under the Senate amnesty bill, the terrorist suffers no such inconvenience. Instead, being discovered by ICE merely requires him to choose either option #2 or option #3. Terrorist Option #2: Obtain the Amnesty Using One's Real Name. Seeking amnesty under one's real name is a promising option for any terrorist who has operated completely underground during his terrorist career. This is also a likely choice for a terrorist who has been recruited into Islamic jihad only recently. Such an individual will not have a record of past terrorist activity maintained by any government. Unfortunately, it is also a realistic option for a terrorist who is actually known by foreign governments to be involved in a terrorist organization. Under the Senate immigration bill, there is virtually no chance that the federal government will discover his terrorist connections in time. Section 601 (h)(1) of the bill allows the government only one business day to conduct a so-called background check on each applicant. If the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) adjudicator does not find any terrorist connection in time, the alien walks out of the building with a probationary Z visa on the next business day, able to work and roam the country at will. Twenty-four-hour background checks might suffice if the government had a single, readily searchable database of all the world's terrorists, but it does not. Much of the relevant information exists only on paper, while foreign governments are the source for other data. Twenty-four hours is a terrorist's fast track. Worse, as practical matter, the USCIS adjudicators would not even have 24 hours if the Senate bill were passed. As the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in 2006, the agency is already stretched to the breaking point by the approximately 6 million applications for immigration benefits (asylum, green cards, etc.) that it receives every year. The situation is so bad that an informal "six minute rule" is in place--adjudicators are pressed to spend no more than six minutes looking at any application. The GAO concluded that failure to detect fraud is already "an ongoing and serious problem" at the agency. Assuming (conservatively) that 12 million illegal aliens apply for the amnesty within the year allowed, it would triple the incoming workload--from 6 million applications to 18 million. Because of the 24-hour time limit, applications for the amnesty would receive only a few minutes of scrutiny. It is a certainty that applications from terrorists would be granted. Even under the present system--in which there is no time limit on background checks--terrorists have had little difficulty in obtaining amnesties. In one case, Mahmud "the Red" Abouhalima fraudulently obtained legal status under the 1986 amnesty that was supposed to be limited to seasonal agricultural workers. He was actually driving a cab in New York City and was also a ringleader in the 1993 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center. After receiving legal status, he traveled abroad for terrorist training. His brother Mohammed--a fellow terrorist in the plot--also obtained legal status under the 1986 amnesty. The above examples are not isolated cases. A 2005 study by Janice Kephart, Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, found that 59 out of 94 foreign-born terrorists (about 2/3) successfully committed immigration fraud to acquire or adjust legal status. With his newly acquired legal status, a terrorist can operate with a great deal more freedom, secure in the knowledge that a traffic violation will not lead to deportation. He can also exit and re-enter the country, allowing him greater access to international terrorist networks. The Senate immigration bill literally opens up a world of possibilities for illegal alien terrorists.
Terrorist Option #3: Invent a Clean Identity With the Help of the U.S. Government. The third option is perhaps the most troubling. The Senate bill fails to provide any safeguards against terrorists who invent entirely "clean" identities. Because the bill contains no requirement that the alien produce a secure foreign passport proving his identity, terrorists will have little trouble gaming the system. A terrorist can walk into a USCIS office and offer a completely fictitious name--one that does not have any negative information associated with it. In other words, a terrorist can declare that his name is "Rumpelstiltskin," or perhaps "Mohammed X," and most likely, walk out the next day with a probationary Z visa, complete with a government-issued ID card backing up his false identity.
The terrorist need only provide two easily forged pieces of paper indicating that a person of that name was in the country before January 1, 2007. A pay stub, a bank receipt, or a remittance receipt would suffice, as does a declaration from one of the terrorist's friends that he was in the country before January 1, 2007. With this newly minted identity backed up by an ID card issued by the federal government, the alien terrorist will be armed with the perfect "breeder document," allowing him to obtain driver's licenses and just about any other form of identification that he desires. This is essentially what the 19 9/11 hijackers did: They used their passports and visas as breeder documents to obtain 63 driver's licenses. The documents allowed them to travel openly and board airplanes easily. Congress could close this loophole relatively easily by requiring each applicant for the Z-visa amnesty to produce a secure passport with embedded biometrics. Senator Kennedy and other proponents of the bill are unlikely to fix that loophole, however. The majority of the 12-20 million illegal aliens in the United States do not possess a passport--much less a passport with embedded biometrics (which have been issued only in the last 12 months by most countries). Requiring illegal aliens to present such a passport would disqualify too many aliens for the pro-amnesty crowd. The flaw exposes what a deception the "national security" claim is. Supporters of the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill have revived it under the guise of national security. However, the new public relations campaign is a farce. The bill offers alien terrorists new pathways to obtain legal status, which will make it easier for them to carry out deadly attacks against American citizens.
Immigration system is overburdened – amnesty increases risk of successful terrorist entry into the US
Stein 7 (Dan, J.D. and FAIR president, May 18, quotation from FAIR article “Case Closed: Illegal Immigration Is a Threat to Homeland Security,” ) JJN
"Today we found out once again that our failure to control illegal immigration and our inability to manage the current caseload of people applying for immigration benefits poses a lethal risk to the nation," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "After years of denying the obvious - that terrorists can and will take advantage of the same unenforced immigration policies that have flooded this country with illegal immigrants - we now have irrefutable proof that the terrorists understand where we are vulnerable. We can be certain that there are many more terrorists who entered the country illegally or overstayed visas, and we may not be as lucky next time." The arrests in New Jersey further provide proof that the sort of amnesty program being considered by the Senate, with the support of the Bush Administration, would compound the threat to homeland security. "At the current caseload, the government has neither the resources nor the competence to identify terrorists who apply for green cards," charged Stein. "An amnesty or a 'pathway to legalization' program would add tens of millions more applicants to the queue. If they can't pick out a terrorist now, how are they going to protect this nation when a flood of new applications hit their desks? While the names of the agencies in charge of protecting our security have changed, the screening process is still being carried out by the same people who renewed Mohammed Atta's student visa six months after he crashed an airplane into the World Trade Center.
Link Extensions: Guest Worker Programs
Guest worker program would be an open door for terrorists
NTARC 7. ( “Open door for terrorism- the 24 hour background check”)
According to the current version of the bill, each worker who applies for the guest worker program would be required to pass a criminal background check. The government would be required to complete this background check within 24-hours. The problem with this is fairly evident. First, a central database for conducting background checks for crimes committed in foreign countries does not exist. NCIC, a computerized index of criminal justice information (i.e.- criminal record history information, fugitives, stolen properties, missing persons) stores information on only U.S. criminal history. Absent the ability to adequately perform background checks on over 12 million applicants, the new guest worker program would potentially provide safe passage to thousands possessing criminal records in their home countries. Secondly, the majority of illegal aliens are undocumented. This makes it nearly impossible to verify an applicant’s true identity. This bill would provide these individuals with official documents verifying their identity under any name they choose. How difficult would it be for terrorists to create new identities and freely travel our country while planning their next attack? Under this plan, perhaps as simple as deciding what name you would like to use.
Link Extensions: Open Borders
Open borders = terrorism flood to the U.S.
Schlafly 1 (Phyllis – J.D., Oct, The Phyllis Schlafly Report, The Threat of Terrorism Is From Illegal Aliens, ) JJN
The terrorists are foreigners, most or all of whom should not have been allowed to live in our country. As FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted, at least some of the hijackers were "out of status," i.e., they had no proper immigration documents. It should be repeated over and over again: The terrorism threat is from illegal aliens who are allowed to live in our midst -- and this is a failure of our immigration laws and our immigration officials. The criminals who were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, of the murders in front of the CIA headquarters in 1993, and who were involved in a 1998 plot to bomb New York's subway system were Middle East aliens who should not have been in the United States. They were either granted a visa that should never have been issued or had overstayed a visa and should have been expelled. The 1996 Khobar Towers bombings, the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen were all carried out by radical Middle East groups. Since easy access into the United States has been repeatedly exploited by aliens bent on terrorism, it should have been no surprise that it was used by the World Trade Center/Pentagon hijackers. The policy of opening our borders to anyone who wants to sneak into our country illegally -- or to remain illegally after entering legally -- must be exposed and terminated. This is the most important security precaution our government must take.
Link Extensions: Open Borders
Opening borders will increase terrorism and gang activity, which results in drug violence and human trafficking
Taylor 10 (Dr. Jameson, “ Illegal Immigration: Drugs, Gangs and Crime” ) JJN
Paramilitary groups trading fire with U.S. agents. Kidnappings and murders of U.S. citizens. Members of al-Qaida, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations infiltrating the border on a routine basis. We are not talking about Iraq – but Texas. One of the clearest indicators the United States has lost control of its southwest border is the ease with which thousands of tons of drugs and millions of illegal aliens are crossing the U.S. border on an annual basis. This open borders policy has opened the door to more than just cheap labor. The presence of millions of undocumented persons in our country has provided a perfect cover for various forms of criminal activity, ranging from drug trafficking to prostitution to identity theft. Federal investigators believe that as much as 2.2 million kilograms of cocaine and 11.6 kilograms of marijuana were smuggled into the United States via the Mexican border in 2005.1 With the decline of the Medellin and Cali cartels of Columbia, two Mexican drug cartels – the Sinaloa cartel and the Gulf cartel – are battling over the billion-dollar drug trade between Mexico and the United States. These cartels also have ties to U.S. gangs that serve as distribution networks in the interior United States. A 2006 study by the House Committee on Homeland Security warns that the Mexican cartels have essentially wrested control of the border from both the U.S. and Mexican governments: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports that the Mexican drug syndicates operating today along our Nation’s Southwest border are far more sophisticated and dangerous than any of the other organized criminal groups in America’s law enforcement history. Indeed, these powerful drug cartels, and the human smuggling networks and gangs they leverage, have immense control over the routes into the United States and continue to pose formidable challenges to our efforts to secure the Southwest border. … The cartels operate along the border with military grade weapons, technology and intelligence and their own respective paramilitary enforcers. ... This new breed of cartel is not only more violent, powerful and well financed, it is also deeply engaged in intelligence collection on both sides of the border.2 Here in North Carolina, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports “a significant increase in drug-trafficking activity.” Explains the DEA: “The majority of the increased drug-trafficking activity is due to an unprecedented influx of foreign nationals into the state” – in particular “Spanish-speaking, specifically Mexican, nationals.” A 2003 report by the National Drug Intelligence Center corroborates the DEA’s findings: Mexican criminal groups in southwestern states and Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) in Mexico routinely use Mexican illegal immigrants in North Carolina as couriers to transport cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and, to a lesser extent, heroin into and through the state. These criminal groups exploit a growing Mexican population in North Carolina to facilitate their illicit activities. Law enforcement authorities in North Carolina, principally in the western and southern areas of the state, indicate that Mexican criminal groups are also increasing their involvement in retail drug distribution.3 Needless to say, the majority of illegal immigrants are not directly involved in the drug trade. Nevertheless, the DEA has determined that “their presence allows Mexican traffickers to effectively conceal their activities within immigrant communities.”4 Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell (R) estimates that 80 percent to 85 percent of the drug trade in his county is conducted by Hispanics.5 In 2002, the Wake County Sheriff’s Office similarly reported that although Hispanics comprised only 5.4 percent of the population, they accounted for 46 percent of drug-trafficking arrests.6 As indicated above, transnational gangs, such as Surenos-13 and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), are responsible for much of the low-level drug trade in North Carolina. Over the past several years, North Carolina has experienced a disturbing surge in gang activity. Between 1999 and 2004, Wake County saw a 5,743.3 percent increase in gang membership. During the same period, the city of Durham saw a 333.3 percent increase.7 A 2005 report by the Governor’s Crime Commission estimated that 22.2 percent of all gang members in North Carolina are Hispanic (with ethnicity unknown for another 19.4 percent).8 By contrast, Hispanics accounted for only 7 percent of total state population in 2004. Nationally, Hispanics are thought to comprise 49 percent of total gang membership. A majority of these gang members are illegal immigrants. Notes Duplin County Sheriff Blake Wallace (D), “There is an increasing gang activity problem, particularly with MS-13 and studies have shown that the majority of those gang members are illegal aliens.”9 Among these studies is a report published by the Governor’s Crime Commission which posits that 66 percent of Hispanic/Latino gang members are illegal aliens.10 In the case of MS-13, one of the most violent and powerful gangs in North Carolina, federal authorities estimate that “approximately 90 percent of U.S. MS-13 members are foreign-born illegal aliens and depend upon the Texas-Mexico border smuggling corridor to support their criminal operations.”11 As Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith (R) puts it, “You cannot say ‘drugs’ without saying ‘gangs’ without saying ‘illegal aliens.’”12 In addition to the drug trade, the Mexican cartels are becoming increasingly involved in human trafficking (i.e., prostitution) and human smuggling. According to Dr. Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute, “Mexico is the number one source for young female sex slaves in North America.” Each year thousands of women and children – with 12-year-olds in top demand – are smuggled across the border and sent to brothels across the United States. Such brothels, notes Schurman-Kauflin, “can take the form of homes, apartments, spas, massage parlors, and hotels … even middle class neighborhoods can be at risk.”
Link Extensions: AT Link Turns
Liberalizing visa policy fails to prevent terrorist entry unless its preceded by a comprehensive security program
McNeill, Carafano, and Zuckerman 10 (30 Terrorist Plots Foiled: How the System Worked, 4/29/10, ,
Jena, is Policy Analyst for Homeland Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, James, is Deputy Director of the Davis Institute and Director of the Allison Center and Jessica, is a Research Assistant in the Allison Center at The Heritage Foundation. accessed 7/30/10) GEC
The danger of this new attitude was revealed all too quickly by the near-miss airline bomb plot of Christmas Day 2009. Undoubtedly, the nation wants to be successful in fighting terrorists. The U.S. counterterrorism system has worked successfully in the past, as demonstrated by the foiled plots, and it can work successfully in the future. But continued success requires the White House and Congress to work together to ensure that the military, law enforcement, and intelligence community have the tools they need to defend the country. At the same time, it is essential that the Administration lay out its counterterrorism strategy to the American people, including next steps for aviation security, visa security, and intelligence and information sharing. Terrorism and the Obama Administration Homeland security and counterterrorism were relatively unexamined issues during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Shortcomings in visa security allow migrants to overstay their visas without renewing or any way of tracking them
Seminara 8. (“No Coyote Needed: U.S. Visas Still an Easy Ticket in Developing Countries” Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). (tenured member of the U.S. Foreign Service from 2002-2007) )
The fact that we still have no reliable and accurate way to track visitors once they enter the United States is a scandal. The 9/11 commission decried the lack of a reliable entry/exit system, yet there is still no accurate system in place. DHS has rudimentary records of how long visitors stay in the United States, but they are not always accurate and this data is not shared with consular officers in the field. The practical result of this stunning shortcoming is that consular officers are forced to conduct visa interviews without having the benefit of an applicant’s previous entry/exit record. This means that officers have to use their intuition rather than hard facts to determine how long a person has spent in the United States on prior trips. Sometimes a “hit” in the computer will show that a person overstayed a previous visa, but often there is no “hit” in the system for those who overstay previous visas, and those people often end up getting their visas renewed. Also, there never will be a hit in the system for those that have simply spent a lot of time in the United States but did not overstay a visa. For example, many visitors try to game the system by maxing out their allotted time in the United States. Nearly all visitors arriving with visas are granted a whopping six-month stay that can be renewed, while citizens from visa waiver countries are granted a maximum of only 90 days. Some “visitors” stay for the full six months, return home for a week or two, re-enter the United States, and the clock starts all over again with another six-month authorized stay, all perfectly legal. This same person can then come in to renew his visa and, unless the officer can sense that he is lying, he can claim that he came an d went to the United States only for very short trips, and his visa is renewed.
Impact Extensions: Bioweapons
A. Terrorits targeting US with bioweapons – weakened immigration policies key to access
Carter 10 (Sara, Journalist specializing in terrorist activity, , accessed 7/30/10) GEC
U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group's determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland. The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials interviewed by The Washington Times. The officials, who spoke only on the condition they not be named because of the sensitive nature of their work, stressed that there is no credible information that al Qaeda has acquired the capabilities to carry out a mass biological attack although its members have clearly sought the expertise. The video first aired by the Arabic news network Al Jazeera in February and later posted to several Web sites shows Kuwaiti dissident Abdullah al-Nafisi telling a room full of supporters in Bahrain that al Qaeda is casing the U.S. border with Mexico to assess how to send terrorists and weapons into the U.S. "Four pounds of anthrax -- in a suitcase this big -- carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S. are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers there," the recruiter said. "What a horrifying idea; 9/11 will be small change in comparison. Am I right? There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings and so on. One person, with the courage to carry 4 pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this 'confetti' all over them, and then we'll do these cries of joy. It will turn into a real celebration." In the video, obtained and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, al-Nafisi also suggests that al Qaeda might want to collaborate with members of native U.S. white supremacist militias who hate the federal government. Sean Smith, a spokesman for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said the U.S. takes such threats seriously. "We can never stop being vigilant while there are individuals who seek to do harm on the American people," he said. "We continue to step up our efforts with additional personnel and better technology along the northern and southern borders and continue to strengthen our sea, land and air ports of entry." A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said al-Nafisi is a "person of interest" and a veteran recruiter for al Qaeda. Misidentified on some blog sites as a professor, he is a Kuwaiti dissident and al Qaeda associate who is thought to have communicated with senior al Qaeda leaders in recent years, the counterterrorism official said. The recruiter is also said to have close ties to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the senior Afghan Taliban leader now thought to be in Pakistan. Al-Nafisi "is a significant ideological player in terrorist circles, and that makes him dangerous because he can inspire his followers to do extremely bad things," the official said. Drug Enforcement Administration and Defense Department officials have been paying close attention to links between various terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah, and drug cartels in South America, Central America and Mexico. "It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that terrorist organizations would utilize the border to enter the U.S.," said a DEA official who also asked not to be named because of his involvement in ongoing intelligence operations. "We can't ignore any threat or detail when it comes to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations bent on attacking the U.S." The Times first reported in March that Hezbollah -- an Iran-backed group based in Lebanon -- is using routes that Mexican drug lords control to smuggle contraband and people into the United States to finance operations.
B. Impact: Extinction
Impact Extensions: Terrorist Attack Feasible
Al Qaeda wants and has resources to attack the U.S.
Kimery 9 (Anthony, leading authority on homeland security, HS Today, 8/7, ) JAS
'We assess Al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ CBRN material'
“Adaptive and highly resilient,” Al Qaeda “remains the most serious terrorist threat we face as a nation,” said former career CIA official John Brennan in a speech last Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
A former CIA analyst, Saudi Arabia station chief, the Agency's daily intelligence briefer to the White House in 1994 and 1995, deputy executive director and chief of staff to former DCI George Tenet, Brennan today is President Obama’s principal advisor on counterterrorism.
Brennan acknowledged that Al Qaeda’s “intent to carry out attacks against the United States and US interests around the world - with weapons of mass destruction if possible - remains undiminished, and another attack on the US homeland remains the top priority for the Al Qaeda senior leadership.”
Al Qaeda’s “intent to carry out attacks against the United States and US interests around the world with weapons of mass destruction, if possible, remains undiminished, and another attack on the US homeland remains the top priority for the Al Qaeda senior leadership,” Brennan stated.
And it will for decades to come, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair earlier told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“We assess that Al Qaeda and its regional affiliates will continue to plot against the US and its interests abroad over the next twenty years,” Blair stated in his written responses to questions that were posed to him pursuant to the Committee’s February 12 annual hearing on national threats.
That Al Qaeda and its fundamentalist jihadist allies will remain a persistent threat to the United States for many years to come is a point that’s been stressed by other past and present federal counterterrorism officials.
Blair described the best he could in his unclassified answers to the Committee members’ questions what the Intelligence Community currently believes about Al Qaeda. His answers were obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act request to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy.
“Al Qaeda has an undiminished intent to attack the US and remains the primary terrorist threat to the US homeland and interests overseas,” Blair told the Committee. “Al Qaeda consistently aspires to conduct a major attack against the US homeland, and to focus resources on conducting attacks against US and Allied interests overseas as well as against perceived ‘apostate regimes.’”
Blair said Al Qaeda “has shown interest in recruiting and training Western individuals to execute attacks,” and that “the Intelligence Community continues to look for indications of Al Qaeda having contacts and/or sleeper cells in the US.”
Impact Extensions: Terrorist Attack Feasible
Terrorist groups want to use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, and biological weapons pose the greatest threat
Kimery 9 (Anthony, leading authority on homeland security, HS Today, 8/7, ) JAS
Buttressing what Brennan said about Al Qaeda’s desire to obtain WMDs, Blair told the Committee that “we continue to receive intelligence indicating that Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are attempting to acquire chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons and materials.”
Blair said “we assess Al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ CBRN material, and that some chemical and radiological materials and crude weapons designs are easily accessible. Al Qaeda is the terrorist group that historically has sought the broadest range of CBRN attack capabilities, and we assess that it would use any CBRN capability it acquires in an anti-US attack, preferably against the homeland.”
Last January, Charles Faddis, a 20-year veteran CIA officer who was a National Counterterrorism Center department chief overseeing “worldwide operations against the terrorist WMD target” when he retired from the clandestine services last year, told HSToday.us that “biological weapons are the most likely” terrorist WMD threat right now.”
Faddis said terrorists are probably more likely to try to use biological weapons in the near future, noting that such an attack would “be devastating and it would totally cause catastrophic casualties.”
Speaking at a Washington Institute Special Policy Forum in January, Ken Wainstein, then Assistant to President Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, stressed that the gravest terrorism threat right now is from “terrorist organizations [acquiring] weapons of mass destruction and [using] them against us, our homeland, or our allies.”
Al Qaeda’s actively pursuing acquiring and using nuclear weapons on the U.S.
Bunn & Wier 4 (Matthew and Anthony, Harvard University, Project on Managing the Atom, May, ) JAS
Bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network have made their desire for nuclear weapons for use against the United States and its allies explicit, by both word and deed.11 Bin Laden has called the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) a “religious duty.”12 Intercepted al Qaeda communications reportedly have referred to inflicting a “Hiroshima” on the United States.13 Al Qaeda operatives have made repeated attempts to buy stolen nuclear material from which to make a nuclear bomb. They have tried to recruit nuclear weapon scientists to help them. The extensive downloaded materials on nuclear weapons (and crude bomb design drawings) found in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan make clear the group’s continuing desire for a nuclear capability.14 Detailed analysis of al Qaeda’s efforts suggests that, had they not been deprived of their Afghanistan sanctuary, and had they acquired nuclear material, their quest for a nuclear weapon might have succeeded within a few years—and the danger that it could succeed elsewhere still remains.15
Impact Extensions: Terrorist Attack Feasible
Terrorists will use these weapons if they get them
Bunn & Wier 4 (Matthew and Anthony, Harvard University, Project on Managing the Atom, May, ) JAS
As President Bush has summarized the situation, “These same terrorists are searching for weapons of mass destruction, the tools to turn their hatred into holocaust. They can be expected to use chemical, biological and nuclear weapons the moment they are capable of doing so. No hint of conscience would prevent it.”16 Indeed, the President has warned not only that al Qaeda is seeking weapons of mass destruction for use against the United States and its allies, but that, even after the removal of their Afghanistan sanctuary, “the evidence indicates that they are doing so with determination.”17 Moreover, al Qaeda and its far-flung network of affiliates are not the only terrorists with such ambitions. Some statements by Chechen terrorists and documents seized from them have also suggested an interest in large-scale nuclear terrorism—either by sabotage of a major nuclear facility or use of a nuclear bomb—and Chechen terrorists have repeatedly indicated an interest in the use of radiological weapons (including the placement of a container of radiological material in a Moscow park in 1995).
Impact Extension: Attack = Extinction
Terrorist use of nukes causes extinction
Hellman 8 (Dr. Martin E., professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Stanford University, The Bent, Spring 2008, )
The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the public’s mind than the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, yet this article focuses primarily on the latter. An explanation is therefore in order before proceeding. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon would be a catastrophe of immense proportions: “A 10-kiloton bomb detonated at Grand Central Station on a typical work day would likely kill some half a million people, and inflict over a trillion dollars in direct economic damage. America and its way of life would be changed forever.” [Bunn 2003, pages viii-ix]. The likelihood of such an attack is also significant. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has estimated the chance of a nuclear terrorist incident within the next decade to be roughly 50 percent [Bunn 2007, page 15]. David Albright, a former weapons inspector in Iraq, estimates those odds at less than one percent, but notes, “We would never accept a situation where the chance of a major nuclear accident like Chernobyl would be anywhere near 1% .... A nuclear terrorism attack is a low-probability event, but we can’t live in a world where it’s anything but extremely low-probability.” [Hegland 2005]. In a survey of 85 national security experts, Senator Richard Lugar found a median estimate of 20 percent for the “probability of an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in the next 10 years,” with 79 percent of the respondents believing “it more likely to be carried out by terrorists” than by a government [Lugar 2005, pp. 14-15]. I support increased efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but that is not inconsistent with the approach of this article. Because terrorism is one of the potential trigger mechanisms for a full-scale nuclear war, the risk analyses proposed herein will include estimating the risk of nuclear terrorism as one component of the overall risk. If that risk, the overall risk, or both are found to be unacceptable, then the proposed remedies would be directed to reduce whichever risk(s) warrant attention. Similar remarks apply to a number of other threats (e.g., nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan). This article would be incomplete if it only dealt with the threat of nuclear terrorism and neglected the threat of full-scale nuclear war. If both risks are unacceptable, an effort to reduce only the terrorist component would leave humanity in great peril. In fact, society’s almost total neglect of the threat of full-scale nuclear war makes studying that risk all the more important. The Cost of World War III The danger associated with nuclear deterrence depends on both the cost of a failure and the failure rate.3 This section explores the cost of a failure of nuclear deterrence, and the next section is concerned with the failure rate. While other definitions are possible, this article defines a failure of deterrence to mean a full-scale exchange of all nuclear weapons available to the U.S. and Russia, an event that will be termed World War III. Approximately 20 million people died as a result of the first World War. World War II’s fatalities were double or triple that number—chaos prevented a more precise determination. In both cases humanity recovered, and the world today bears few scars that attest to the horror of those two wars. Many people therefore implicitly believe that a third World War would be horrible but survivable, an extrapolation of the effects of the first two global wars. In that view, World War III, while horrible, is something that humanity may just have to face and from which it will then have to recover. In contrast, some of those most qualified to assess the situation hold a very different view. In a 1961 speech to a joint session of the Philippine Congress, General Douglas MacArthur, stated, “Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. … If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose. No longer does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double suicide.” Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara expressed a similar view: “If deterrence fails and conflict develops, the present U.S. and NATO strategy carries with it a high risk that Western civilization will be destroyed” [McNamara 1986, page 6]. More recently, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn4 echoed those concerns when they quoted President Reagan’s belief that nuclear weapons were “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” [Shultz 2007] Official studies, while couched in less emotional terms, still convey the horrendous toll that World War III would exact: “The resulting deaths would be far beyond any precedent. Executive branch calculations show a range of U.S. deaths from 35 to 77 percent (i.e., 79-160 million dead) … a change in targeting could kill somewhere between 20 million and 30 million additional people on each side .... These calculations reflect only deaths during the first 30 days. Additional millions would be injured, and many would eventually die from lack of adequate medical care … millions of people might starve or freeze during the following winter, but it is not possible to estimate how many. … further millions … might eventually die of latent radiation effects.” [OTA 1979, page 8] This OTA report also noted the possibility of serious ecological damage [OTA 1979, page 9], a concern that assumed a new potentiality when the TTAPS report [TTAPS 1983] proposed that the ash and dust from so many nearly simultaneous nuclear explosions and their resultant fire storms could usher in a nuclear winter that might erase homo sapiens from the face of the earth, much as many scientists now believe the K-T Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs resulted from an impact winter caused by ash and dust from a large asteroid or comet striking Earth. The TTAPS report produced a heated debate, and there is still no scientific consensus on whether a nuclear winter would follow a full-scale nuclear war. Recent work [Robock 2007, Toon 2007] suggests that even a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states, such as India and Pakistan, could have devastating long-lasting climatic consequences due to the large volumes of smoke that would be generated by fires in modern megacities. While it is uncertain how destructive World War III would be, prudence dictates that we apply the same engineering conservatism that saved the Golden Gate Bridge from collapsing on its 50th anniversary and assume that preventing World War III is a necessity—not an option.
Impact Extension: Terrorist Will Attack
Terrorists prepping for next attack against the US
WorldNetDaily 4 ("Expert: Massive WMD Attack 'Inevitable,'"
"All of the warnings we have today indicate that a major strike – something more horrible than anything we've seen before – is all but inevitable," said Yossef Bodansky, former director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, in an interview yesterday with the Jerusalem Post.Bodansky said "the primary option" for the next al-Qaida attack on American soil would be to employ weapons of mass destruction."I do not have a crystal ball, but this is what all the available evidence tells us; we will have a bang," Bodansky told the Post, adding al-Qaida is "tying up the knots" for an attack.Bodansky, author of "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America," and "The Secret History of the Iraq War," said the jihadist movement is gaining strength as Osama bin Laden's call to arms draws an increasing number of recruits throughout the Muslim world.Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bodansky said, the number of people trained and willing to die has more than doubled to an estimated 500,000 to 750,000. Intelligences estimates say another 10 million are willing to support them actively while another 50 million would provide financial assistance.Bodansky was in Israel for the second annual Jerusalem Summit, an international gathering of conservative thinkers, the Post said.Al-Qaida has not carried out a second major attack, Bodansky explained, because the first one sufficiently sent the message to the Islamic world that the U.S. could be penetrated, and a second attack necessarily would have to be more grandiose.
Terrorism inevitable – leaked tech and available nuclear energy
Stutchbury, 3 (Des, The Gazette Online Staff Writer, 2/7/03, "Is Nuclear Terrorism Inevitable?"
Another undisputed fact is that of capital flowing into the Middle East due to oil exports. The Energy Information Administratio reported the following dollar amounts (U.S.) for 2001: Iran $43 billion/year, Iraq $23 billion/year, Kuwait $28 billion/year, Saudi Arabia $72 billion/year, and the United Arab Emirates $15 billion/year. From these facts, certain logical conclusions may be drawn. The combination of power, oil and money, continued terrorist motivation against Israel and the West, and the greater availability of nuclear weapons and technology, can only lead to the assumption that eventually someone with an anti-Israeli or anti-West agenda will acquire a nuclear device. Currently, the United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in an attack, with their bombing of Japan during WWII.John C. Thompson, president of the Mackenzie Institute, a Canadian military think-tank, said he agrees that nuclear terrorism is eventual. A terrorist successfully hiding in a container on a freighter, along with a nuclear device, would be a relatively easy feat for a single person or group, Thompson explained. Consequently, if a suicide bomber was involved, all he or she would have to do is pull the trigger when the ship reached port. This puts every ocean port city in the world in jeopardy, he explained.Any nuclear bomb-building team must theoretically include a physicist, a mathematician, a chemist, an electronics specialist and a good demolitions expert. At present, only grams of the fuel needed to create a nuclear weapon can conceivably be purchased on the black market, making it doubtful that terrorists could achieve their goal without the support of a country's resources. Any country caught in such activity could expect immediate and definite consequences, including a possible regime change, confirmed Paul Wilkinson, professor of international relations and director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland.
Impact Extensions: Terrorists can get nukes
Terrorists can get nukes
Cameron 8 (writer for “Nuclear Terrorism: Weapons for Sale or Theft?” )
As with intact nuclear devices, nuclear materials have been the target of several groups, most notably al-Qaida and Aum Shinrikyo. Both sought to acquire weaponizable material from the states of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, although Aum Shinrikyo also tried and failed to enrich natural uranium. In spite of the difficulties both experienced in their acquisition efforts, the risk of terrorists gaining access to nuclear material remains considerable. The amount of existing nuclear material scattered around the world in military and civilian sectors is enormous. Harvard University's Graham Allison says there is sufficient plutonium and highly enriched uranium to produce 240,000 nuclear weapons. Of course, security practices vary. In many states, such material is adequately protected, controlled, and accounted for, but elsewhere security measures are much looser. Consequently, there have been regular reports of the embezzlement, theft, or smuggling of nuclear materials from facilities. In this respect, the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union represent a particular concern, largely due to the quantities of material present there; but similar reports have emanated from states around the world. So far, the majority of incidents have involved small quantities of weapons-grade material, or larger quantities of non-weapons-grade nuclear material. The risk, however, is clearly present. Moreover, given that accounting standards are not universally high in all states, it is far from clear whether authorities would know in all cases if a significant quantity of weapons-grade material, sufficient to construct a nuclear device, were to go missing.
Nuclear material still accessible to terrorists
ElBaradei 9 (Mohamed, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency since 1997, “IAEA: Der Standard Interview with Mohamed ElBaradei with Gudrun Harrer” 11 June 2009 )
STANDARD: Is it still so easy to get that material? ELBARADEI: We know that there is still a lot of nuclear material after the end of the Soviet Union which is not adequately protected. We don´t yet have what we call the Gold Standard with all the nuclear material in absolute proper adequate physical protection. This is one area that came to us particularely after 9/11: we woke up unfortunately to the possibility of nuclear terrorism. Before that we were worrying about nuclear safety, about avoiding another Chernobyl, which is always an issue here in Austria... Safety will continue to be a major issue but here we have been more successful in bringing up the safety standards. The level is not perfect yet. We still have some old reactors operating, still have weak regulatory bodies in certain countries, but overall safety has improved quite dramatically.
Impact Extensions: Targeting Now
Al Qaeda’s targeting US for nuke attack
Kimery 9 (Anthony L. Homeland Security Today, "Al Qaeda seen as the primary terrorist threat for many years", August 7th, 2009, )
Adaptive and highly resilient Al Qaeda remains the most serious terrorist threat we face as a nationsaid former career CIA official John Brennan in a speech last Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. A former CIA analyst, Saudi Arabia station chief, the Agency's daily intelligence briefer to the White House in 1994 and 1995, deputy executive director and chief of staff to former DCI George Tenet, Brennan today is President Obama principal advisor on counterterrorism. Brennan acknowledged that Al Qaeda intent to carry out attacks against the United States and US interests around the world - with weapons of mass destruction if possible - remains undiminished, and another attack on the US homeland remains the top priority for the Al Qaeda senior leadership Brennan stated. And it will for decades to come, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair earlier told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. We assess that Al Qaeda and its regional affiliates will continue to plot against the US and its interests abroad over the next twenty years, Blair stated in his written responses to questions that were posed to him pursuant to the Committees February 12 annual hearing on national threats. That Al Qaeda and its fundamentalist jihadist allies will remain a persistent threat to the United States for many years to come is a point that been stressed by other past and present federal counterterrorism officials. Blair described the best he could in his unclassified answers to the Committee members questions what the Intelligence Community currently believes about Al Qaeda. His answers were obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act request to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy. Al Qaeda has an undiminished intent to attack the US and remains the primary terrorist threat to the US homeland and interests overseas Blair told the Committee. Al Qaeda consistently aspires to conduct a major attack against the US homeland, and to focus resources on conducting attacks against US and Allied interests overseas as well as against perceived apostate regimes Blair said Al Qaeda has shown interest in recruiting and training Western individuals to execute attacksand that the Intelligence Community continues to look for indications of Al Qaeda having contacts and/or sleeper cells in the US Dr. Walid Phares, an adjunct professor at the National Defense University School for National Security Executive Education, director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and author of Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West,” and The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy said earlier this month that there are three models of Jihadists operating in North America: The ones sent by Al Qaeda, the ones who seek Al Qaeda, and those who have no connection to Al Qaeda but act along its goals The threat of Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States, especially cells operationally linked to Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Somalia, two strongholds for the terrorist organization, are particularly worrisome. Blair said the FBI continues to investigate individuals with ties to militants in Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a region that Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other militant groups have been able to exploit as a safe haven and use as a training ground for internal and external operations program. Continuing, Blair told lawmakers that in years past, Al Qaeda adaptable decision-making process, bench of skilled operatives, and operational redundancies have enabled the group to maintain planning efforts, and quickly identify and appoint effective replacements in the event of the death or capture of key individuals ;Since the beginning of 2008 Blair explained, Al Qaeda has weathered the deaths of a variety of highly experienced and long-time operatives, forcing the organization to draw upon younger, less experienced individuals to fill some critical positions. These individuals are probably more untested in the formulation, planning, and execution of attacks and their future effectiveness in these new positions in unclear Buttressing what Brennan said about Al Qaeda desire to obtain WMDs, Blair told the Committee that we continue to receive intelligence indicating that Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are attempting to acquire chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons and materials Blair said we assess Al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ CBRN material, and that some chemical and radiological materials and crude weapons designs are easily accessible. Al Qaeda is the terrorist group that historically has sought the broadest range of CBRN attack capabilities, and we assess that it would use any CBRN capability it acquires in an anti-US attack, preferably against the homeland. Last January, Charles Faddis, a 20-year veteran CIA officer who was a National Counterterrorism Center department chief overseeing worldwide operations against the terrorist WMD target; when he retired from the clandestine services last year, told HSToday.us that ;biological weapons are the most likely; terrorist WMD threat right now Faddis said terrorists are probably more likely to try to use biological weapons in the near future, noting that such an attack would be devastating and it would totally cause catastrophic casualties; Speaking at a Washington Institute Special Policy Forum in January, Ken Wainstein, then Assistant to President Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, stressed that the gravest terrorism threat right now is from terrorist organizations [acquiring] weapons of mass destruction and [using] them against us, our homeland, or our allies. Blair said that while we assess that the death of Al Qaeda leading CBRN expert, Abu Khabab Al Masri, last July will cause temporary setback to the group efforts; its ability to shift responsibility to other senior leaders and existing trained replacements will enable it to recover. Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden made clear more than a decade ago that the duty of the jihadist organization to use WMDs in catastrophic attacks against the US and its allies if it is able to get its hands on such weapons.
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes
Terrorists can acquire and have the will to use nuclear weapons
Arbuckle 8 (Larry J. Arbuckle, Lieutenant, United States Navy, June 2008, “THE DETERRENCE OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM THROUGH AN ATTRIBUTION CAPABILITY,” )
Of course to use a nuclear weapon in a terrorist attack, an organization must first obtain one. There are two very broad ways in which acquisition could occur. A terrorist organization could somehow obtain a fully assembled weapon ready for use, or it could build one from materials obtained through theft, black market purchase, or provision by a rouge state. Some have argued that the later method of acquisition is not feasible due to the technical difficulties involved in nuclear weapons construction. Such arguments usually point to the years and billions of dollars states put into nuclear weapons programs that often fail (Bunn and Wier, 2006, p. 138). While containing some truth, such an argument is flawed. The construction of nuclear weapons today with modern machine tools, computer aided design software, and easily molded high explosives, all readily available to a well funded group, is significantly easier than it was in the 1940’s (Hynes, Peters, and Kvitky; 2006; p.151). Additionally, such critics fail to distinguish between the fairly complicated process of developing a highly reliable, safe, high yield, light weight bomb capable of being delivered by a missile or a small fighter aircraft, from the much less challenging task of creating a crude, unreliable, unsafe, low-yield, heavy weapon intended to be delivered by boat or truck (Bunn and Wier, 2006, p. 139). Finally, the most difficult task of weapons production is creating the fuel. According to the U.S. Department of Defense this makes up 90% of the overall technical difficulty in weapons production. Financially this is also true as nuclear materials generation took up more than 90% of the Manhattan Project budget (Bunn and Wier, 2006, p.136). There is good reason to believe that non-state actors could not enrich or otherwise produce their own fuel. To do so would require large facilities with enormous power consumption, fairly advanced technologies, and a great deal of time (Talmadge, 2007, p.24). However, this difficulty should not be confused with the difficulty of weapons design (Bunn and Wier, 2006, p. 139). As was shown above there are massive stockpiles of fissile materials available throughout the world. There is much evidence that some of that material is currently for sale in black markets, and reason to suspect that significant quantities of fissile material is vulnerable to theft. Thus if an organization determined to generate a nuclear weapon is able to obtain fissile material, they will have a difficult, but by no means insurmountable task in constructing one (Hecker, 2006, p A terrorist organization could also obtain a fully assembled nuclear weapon from a state. This could occur either by deliberate exchange or by theft. Probably the later is the most credible means. It is uncertain whether a state would risk deliberately transferring a weapon of mass destruction to a terrorist group that it could not directly control. It is certain, however, that security is less than adequate at many nuclear weapons storage facilities (Gallucci, 2005). Indeed the recent incident in the U.S. of the unauthorized and unintended movement of six nuclear warheads aboard an Air Force B- 52 even brings into question even American security practices (Spiegel, 2008). Overall, lax security among the holders of weapons grade nuclear material has the potential to provide a reasonable means of acquisition for terrorist groups. Less likely, but none the less possible, is that a state would sell or otherwise transfer a nuclear weapon to a terrorist organization. This probability is low, because once a terrorist organization had the nuclear device, the state could have no assurance that the weapon would not be used to blackmail that state, or that the weapon’s origin could not be traced back to the host nation (Bunn, 2006, p. 115). The best way to reduce this probability further, however, will be to remove all doubt that the origin of such a weapon could and would be determined (Bunn, 2006, p. 116).
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes
Terrorists will use nuclear weapons
Arbuckle 8 (Larry J. Arbuckle, Lieutenant, United States Navy, June 2008, “THE DETERRENCE OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM THROUGH AN ATTRIBUTION CAPABILITY,” )
Prior to committing significant national resources to preventing a potential problem, it is useful to determine if that potential actually exists. This is certainly true of nuclear terrorism. For a great many terrorist organizations the use of nuclear weapons, even if they could be obtained, would be counterproductive to their goals. The massive numbers of innocent dead alone would almost certainly undermine the political aims of most terrorist groups (Bunn, Wier, and Friedman; 2005). However, there is evidence that a small number of terrorist organizations in recent history, and at least one presently, have nuclear ambitions. These groups include Al Qaeda, Aum Shinrikyo, and Chechen separatists (Bunn, Wier, and Friedman; 2005). Of these, Al Qaeda appears to have made the most serious attempts to obtain or otherwise develop a nuclear weapon. Demonstrating these intentions, in 2001 Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and two other al Qaeda operatives met with two Pakistani scientists to discuss weapons of mass destruction development (Kokoshin, 2006).
Impact Extensions: Terrorists can get nukes
North Korea would love to sell nuclear materials to terrorists
Levi 8 (Michael A. Levi, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change @ CFR, Sept 2008, “Deterring State Sponsorship of Terrorism,” Council Special Report, No. 39, p. 9.
North Korea is believed to have as many as ten nuclear weapons. Its provocative behavior—first its purported threat in 2005 to transfer nuclear weapons, and later its nuclear explosive test in 2006—have focused analysts and policymakers on the need to deter nuclear transfers. It is engaged with the United States in intensive diplomacy that has led to partial disablement of its nuclear reactor and to the handing over of operating records for that reactor—which could potentially form the foundation for verifiable elimination of its nuclear arsenal. Yet many expect North Korea to insist on retaining at least enough material for several bombs. And there is enough uncertainty involved in accounting for North Korean plutonium that it may never be possible to definitively know whether it has fully disarmed. Moreover, unlike with the present Russian and Pakistani leadership, it is not entirely implausible that North Korean leaders would authorize the transfer of nuclear weapons to a terrorist group if they did not fear possible retaliation. The North Korean state maintains tight control over its people, but it has been willing to sell a variety of sensitive technologies to others. Its missile sales have long been an example of such irresponsible behavior; its recently discovered assistance with a covert Syrian nuclear reactor shocked most observers and raised fresh questions. The jump to sales of actual nuclear materials is large, but it is impossible to confidently conclude that there is any line the North Korean regime is unwilling to cross for the right price.8
NoKo will give em’ nukes
Stanton 9 (Jonathan. )
I agree with both Heritage and the overwhelmingly left-of-center media that Kim Jong Il’s missiles are a threat — in limited circumstances — and that missile defense is therefore a necessity for our security and that of our allies. But because North Korea poses a direct threat only in certain narrow circumstances, the probability of massive retaliation mitigates the risk of a direct North Korean attack. The probability of massive retaliation does not mitigate the far greater risk that North Korea will supply weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, to those who are undeterrable. North Korea, the world’s most promiscuous peddler of WMD technology, knows that it would get away with this, and it has repeatedly threatened to sell nuclear weapons to terrorists. In the two years since North Korea signed up for Chris Hill’s Agreed Framework 2.0, it was caught building a nuclear reactor for Syria and flying some still-undisclosed WMD-related cargo to Iran. And then, there is this: Aggravating the insult, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a delegation of 15 senior Iranian launch experts from the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group to help out. Pyongyang announced it will fire the rocket sometime between April 4 and 8. [Henry Sokolski, National Review] Ignore that at your peril.
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes
Rouge now more than ever are willing to develop, use and sell nuclear weapons
New Deterrent Working Group 9 (an informal team of defense and arms control experts with a combined total of decades of experience in the U.S. government, military service and nuclear weapons policy and programs, “U.S. Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century” July)
Meanwhile, rogue and potential rogue nations such as North Korea, Iran, Syria and Pakistan have continued to pursue nuclear weapons technology at an accelerated pace. Often this is done, at least initially, under the guise of civilian nuclear power activities – exploiting a loophole in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Such behavior calls into serious question the utility of arms control as a means of preventing nuclear proliferation among signatory states – let alone those that are non-signatories – unwilling to abide by the NPT and its associated verification regimes.12 Moreover, at least some of these actual or incipient nuclear powers appear willing to transfer, nuclear weapons-relevant technology to those with cash. It is reasonable to assume that they are willing to consider as prospective clients terrorist organizations like al Qaeda known to be anxious to acquire—and, perhaps, even to use—nuclear weapons. In sum, more states today have active – although in some cases still covert – nuclear weapons programs than ever before, and all are diligently working to improve their nuclear capabilities.13
Impact Extinction: Attack = Extinction
Sid-Ahmed 4 [Mohamed, Staff Writer, Al-Ahram, 9/1/4, Issue #705, “Extinction!”, , AD: 7-29-9] MW
We have reached a point in human history where the phenomenon of terrorism has to be completely uprooted, not through persecution and oppression, but by removing the reasons that make particular sections of the world population resort to terrorism. This means that fundamental changes must be brought to the world system itself. The phenomenon of terrorism is even more dangerous than is generally believed. We are in for surprises no less serious than 9/11 and with far more devastating consequences. A nuclear attack by terrorists will be much more critical than Hiroshima and Nagazaki, even if -- and this is far from certain -- the weapons used are less harmful than those used then, Japan, at the time, with no knowledge of nuclear technology, had no choice but to capitulate. Today, the technology is a secret for nobody. So far, except for the two bombs dropped on Japan, nuclear weapons have been used only to threaten. Now we are at a stage where they can be detonated. This completely changes the rules of the game. We have reached a point where anticipatory measures can determine the course of events. Allegations of a terrorist connection can be used to justify anticipatory measures, including the invasion of a sovereign state like Iraq. As it turned out, these allegations, as well as the allegation that Saddam was harboring WMD, proved to be unfounded. What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilizations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes
Terrorists can get them and they’ll use them
Arbuckle 8 (Larry J. Arbuckle, Lieutenant, United States Navy, June 2008, “THE DETERRENCE OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM THROUGH AN ATTRIBUTION CAPABILITY,” )
However, there is evidence that a small number of terrorist organizations in recent history, and at least one presently, have nuclear ambitions. These groups include Al Qaeda, Aum Shinrikyo, and Chechen separatists (Bunn, Wier, and Friedman; 2005). Of these, Al Qaeda appears to have made the most serious attempts to obtain or otherwise develop a nuclear weapon. Demonstrating these intentions, in 2001 Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and two other al Qaeda operatives met with two Pakistani scientists to discuss weapons of mass destruction development (Kokoshin, 2006). Additionally, Al Qaeda has made significant efforts to justify the use of mass violence to its supporters. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, an al Qaeda spokesman has stated that al Qaeda, “has the right to kill 4 million Americans – 2 million of them children,” in retaliation for deaths that al Qaeda links to the U.S. and its support of Israel (as cited in Bunn, Wier, and Friedman; 2005). Indeed Bin Laden received a fatwa in May 2003 from an extreme Saudi cleric authorizing the use of weapons of mass destruction against U.S. civilians (Bunn, Wier, and Friedman; 2005). Further evidence of intent is the following figure taken from al Qaeda documents seized in Afghanistan. It depicts a workable design for a nuclear weapon. Additionally, the text accompanying the design sketch includes some fairly advanced weapons design parameters (Boettcher & Arnesen, 2002). Clearly maximizing the loss of life is key among al Qaeda’s goals. Thus their use of conventional means of attack presently appears to be a result of their current capabilities and not a function of their pure preference (Western Europe, 2005). The intentions of the Chechen terrorists are less clear. However, it is clear that this organization has carried out reconnaissance operations at Russian nuclear warhead storage facilities. Additionally, there is evidence that Chechen terrorists considered seizing a Russian research institute in 2002 that contained enough HEU to construct dozens of nuclear weapons (Bunn, Wier, and Friedman; 2005). Some might argue that the decision not to attack the site indicates a lack of nuclear ambitions. However, the fact that the plan was seriously considered lends credence to the possibility that the organization does pose a serious potential nuclear threat. It is likely that few terrorist organizations seek to obtain a nuclear capability. However, as can be seen from above, such organizations do appear to exist. Sadly, the organizations that have demonstrated these intentions have also demonstrated that they have the capability of conducting complex planning, are well financed, and have an ideology that resonates with significant numbers of people.
Impact Extension: Economic Collapse
Nuclear terrorist attack collapses the economy
Arbuckle 8 (Larry J. Arbuckle, Lieutenant, United States Navy, June 2008, “THE DETERRENCE OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM THROUGH AN ATTRIBUTION CAPABILITY,” )
In addressing a proposed plan of action to reduce the probability of a disaster it is useful to understand what the consequences of that disaster would be. It is almost unnecessary to state that the conditions that would result from a nuclear weapons detonation in a U.S. city would be horrific. If a relatively small weapon of approximately 10-kilotons were detonated in the downtown area of a city it would completely destroy the area within about a one mile radius. Just outside of this area projectiles, fire, and intense radiation would leave virtually no chance of survival. Anyone in the area within five to ten square miles of ground zero would receive lethal doses of radiation within hours of the detonation and be dead within days. Longer term damage would depend greatly on wind conditions, but the generated radioactive plume would cause radiation sickness and increased cancer rates for large numbers of people miles away from the blast (Carter, May, and Perry; 2007). Computer modeling using the Consequences Assessment Tool Set developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency can estimate some of these human costs. The following numbers were generated assuming a 12.5 kiloton yield in the port area of New York City. Such a detonation would likely kill on the order of 50,000 people immediately. It would cause more than 40,000 cases of radiation sickness, with about 25% of these being fatal. The radioactive fallout would then be expected to kill or cause cancer in several hundred thousand more individuals. Medical assistance to those that did survive would be greatly complicated by the 10,000 hospital beds that would become unusable following the detonation, either by being destroyed, or being in an unacceptably high radiation zone. It is expected that surrounding medical facilities would quickly become overwhelmed (Heland, Forrow, and Tiwari; 2002). The effects of such a detonation would include much more than the death and destruction caused directly from the nuclear yield. In 2005, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan estimated that the economic ripple effects of such a detonation would force “tens of millions of people into dire poverty,” and thereby create “a second death toll throughout the developing world” (as cited in Bunn, 2006, p. 106). This has led to the estimation by some experts that the cost, ignoring the loss of life, of just one nuclear detonation would be on the order of $4 trillion (Bunn, 2006, p. 106)
Impact Extensions: Terrorist Have Nukes
Terrorists have enough HEU to build a bomb
Pogo 1 (Project on Government Oversight, Nuclear Weapons Complex Vulnerable To Terrorist Attack, October 15, )
A new report, "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Security at Risk," by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has revealed serious security flaws at nuclear weapons facilities around the country. These flaws, which leave U.S. weapons-grade nuclear material vulnerable to sabotage and detonation by terrorists, put the entire country at risk.
The Department of Energy (DOE) analyzes and tests the security of nuclear weapons facilities by conducting simulations and mock force-on-force exercises, often using U.S. military forces as adversaries. According to experts who have conducted these tests in the past, the government fails to protect against these attacks more than 50% of the time - although the exact figure is classified.
"When our security efforts do not protect our weapons-grade nuclear materials against over half of the mock terrorist attacks, it is well past time for a reassessment of our security tactics," stated Danielle Brian, POGO Executive Director.
For example, in mock attacks on the nuclear weapons complex, the "terrorists" have been able to successfully "steal" enough material to make multiple nuclear weapons, "kill" enough protective force members to throw the remaining force into disarray, and had enough time to construct and "detonate" an Improvised Nuclear Device.
HEU means they can build it quickly
Bunn 4 (Matthew, Harvard Senior Research Associate at the Managing the Atom Project, “Securing the Bomb: An Agenda for Action,” w/ Anthony Wier, May. ]
Unfortunately, as we will discuss at length in the next chapter of this report, the belief that terrorists could only get and use a nuclear bomb with the help of a hostile state is a dangerous myth. There is a very real danger that terrorists could get a nuclear bomb not by the conscious decision of a state, but by inadver- tence—by states’ failing to invest in the measures needed to secure nuclear stockpiles from theft.
An attack using an actual nuclear explosive—either a stolen nuclear weapon that terrorists had succeed- ed in getting and detonating, or a bomb they made themselves, with stolen plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU)—would be among the most difficult types of attack for terrorists to accomplish. But the danger is real. As discussed in the next chapter, nu- merous studies have concluded that a capable and well organized terrorist group might well be able to make at least a crude nuclear bomb if they could get stolen HEU or plutonium. And enough of these ma- terials to make many thousands of nuclear weapons, scattered in hundreds of buildings in dozens of coun- tries, remains dangerously insecure
Impact Extensions: Terrorist Have Nukes
They can steal the bomb
Cohen 5 (Ariel, is Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.Preventing a Nightmare Scenario: Terrorist Attacks Using Russian Nuclear Weapons and Materials,” May 20, )
All of these organizations attract a number of engineers and technicians who could facilitate their homegrown nuclear weapons programs. With considerable financial resources at their disposal, they can also recruit engineers and scientists from the thousands who have received education in related fields in Russia, the West, and the Muslim world. Such clandestine programs would be assisted by the wealth of information about nuclear matters available on the Internet.
Furthermore, radical Islamists have ideological, organizational, and operational connections to the military and intelligence establishments of Iran and Pakistan. Iran is suspected by both the Bush Administration and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of managing a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Pakistan is a nuclear power, and anti-American Islamists strongly influence its nuclear establishment and military and intelligence services.
For example, Pakistan was the source of Abdul Qadeer Khan’s global nuclear proliferation network, which supplied technology to North Korea, Libya, Iran, and possibly other countries.[9] And there is strong suspicion that prior to 9/11, Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mehmood and Abdul Majid, two senior nuclear scientists from Pakistan who used to work for Khan, traveled to Afghanistan to offer their expertise to Osama bin Laden.[10]
Experts believe that terrorists are willing to inflict massive casualties using WMD, capable of doing so despite the technical difficulties of executing such an attack, and capable of either stealing or building a nuclear bomb. The IAEA has documented cases of HEU theft.[11]
Impact Extensions: Terrorist will use nukes
Have prestige and psychological motivations to use the weapons
Ferguson and Potter 4 (Charles and William, "The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism," Monterey Institute - Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Nuclear Threat Initiative)
For a politico-religious group such as al Qaeda, the desire to control a nuclear weapon is twofold. First, publicizing the acquisition of a nuclear weapon would have an extraordinary psychological impact on the target audience. The credible threat created by controlling a nuclear weapon would significantly bolster any political goals of the terrorist group. Second, the group might decide that the benefits of detonating the weapon outweighed the value of the threat alone. The blast from such a device would immediately fulfill the group's strategic objective of striking a devastating blow against the perceived enemy. The physical damage would be catastrophic, just as the psychological and economic impact on the survivors would be overwhelming.
Religious motivations
Cohen 5 (Ariel, is Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.Preventing a Nightmare Scenario: Terrorist Attacks Using Russian Nuclear Weapons and Materials,” May 20, )
In 2003, Sheikh Nasir bin Hamid al-Fahd, a prominent Saudi cleric close to al-Qaeda, provided a comprehensive religious opinion (fatwa) justifying the use of nuclear weapons against the United States, even it killed up to 10 million Americans, under the pretext that the United States is to blame for the deaths of 10 million Muslims.[5] This cleric and two of his colleagues—Ali al-Khudayr and Ahmad al-Khaladi—have provided “religious” justifications for bin Laden to create mayhem. Bin Laden portrays himself as a pious Muslim who protects and defends other Muslims and wages a jihad (holy war) in their name.[6]
Al-Qaeda is an organization that is religiously and ideologically committed to the destruction of the United States and Israel, the subjugation of the West, and the overthrow of existing Muslim and Arab regimes throughout the greater Middle East and beyond—from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia to Indonesia. Its proclaimed goal is establishment of a caliphate (khilafa)—a militarized dictatorship based on the Shari’a (holy law) and dedicated to conquest of the non-Muslim world (Dar al-Harb, literally “Land of the Sword”).
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes
Al-Qaeda is strong and has resources for a terrorist attack
Kimerly 9 (Anthony, “Al Qaeda Seen as the Primary Terrorist Threat for Many Years,” Homeland Security Today, August 7, )
“Adaptive and highly resilient,” Al Qaeda “remains the most serious terrorist threat we face as a nation,” said former career CIA official John Brennan in a speech last Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
A former CIA analyst, Saudi Arabia station chief, the Agency's daily intelligence briefer to the White House in 1994 and 1995, deputy executive director and chief of staff to former DCI George Tenet, Brennan today is President Obama’s principal advisor on counterterrorism.
Brennan acknowledged that Al Qaeda’s “intent to carry out attacks against the United States and US interests around the world - with weapons of mass destruction if possible - remains undiminished, and another attack on the US homeland remains the top priority for the Al Qaeda senior leadership.”
Al Qaeda’s “intent to carry out attacks against the United States and US interests around the world with weapons of mass destruction, if possible, remains undiminished, and another attack on the US homeland remains the top priority for the Al Qaeda senior leadership,” Brennan stated.
And it will for decades to come, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair earlier told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“We assess that Al Qaeda and its regional affiliates will continue to plot against the US and its interests abroad over the next twenty years,” Blair stated in his written responses to questions that were posed to him pursuant to the Committee’s February 12 annual hearing on national threats.
That Al Qaeda and its fundamentalist jihadist allies will remain a persistent threat to the United States for many years to come is a point that’s been stressed by other past and present federal counterterrorism officials.
Blair described the best he could in his unclassified answers to the Committee members’ questions what the Intelligence Community currently believes about Al Qaeda. His answers were obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act request to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy.
“Al Qaeda has an undiminished intent to attack the US and remains the primary terrorist threat to the US homeland and interests overseas,” Blair told the Committee. “Al Qaeda consistently aspires to conduct a major attack against the US homeland, and to focus resources on conducting attacks against US and Allied interests overseas as well as against perceived ‘apostate regimes.’”
Blair said Al Qaeda “has shown interest in recruiting and training Western individuals to execute attacks,” and that “the Intelligence Community continues to look for indications of Al Qaeda having contacts and/or sleeper cells in the US.”
Dr. Walid Phares, an adjunct professor at the National Defense University School for National Security Executive Education, director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and author of, “Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West,” and “The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy,” said earlier this month that “there are three models of Jihadists operating in North America: The ones sent by Al Qaeda, the ones who seek Al Qaeda, and those who have no connection to Al Qaeda but act along its goals.”
[Editor’s note: Walid Phares wrote the November 2006 Homeland Security Today cover feature, “Education versus Jihad”]
The threat of Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States, especially cells operationally linked to Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Somalia, two strongholds for the terrorist organization, are particularly worrisome.
Blair said “the FBI continues to investigate individuals with ties to militants in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a region that Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other militant groups have been able to exploit as a safe haven and use as a training ground for internal and external operations programs.”
Continuing, Blair told lawmakers that “in years past, Al Qaeda’s adaptable decision-making process, bench of skilled operatives, and operational redundancies have enabled the group to maintain planning efforts, and quickly identify and appoint effective replacements in the event of the death or capture of key individuals.”
“Since the beginning of 2008,” Blair explained, “Al Qaeda has weathered the deaths of a variety of highly experienced and long-time operatives, forcing the organization to draw upon younger, less experienced individuals to fill some critical positions. These individuals are probably more untested in the formulation, planning, and execution of attacks and their future effectiveness in these new positions in unclear.”
Buttressing what Brennan said about Al Qaeda’s desire to obtain WMDs, Blair told the Committee that “we continue to receive intelligence indicating that Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are attempting to acquire chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons and materials.”
Blair said “we assess Al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ CBRN material, and that some chemical and radiological materials and crude weapons designs are easily accessible. Al Qaeda is the terrorist group that historically has sought the broadest range of CBRN attack capabilities, and we assess that it would use any CBRN capability it acquires in an anti-US attack, preferably against the homeland.”
Last January, Charles Faddis, a 20-year veteran CIA officer who was a National Counterterrorism Center department chief overseeing “worldwide operations against the terrorist WMD target” when he retired from the clandestine services last year, told HSToday.us that “biological weapons are the most likely” terrorist WMD threat right now.”
Faddis said terrorists are probably more likely to try to use biological weapons in the near future, noting that such an attack would “be devastating and it would totally cause catastrophic casualties.”
Speaking at a Washington Institute Special Policy Forum in January, Ken Wainstein, then Assistant to President Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, stressed that the gravest terrorism threat right now is from “terrorist organizations [acquiring] weapons of mass destruction and [using] them against us, our homeland, or our allies.”
Blair said that while “we assess that the death of Al Qaeda’s leading CBRN expert, Abu Khabab Al Masri, last July will cause temporary setback to the group’s efforts … its ability to shift responsibility to other senior leaders and existing trained replacements will enable it to recover.”
Impact Extensions: Terrorists will use nukes
Once they get a weapon they’ll use it
Bunn 4 (Matthew, Harvard Senior Research Associate at the Managing the Atom Project, “Securing the Bomb: An Agenda for Action,” w/ Anthony Wier, May, ]
Do terrorists want nuclear weapons? For most terrorists, focused on small-scale vio- lence to attain local objectives, the answer is “no.” But for a small set of terrorists, the answer is clearly “yes.” Osama bin Laden has called the acquisition of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass de- struction a “religious duty.”6 Al-Qaeda operatives have made repeated attempts to buy nuclear material for a nuclear bomb, or to recruit nuclear expertise— including the two extremist Pakistani nuclear weapon scientists who met with bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to discuss nuclear weapons. For years, al-Qaeda operatives have repeatedly ex- pressed the desire to inflict a “Hiroshima” on the United States.7 Before al-Qaeda, the Japanese terror cult Aum Shinrikyo also made a concerted effort to get nuclear weapons.8 With at least two groups goingdown this path in the last 15 years, there is no reason to expect that others will not do so in the future.
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, head of intelli- gence for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), testified to the U.S. Senate in the spring of 2008 that “al-Qaida’s nuclear intent remains clear,” citing, among other things, bin Laden’s successful effort, in 2003, to get a radical Saudi cleric to issue a religious ruling, or fatwa, authorizing the use of nuclear weapons on American civilians.9 Mowatt-Larssen warned that the world’s efforts to prevent terrorists from gaining the ability “to develop and detonate a nuclear weapon” are likely to be “tested” in “the early years of the 21st century.”10
Impact Extension: Crime Module
Increased migration will cause increased gang populations, crime, and violence
Carlie 2 (Michael K. – PhD in sociology, “The Racial and Ethnic Composition of Gangs,” )
This situation is developing in communities across the United States and in other countries as well. The inability of people from different nations or races to accommodate each another in the same city or neighborhood sometimes leads to conflict. This is evident in gang neighborhoods where rental properties and transient populations abound. There is little stability in those neighborhoods and they are socially disorganized. When I began my research on gangs I thought most gang members in the United States were African-Americans. That's what the mass media seemed to portray. But the reality of the streets was quite different. "The 1998 National Youth Gang Survey revealed that Hispanics were the predominant racial/ethnic group among all gang members nationwide. As shown in Table 19 (below), Hispanics accounted for 46 percent of all gang members, followed by African Americans (34 percent), Caucasians (12 percent), Asians (6 percent), and other races (2 percent)." By 1999 those proportions had changed only slightly to be 47% Hispanic, 31% African-American, 13% Caucasian, and 7% Asian. The proportion of gang members who are Hispanic has been steadily growing, as have the number of Hispanics living in the United States. The estimated number of Hispanics living in the United States increased from 27,107,000 in 1995 to 32,832,000 in 2000 - an increase of approximately 20% in five years. This increase, due primarily to immigration and a high birth rate among Hispanics, is now being felt beyond the sunbelt states as Hispanics move into communities throughout the United States. While the vast majority of Hispanics in the United States are hard-working and make important contributions to the communities in which they live, some disaffected Hispanic youth contribute to the growing Hispanic gang phenomenon. An ethnically diverse population immigrating into the United States results in a more ethnically diverse gang population. It has been that way since peoples of other lands first began immigrating to the United States. For example, in the late 1890's through the first decade of the 1900's, many people from Ireland and Italy immigrated to the United States. At that time, Irish and Italian street gangs were commonplace. Decades later we have other ethnic minorities immigrating here and, as is often the case, a small proportion of their members are represented in the gang population. If anything became clear to me over the past three years it was that the most recently arrived minority, unless supremely well suited to compete in American society (as are many of the Asians as exemplified by their emphasis on education and entrepreneurial skills), will likely find a portion of its youth disenfranchised ... and they may turn to gangs as a means of rebelling, finding a place for themselves, or for earning an income, among other things. This is referred to in the literature as the "immigration gang tradition" (Miller, 2001, p. 43). While data on the racial and ethnic composition of gangs suggest they are predominantly Hispanic, African-American, and Caucasian, what's missing is a look inside those ethnic and racial groups. According to the 1998 National Youth Gang Survey (2000), Respondents estimated that more than one-third (36 percent) of their youth gangs had a significant mixture of two or more racial/ethnic groups. The largest proportion of these “mixed gangs” was in small cities, where they represented 54 percent of all gangs, and the smallest proportion was in large cities (32 percent). The proportion of mixed gangs was larger in the Midwest than in any other region. Not only are some gangs composed of a mixture of people from different racial and/or ethnic groups, within these racial and ethnic groups there are wide variations and accompanying conflicts. Depending upon their roots, these populations may or may not associate with one another peaceably. Within the category of "Hispanic," for example, are Cubans, Mexicans, Puerto Rican, Ecuadorians, Dominicans, Colombians, Panamanians, and others. The situation is the same concerning African-Americans. Depending upon which African nation an individual comes from, his or her relations with others of African descent may vary. Antagonisms sometimes exist between West Indian blacks ("Afro-Caribbeans," as they are sometimes called, who come from such places as Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Trinidad, Barbados, and Haiti) and blacks from the African continent (i.e., Ghana, Somalia, Kenya, Senegal, and Nigeria, as well as between ethnically divergent tribes within those nations). Conflicts also arise between continental Africans. Conflict and distrust within the Asian community also exists and may be observed at the gang level between Asians who are natives of the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and other Asian nations. Conflicts between all of these ethnicities (Hispanic, African, Asian) are sometimes ancient in origin and often fueled by current world events. One can see, therefore, ideological, political, cultural, and personal conflicts between gang youth from different nations, regardless of whether they are all Hispanic, African-American, or Asian. Their relationships with each other may sometimes be characterized as distrustful, disrespectful, and violent. The point here is that knowledge of the diversity which exists within larger ethnic categories helps us understand some gang behaviors and may guide efforts to reduce the most harmful of them.
Impact Extension: Crime Module
Immigration causes surge in gang violence
Landesman 7 (Peter, journalist, Dec 13, L.A. Weekly, “L.A. Gangs: Nine Miles and Spreading,” ) JJN
Nationwide, juvenile gang homicides have spiked 23 percent since 2000. There are six times as many gangs in L.A. as there were a quarter century ago, and twice as many gang members. But as important as the gang activity itself is what’s different about the violence. In America’s urban ganglands, and in L.A. in particular, the ferocity of the thuggery has surged; gang members, their victims and police long on the gang beat tell me the fighting has become more codeless, more arbitrary and more brutal than ever. And it is everywhere. According to the Department of Justice, today America has at least 30,000 gangs, with 800,000 members, in 2,500 communities across the United States. (Gang experts at the University of Southern California claim the number of American jurisdictions with gang problems has reached 4,000.) Federal, state and local law enforcement across the country agree that street gangs connected to or mimicking the L.A. model have become a national epidemic. Last January, a report on gang violence commissioned by the Los Angeles City Council found that the gang epidemic is largely immune to general declines in crime nationwide. In other words, gang crime is surging just as other violent crime is decreasing. And unlike other categories of crime, gangs and gang-related crime are spreading to formerly safe middle-class communities, or, “to a neighborhood near you,” says the report’s author, civil rights attorney Constance Rice. What this means is that the communities gangs come from are pulling away from mainstream society more than ever, and the gangs that plague them, like storm systems, are growing and feeding on themselves, gathering destructive strength. In Los Angeles, law enforcement officials now warn that they have arrived at the end of their ability to contain gangs to poor minority and immigrant hot zones.
Gangs are migrating to expand drug markets and other criminal trades
U.S. Department of Justice 9 (“Gangs, Gang Membership, and Comprehensive Strategies” ) JJN
In the last decade, the media, the public and law enforcement agencies have cited gang migration as a growing trend. The perception of gang migration may stem not only from the spread of gangs into new territories, but may also from the popularization and allure of gang culture in popular culture. Street gangs have traditionally been associated with inner-city neighborhoods. Many observers, including law enforcement practitioners and academics, cite as a growing trend the movement of gangs into suburban and rural neighborhoods. Factors contributing to this geographic expansion may include increased pressure by law enforcement operations in urban settings as well as the desire of gangs to expand their lucrative markets for drug and other illegal enterprises.
Impact Extension: Crime Module
Increased immigration guarantees accelerated gang violence and crime
Mac Donald 4 (Heather –J.D. and M.I. research fellow, Summer, City Journal, “The Immigrant Gang Plague,” ) JJN
These Belmont teens are no aberration. Hispanic youths, whether recent arrivals or birthright American citizens, are developing an underclass culture. (By “Hispanic” here, I mean the population originating in Latin America—above all, in Mexico—as distinct from America’s much smaller Puerto Rican and Dominican communities of Caribbean descent, which have themselves long shown elevated crime and welfare rates.) Hispanic school dropout rates and teen birthrates are now the highest in the nation. Gang crime is exploding nationally—rising 50 percent from 1999 to 2002—driven by the march of Hispanic immigration east and north across the country. Most worrisome, underclass indicators like crime and single parenthood do not improve over successive generations of Hispanics—they worsen. Debate has recently heated up over whether Mexican immigration—unique in its scale and in other important ways—will defeat the American tradition of assimilation. The rise of underclass behavior among the progeny of Mexicans and other Central Americans must be part of that debate. There may be assimilation going on, but a significant portion of it is assimilation downward to the worst elements of American life. To be sure, most Hispanics are hardworking, law-abiding residents; they have reclaimed squalid neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere. Among the dozens of Hispanic youths I interviewed, several expressed gratitude for the United States, a sentiment that would be hard to find among the ordinary run of teenagers. But given the magnitude of present immigration levels, if only a portion of those from south of the border goes bad, the costs to society will be enormous.
Drugs Cause Crime
White 6 (7/26/06, , accessed 7/31/10) GEC
Drugs are related to crime in multiple ways. Most directly, it is a crime to use, possess, manufacture, or distribute drugs classified as having a potential for abuse (such as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and amphetamines). Drugs are also related to crime through the effects they have on the user's behavior and by generating violence and other illegal activity in connection with drug trafficking. The chart below summarizes the various ways that drugs and crime are related. Drug-related offenses and drug-using lifestyles are major contributors to the U.S. crime problem and are the focus of this fact sheet. Drug Use and Its Relation to the Commission of Crimes The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) conducts an annual National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) that asks individuals living in households about their drug and alcohol use and their involvement in crimes (see table 1). Provisional data for 1997 show that respondents arrested in the past year for possession or sale of drugs and driving under the influence had the highest percentage of illicit drug use in the past year. Past year illicit drug users were also about 16 times more likely than nonusers to report being arrested and booked for larceny or theft; more than 14 times more likely to be arrested and booked for such offenses as driving under the influence, drunkenness, or liquor law violations; and more than 9 times more likely to be arrested and booked on an assault charge. The annual Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) asks victims of violent crimes who reported seeing the offender whether they perceived the offender to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol
Impact Extensions: Crime Module
Increases in crime can cripple the U.S. economy
Lovik 8 (John Leonard, journalist, Sept 15 “U.S. Crime Affects Economy” ) JJN
According to a United Nations report posted by MSNBC, the United States is the leading country in financial loss due to violent crimes; the cost estimated around 45 billion dollars. During a time of recession, this information sheds more light on the impact crime has on our society. Combined with the very real struggle law enforcement agencies face to retain employees and maintain budgets, the report signals a very serious factor degrading our communities. The U.N. report takes several factors into account when investigating each country's financial lost. The initial cost of a violent death is decided by a handful of factors, including: 1) Medical Care 2) Legal Proceedings 3) Lost Investment 4) Property Damage. On top of this, the report also tries to take into account the lost earning potential that occurs when a victim is either killed or hospitalized due to their injuries. In short, the report has found a number that they believe best constitutes the causal cost of crime as well as the lost efficiency due to crime. With the cost of living increasing, the quality of a community's schools, roads, and utilities are put in question as budgets have to constantly be adjusted for what seems like endless cuts. In an impoverished area with high rates of violent crime, such as inner-cities, these budgets can be even more restrained as they bear the burden of these crimes.
Crime will destroy the U.S. economy
AP 8 (Sept 12, “U.N.: Armed killings cost U.S. $45 billion yearly,” ) JJN
The United States leads the world in economic loss from deaths caused by armed crime, according to a global survey released Friday. The United States registered an estimated loss of up to $45.1 billion in terms of economic productivity because of violent crimes, said the report by the U.N. Development Program and the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey. At least 490,000 people are killed in armed crimes each year worldwide, placing a huge economic cost and social burden on nations, the report said. The report did not give a country-by-country breakdown of the numbers of people killed in armed crimes. But the report said that Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica and South Africa are among the countries with the highest numbers of recorded violent crimes in the world. More people are killed worldwide in violent crimes every year than in wars, it said, asserting that the phenomenon of armed killings and its economic impact on nations is largely underreported. In the 90 countries surveyed, the economic cost from people killed by arms each year is estimated to total between $95 billion and $163 billion, according to the report. "These estimates are based on calculations of the 'lost product' that is represented by premature deaths from armed violence," said Achim Wennmann of the Small Arms Survey."These people — had they lived — would have contributed as any other individual as productive members of society. Their deaths represent a loss that can be quantified," he told The Associated Press. The cost arising from these deaths includes a wide range of expenses from medical care, legal proceedings, and lost earnings to lost investment, the 162-page report said. Wennmann said the report was based on figures compiled by international organizations and national authorities. The most recent available statistics from all the 90 countries surveyed were from 2004, said Wennmann, one of the editors of the report. He said they had more recent statistics from North America. In 2007, the region lost up to $46.76 billion from armed violence, he said. The vast majority of that loss — up to $44.8 billion — occurred in the United States, said Wennmann.
Impact Extensions: Crime Module
Economic collapse risks AIDS epidemic
Sack 10 (Kevin, Journalist, June 30, The New York Times, “Economy Hurts Government Aid for H.I.V. Drugs,” ) JJN
The weak economy is crippling the government program that provides life-sustaining antiretroviral drugs to people with H.I.V. or AIDS who cannot afford them. Nearly 1,800 have been relegated to rapidly expanding waiting lists that less than three years ago had dwindled to zero. As with other safety-net programs, ballooning demand caused by persistent unemployment and loss of health insurance is being met with reductions in government resources. Without reliable access to the medications, which cost patients in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program an average of $12,000 a year, people with H.I.V. are more likely to develop full-blown AIDS, transmit the virus and require expensive hospitalizations. Eleven states have closed enrollment in the federal program, most recently Florida, which has the nation’s third-largest population of people with H.I.V. Three other states have narrowed eligibility, and two of them — Arkansas and Utah — have dropped scores of people from the program. Last week, because of swelling numbers here in South Florida, the nationwide waiting list surged past record levels set in 2004, to 1,781 people, according to the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors. The growth is expected to continue when Georgia starts deferring enrollment in its drug assistance program on July 1. Illinois may soon follow, and New Jersey plans to cut eligibility on Aug. 1, removing 600 of the 7,700 people on its rolls. Louisiana capped enrollment on June 1 but decided against keeping a waiting list. “It implies you’re actually waiting on something,” said DeAnn Gruber, the interim director of the state’s H.I.V./AIDS program. “We don’t want to give anyone false hope.” Ten states’ programs have stopped covering drugs that do not directly combat H.I.V. or opportunistic infections. Unless money is found by Aug. 1, Florida plans to pare 53 of 101 medications from its formulary, including those for conditions that are often related to H.I.V., like diabetes, high blood pressure and anxiety. In many states, there is a sense of reverting to the 1980s and early 1990s, before the development of protease inhibitors reversed the rise in AIDS deaths.
****Aff Answers****
Aff Answers: Link Turns
Liberalizing immigration policy is key to building international cooperation to fight terrorism
Graham 4 (Chadwick. WHITHER GOES CUBA? PROSPECTS FOR ECONOMIC & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PART I OF II: STUDENT NOTE: Defeating an Invisible Enemy: The Western Superpowers' Efforts to Combat Terrorism by Fighting Illegal Immigration. Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems. 14 Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Probs. 281. LN)
Although the United States and the EU have developed policies that are tougher on illegal immigration, they also recognize the precarious balance that must be struck between being too permissive with immigration, because of its effect on illegal immigration and terrorism, and being too strict on immigration as a whole. n122 An overly stringent policy could create unfavorable relationships in the international community. n123 Such isolationism could severely impair foreign trade n124 and other economic benefits. n125 In the United States, foreign investors own over $ 8.5 trillion worth of U.S. assets. n126 Discouraging foreign [*296] investors from spending money could undercut economic growth. n127 Because the majority of voters consider the economy to be the most important issue, n128 legislators are forced to find the optimum point at which national security and foreign economic contributions balance. Additionally, economic clout is the engine behind diplomatic foreign relations and international cooperation. n129 Damage to foreign relations could increase the threat of terrorism because the help provided by the international community has been a key to detecting known terrorists.
Liberal immigration policies are critical to diffusing global terrorism
Granville 3 (Bridgette. Director of International Economics at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Global Policy Forum. )
In today's world, Africa and Asia are the world's biggest suppliers of migrants. If more jobs do not appear in these places, and doors to immigration remain shut, it should be no surprise that events born of frustration and hopelessness will occur with ever-greater frequency. Liberal immigration policies and the economic growth promised by globalization are the keys to preventing dire conditions in poor countries from being translated into violence at home and abroad.
Liberal immigration policies are critical to stemming flow of terrorists to the U.S.
Johnson 7 (Kevin. Dean for Academic Affairs, School of Law, University of California, Davis. The University of Chicago Legal Forum. Protecting National Security through More Liberal Admission of Immigrants. 2007 U Chi Legal F 157.
Liberal admissions, with screening focused on true dangers to U.S. society, are unlikely to dramatically increase illegal entry by terrorists, which is difficult, expensive, and dangerous. With a liberal admission system, the flow of illegal entrants would be reduced and those who are attempting to enter without inspection would be more likely to pose a security risk (thus justifying the imposition of strict border enforcement measures). Currently, much of the traffic of undocumented immigrants is composed of otherwise law-abiding migrants seeking work in the United States who lack a legal avenue for admission.
Aff Answers: Link Turns
No Link - Focusing on one aspect of our immigration policy as being the cause of terrorism is short sighted and increases the risk of terrorist attacks in the US
Camarota 1. (Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Gov’t Information, . SEW
Because virtually every type of immigration has been exploited by terrorists, focusing on just one category such as student visas, or even temporary visas in general, would be inadequate. All aspects of our immigration system, including the way visas are processed overseas, the handling of foreign citizens at ports of entry, policing the nation’s borders, and enforcement of immigration laws within the United States need to be reformed in order to reduce the terrorist threat. Past amnesties have not hindered terrorism. Mohammed Salameh, another conspirator in the 1993 Trade Center bombing, applied for the same amnesty as Abouhalima and was denied. But, because there is no mechanism in place to force people who are denied permanent residency to leave the country, he continued to live and work in the United States illegally and ultimately took part in the 1993 attack.
Aff Answers: Link Turns
Tightening border security fails to prevent terrorism – only policies that liberalize immigration can eliminate those risks
Johnson 7 (Kevin. Dean for Academic Affairs, School of Law, University of California, Davis. The University of Chicago Legal Forum. Protecting National Security through More Liberal Admission of Immigrants. 2007 U Chi Legal F 157.
This article contends that, even assuming such a policy outcome were possible, efforts to improve the nation's security need not -- and, in fact, should not -- include closing the borders and deporting all undocumented immigrants from the United States. n14 Put differently, a more open society need not be a country whose national security is more at risk than one with nominally closed borders. In fact, a number of informed commentators have proposed more flexible immigration admission systems that would better ensure national security than the regime currently in place. n15 To improve security, the United States needs a more reasonable immigration admissions system that better matches the political, social, and economic factors contributing to immigration, a system that does not encourage circumvention of the law and the creation of a shadow population of millions of people. n16 [*161] Depending on the source, somewhere between 10.5 and 12 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States today. n17 Rather than engaging in futile efforts to close the border, the United States needs to address the economic realities currently fueling immigration and contributing to the growing number of people who live in this country in contravention of U.S. immigration laws. Generations of migrants from Mexico have made their way to the United States. n18 Legally or illegally, immigrants will continue to come to this country for jobs and to reunite with family members. Thousands of migrants today literally risk life and limb to come to this land of freedom and opportunity. n19 The current immigration status quo demonstrates that [*162] it makes no sense to simply continue fortifying the borders and engaging in the futile effort to keep all undocumented immigrants out of the country. n20 A proposal to liberalize admissions to protect national security may seem counter-intuitive. But, as this article contends, a carefully crafted, liberal admissions scheme could lead to a more secure nation. Such an immigration system initially would need to bestow lawful immigration status on the millions of undocumented immigrants already residing in the United States. In addition, the current systems to track lawful immigrants and temporary visitors, which are woefully inadequate, need to be improved. n21 We have many residents effectively living off the books and not readily identifiable in any way. Basic information about all immigrants in the United States is necessary for effective law enforcement -- criminal as well as immigration -- and will better serve national security and public safety interests. Put simply, the United States needs a more realistic immigration scheme that does not result in massive violations of the law and the creation and maintenance of a shadow population of millions of people. Previously, I have equated the current immigration laws and their enforcement with the failed Prohibition-era anti-alcohol laws. n22 In both instances, enforcement of the law failed and, to make matters worse, resulted in widespread negative collateral consequences, thereby undermining the law's very legitimacy. n23 Part I of this article looks at the current border restrictions in the United States, with a focus on those ostensibly based on national security concerns. Part II contends that less restrictive admissions would contribute to a more secure America. The arti [*163] cle argues that U.S. immigration laws must be radically reformed to be more consistent with the economic, social, and political pressures fueling modern migration to the United States.
Aff Answers: Link Turns
T/ Non Immigrants and immigrants pose a very low risk of terrorism – this evidence is comparative and says the risk of our econ advantage outweighs the risk of the DA
Griswold 1 (Daniel T., Director for the Study of Trade Policie @ CATO; October 23, “Don't Blame Immigrants for Terrorism,” ) JJN
The majority of aliens who enter the United States return to their homeland after a few days, weeks, or months. Reducing the number of people we allow to reside permanently in the United States would do nothing to protect us from terrorists who do not come here to settle but to plot and commit violent acts. And closing our borders to those who come here temporarily would cause a huge economic disruption by denying entry to millions of people who come to the United States each year for lawful, peaceful (and temporary) purposes. It would be a national shame if, in the name of security, we were to close the door to immigrants who come here to work and build a better life for themselves and their families. Like the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center towers stood as monuments to America's openness to immigration. Workers from more than 80 different nations lost their lives in the terrorist attacks. According to the Washington Post, "The hardest hit among foreign countries appears to be Britain, which is estimating about 300 deaths ... Chile has reported about 250 people missing, Colombia nearly 200, Turkey about 130, the Philippines about 115, Israel about 113, and Canada between 45 and 70. Germany has reported 170 people unaccounted for, but expects casualties to be around 100." Those people were not the cause of terrorism but its victims.The problem is not that we are letting too many people into the United States but that the government is not keeping out the wrong people. An analogy to trade might be helpful: We can pursue a policy of open trade, with all its economic benefits, yet still exclude goods harmful to public health and safety, such as diseased meat and fruits, explosives, child pornography, and other contraband materials. In the same way, we should keep our borders open to the free flow of people, but at the same time strengthen our ability to keep out those few who would menace the public. Immigrants come here to realize the American dream; terrorists come to destroy it. We should not allow America's tradition of welcoming immigrants to become yet another casualty of September 11.
New wave of legal migration would curb risk of terrorism
deLespinasse 3 (Paul F., PhD in polisci @ Adrian College, May 15, “Illegal Aliens and the War On Terrorism,” ) JJN
A fundamental question is posed by the legislation which attempts to limit the number of people moving to the United States: By what right do people living in a given territory tell people who were born elsewhere that they cannot move in? Back in the 1930s California tried to stop refugees from the dust bowel disaster in the middle of the country (so-called "Okies") from moving in. The U.S. Supreme Court promptly and properly stomped on this attempt to prevent American citizens from entering the state. No world court will rule that citizens of the world have a similar right to move where they wish. But this does not mean that U.S. legislation creating a class of "illegal aliens" is morally justifiable. This legislation does not even rise to the dignity of being a law. A genuine law does not classify people. Instead, it classifies actions and circumstances. Individual people then place themselves into legally-relevant categories by their actions. Nearly all Americans now recognize that it is not only unconstitutional, but positively immoral, to enact rules that apply only to black people, or only to women, etc. Legislation which prohibits people from entering or living in the U.S. merely because they were born elsewhere is just as much pseudolaw as the discredited rules that black people must ride in the back of the bus or that women cannot work as bartenders. Since September 11, 2001, the usual (and fallacious) arguments against free immigration---that it causes unemployment, burdens taxpayers, and undermines American culture---have been augmented by fears that terrorists will come into the U.S. illegally. But the scoundrels who took out the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and four planeloads of travelers came into the U.S. legally. And having a good mix of people born in all parts of the world, of all religious faiths and cultures, living in the United States can be an excellent defense against terrorist attacks. In a diverse, multicultural U.S., such attacks are bound to kill many people with whom the terrorists feel an affinity.
Aff Answers: Link Turns
Liberalizing border policies key to preventing terrorist attacks
Butts 7 (Cassandra Q – CAP Vice President Domestic Policy, May 22, “Immigration Reform A Necessary First Step,” ) JJN
Comprehensive immigration policies can and should address all of the issues by: Curtailing opportunities to work illegally. Cutting down on the hiring of undocumented workers and expanding opportunities to work legally. By increasingly monitoring hiring practices, we can cut down on the hiring of undocumented workers. Bringing the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States out of the shadows. Providing a legal means for entry—including ultimate access to a path to earned legalization—for individuals who are willing to apply for multi-year temporary status, maintain a job, pay taxes, obey the law, learn English, and clear criminal and terrorism background checks. This aligns with our country’s tradition of valuing hard work and will allow law enforcement to conduct background checks and focus its efforts on apprehending actual terrorists and criminals rather than criminalizing all immigrants. Protecting all workers in the United States. Approximately 7.2 million undocumented immigrants currently work in the United States. We should ensure that all workers are paid a fair wage and can protect their rights, create a worker visa program to meaningfully enforce labor laws, and bring an end to the chaotic flow of immigrants across the border that often results in unnecessary deaths.
Aff Answers: No Link
No Link - Terrorists use student and tourist visas – that ain’t us
Kephardt 5 (Janice. Former counsel to the September 11 CommissionCenter for Immigration Studies. .)
Temporary visas were a common means of entering; 18 terrorists had student visas and another four had applications approved to study in the United States. At least 17 terrorists used a visitor visa -- either tourist (B2) or business (B1).
Aff Answers: Impact UQ
We are post brink on the risk of nuclear terrorism – bombs and terrorists have already infiltrated the US borders
Farah 5 (Joseph, “Al-Qaida nukes already in U.S. Terrorists, bombs smuggled across Mexico border by MS-13 gangsters, 7/11/05, , accessed 7/30/10) GEC
As London recovers from the latest deadly al-Qaida attack that killed at least 50, top U.S. government officials are contemplating what they consider to be an inevitable and much bigger assault on America – one likely to kill millions, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the course of history, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. According to captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, the plan is called the "American Hiroshima" and involves the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border with the help of the MS-13 street gang and other organized crime groups. Al-Qaida has obtained at least 40 nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union – including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads. In addition, documents captured in Afghanistan show al-Qaida had plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased on the black market. In addition to detonating its own nuclear weapons already planted in the U.S., military sources also say there is evidence to suggest al-Qaida is paying former Russian special forces Spetznaz to assist the terrorist group in locating nuclear weapons formerly concealed inside the U.S. by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Osama bin Laden's group is also paying nuclear scientists from Russia and Pakistan to maintain its existing nuclear arsenal and assemble additional weapons with the materials it has invested hundreds of millions in procuring over a period of 10 years. The plans for the devastating nuclear attack on the U.S. have been under development for more than a decade. It is designed as a final deadly blow of defeat to the U.S., which is seen by al-Qaida and its allies as "the Great Satan." At least half the nuclear weapons in the al-Qaida arsenal were obtained for cash from the Chechen terrorist allies. But the most disturbing news is that high level U.S. officials now believe at least some of those weapons have been smuggled into the U.S. for use in the near future in major cities as part of this "American Hiroshima" plan, according to an upcoming book, "The Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime and the Coming Apocalypse," by Paul L. Williams, a former FBI consultant. According to Williams, former CIA Director George Tenet informed President Bush one month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that at least two suitcase nukes had reached al-Qaida operatives in the U.S. "Each suitcase weighed between 50 and 80 kilograms (approximately 110 to 176 pounds) and contained enough fissionable plutonium and uranium to produce an explosive yield in excess of two kilotons," wrote Williams. "One suitcase bore the serial number 9999 and the Russian manufacturing date of 1988. The design of the weapons, Tenet told the president, is simple. The plutonium and uranium are kept in separate compartments that are linked to a triggering mechanism that can be activated by a clock or a call from the cell phone."
Aff Answers: Impact D: Screening Fails Now
Terrorist screening fails in the sqo – FSO culture and understaffing prevents enforcement.
Seminara 8. (“No Coyote Needed: U.S. Visas Still an Easy Ticket in Developing Countries” Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). (tenured member of the U.S. Foreign Service from 2002-2007) )
The bottom line is that Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) are diplomats first and law enforcement officers a very distant second. Every FSO is required to serve at least one year on the visa line in order to be eligible for tenure, so visa work is often seen as a right of passage for junior-level diplomats. Many junior officers view visa work with disdain, and are basically just trying to “get it over with.” The net result is that these officers aren’t in consular work for the long haul and are unlikely to want to rock the boat by deviating from the culture of visa issuance that still exists in the State Department. The 9/11 commission noted this culture of issuance, commenting that “the State Department’s policy guidance to visa officers prior to September 11 concentrated on facilitating travel.”15 Although State now requires all visa applicants to appear for a personal interview, and has introduced technological innovations, such as biometric fingerprint scans and facial recognition software to try to prevent terrorists from obtaining visas, the wider culture of visa issuance and facilitating travel still exists. Indeed, not only is there no focus on rigorous enforcement of our immigration laws as a prerequisite to career advancement, the leadership of the Bureau of Consular Affairs places virtually no emphasis on strict adherence to our immigration laws. In the summer of 2006, I took the Advanced Consular Course at the Foreign Service Institute, which is a three-week course designed to groom mid-level officers for managerial responsibility at busy consular posts around the world. We listened to presentations from every high-ranking official in the Bureau, including Maura Harty, the Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, and not one speaker addressed the importance of adjudicating visas accurately to stop intending immigrants from abusing non-immigrant visas. In fact, there was no acknowledgement or indication that visa overstays might be a problem, or that the bureau kept track of, or even cared about posts’ visa issuance rates. Visa adjudicators are evaluated on how many applicants they interview and how courteous they are to applicants, not on the quality or correctness of the decisions they make. Consular managers are constantly worried about keeping up with the huge demand for visas and in managing the massive crowds of applicants, so many of them come to value consular officers who move the most applicants in and out as quickly as possible. The busiest posts have the least time to screen applicants, so fast adjudications are essential to managing the crowds. The problem is that it is much faster to issue visas than to refuse them. Applicants don’t mind a 30-second interview if they are approved, but if they are refused after such a cursory interview many are outraged and cause a fuss at the visa window. The net result is that the crushing number of applicants causes managers to value speed over sound decisions. The 9/11 commission reported on this problem — citing a State Department “best practices” cable, which noted that there was a “basic conflict” between the efficient processing of visa applications and high quality decision making. The cable went on to state that, “quality (visa) decisions can make the process less efficient and in the context of declining staff, posts have often been forced to chose efficiency over quality (decision making).” 16 Yet six years later, little has been done to address this conflict, as posts are still overworked and understaffed, with the result being continued emphasis on speed of adjudication rather than quality decision-making. I have never heard of a consular officer winning an award or meriting a positive evaluation or promotion based on being a tough adjudicator, though speed of adjudication is a quality that is frequently praised and valued.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Screening Fails Now
SQO security measures fail to prevent terrorists from entering the US which means they get in regardless of the plan
Vaughan 10 (Jessica, Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, the Providence Journal, 1/12, ) JAS
The tale of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian terrorist who nearly blew up a Northwest Airlines plane landing in Detroit on Christmas Day, reveals an alarming number of vulnerabilities in our immigration system that are still in place, even eight years after 9/11.One of the most troubling is the State Department’s persistent failure to pull its weight in preventing terrorist travel to the United States. Clearly, the department’s travel-facilitation mentality that opened the door for the 9/11 hijackers is still predominant at Foggy Bottom and in our embassies abroad. Just as after 9/11, State’s response to this incident was to deny its failures and blame the intelligence agencies for not telling it what to do. Much attention has been focused on why Abdulmutallab’s visa was not revoked, even after his father contacted the embassy in Nigeria to report his suspicions about his son’s involvement with extremists. The Obama administration has yet to provide a convincing answer; security spokesman John Brennan has lamely lamented that there was no “smoking gun” to support such a decision. Yet visas have been revoked on sketchier grounds before. Between 2001 and 2004, State revoked more than 1,250 visas on the basis of terrorism concerns, even though some of the individuals had not been connected directly to terrorist acts or plots. Back in 2004, following a GAO report that pointed out serious flaws in the visa-revocation system, a senior career State Department official, Tony Edson, told a congressional committee of several such cases. For example, people whose names were similar to someone linked to suspected terrorists, or individuals whose physical appearance resembled someone on the watch list.
Aff Answers: Impact D: No Risk of Attack
No risk of an attack on US soil – exaggerated
Carle, 8 (a member of the CIA's Clandestine Service for 23 years, Carle, L. Glenn, “ A member of the CIA's Clandestine Service for 23 years , ” The Salt Lake Tribune, July 16, 2008, ) TH
Sen. John McCain has repeatedly characterized the threat of "radical Islamic extremism" as "the absolute gravest threat ... that we're in against." Before we simply accept this, we need to examine the nature of the terrorist threat facing our country. If we do so, we will see how we have allowed the specter of that threat to distort our lives and take our treasure. The "Global War on Terror" has conjured the image of terrorists behind every bush, the bushes themselves burning, and an angry god inciting its faithful to religious war. We have been called to arms, built fences, and compromised our laws and the practices that define us as a nation. The administration has focused on pursuing terrorists and countering an imminent and terrifying threat. Thousands of Americans have died as a result, as have tens of thousands of foreigners. The inclination to trust our leaders when they warn of danger is compelling, particularly when the specters of mushroom clouds and jihadists haunt every debate. McCain, accepting this view of the threats, pledges to continue the Bush administration's policy of few distinctions but ruthless actions. I spent 23 years in the CIA. I drafted or was involved in many of the government's most senior assessments of the threats facing our country. I have devoted years to understanding and combating the jihadist threat. We rightly honor as heroes those who serve our nation and offer their lives to protect ours. We all "support the troops." Yet the first step for any commander is to understand the enemy. The next commander in chief should base his counterterrorism policies on the following realities: We do not face a global jihadist "movement" but a series of disparate ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost all of which long predate the existence of al-Qaida. Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears. Al-Qaida is the only global jihadist organization and is the only Islamic terrorist organization that targets the U.S. homeland. Al-Qaida remains capable of striking here and is plotting from its redoubt in Waziristan, Pakistan. The organization, however, has only a handful of individuals capable of planning, organizing and leading a terrorist operation. Al-Qaida threatens to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, but its capabilities are far inferior to its desires. Even the "loose nuke" threat, whose consequences would be horrific, has a very low probability. For the medium term, any attack is overwhelmingly likely to consist of creative uses of conventional explosives. No other Islamic-based terrorist organization, from Mindanao to the Bekaa Valley to the Sahel, targets the U.S. homeland; is part of a "global jihadist movement"; or has more than passing contact with al-Qaida. These groups do and will, however, identify themselves with global jihadist rhetoric and may bandy the bogey-phrase of "al-Qaida." They are motivated by hostility toward the West and fear of the irresistible changes that education, trade, and economic and social development are causing in their cultures. These regional terrorist organizations may target U.S. interests or persons in the groups' historic areas of interest and operations. None of these groups is likely to succeed in seizing power or in destabilizing the societies they attack, though they may succeed in killing numerous people through sporadic attacks such as the Madrid train bombings. There are and will continue to be small numbers of Muslims in certain Western countries - in the dozens, perhaps - who seek to commit terrorist acts, along the lines of the British citizens behind the 2005 London bus bombings. Some may have irregular contact with al-Qaida central in Waziristan; more will act as free agents for their imagined cause. They represent an Islamic-tinged version of the anarchists of the late 19th century: dupes of "true belief," the flotsam of revolutionary cultural change and destruction in Islam, and of personal anomie. We need to catch and neutralize these people. But they do not represent a global movement or a global threat. The threat from Islamic terrorism is no larger now than it was before Sept. 11, 2001. Islamic societies the world over are in turmoil and will continue for years to produce small numbers of dedicated killers, whom we must stop. U.S. and allied intelligence do a good job at that; these efforts, however, will never succeed in neutralizing every terrorist, everywhere. Why are these views so starkly at odds with what the Bush administration has said since the beginning of the "Global War on Terror"? This administration has heard what it has wished to hear, pressured the intelligence community to verify preconceptions, undermined or sidetracked opposing voices, and both instituted and been victim of procedures that guaranteed that the slightest terrorist threat reporting would receive disproportionate weight - thereby comforting the administration's preconceptions and policy inclinations. We must not delude ourselves about the nature of the terrorist threat to our country. We must not take fright at the specter our leaders have exaggerated. In fact, we must see jihadists for the small, lethal, disjointed and miserable opponents that they are.
Aff Answers: Impact D: No Risk of Attack
Winning war on terror now––Obama strategy working
Sammut, 8/4/09 (Daniel, Graduate Student at Maltese University “The War on Terror: A New Strategy of Crush the Taliban” for thenewfederalist.eu Tuesday 4 August 2009 ) TH
This is definitely the right approach. The Taliban are a group which promotes terrorism and extremism and have been responsible for many deadly attacks on innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama is right to switch his attention from the Iraq War (which distracted America from the effort in Afghanistan, helping the Taliban and Al Qaeda militants to regroup and become much more threatening than ever before). Obama’s strategy is different from the Bush strategy. Bush made the great mistake of launching the war in Iraq and that distracted America from the fight against the real enemy, Al Qaeda (along with its Taliban allies). During the US Presidential campaign of 2004, Democratic candidate criticised Bush as having set his “eyes off the ball”. During his speech at Cairo, Obama again criticised the Iraq War as a “war of choice which could and should have been avoided”. But now, the new US administration under Barack Obama is once again giving strong priority to the worsening Afghan conflict. Bush made the great mistake of launching the war in Iraq and that distracted America from the fight against the real enemy, Al Qaeda (along with its Taliban allies). I believe Obama has taken some good steps which will help to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda allies in the long term. His Afpak strategy, a strategy which makes Afghanistan and Pakistan the centres of the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda is a very good one. It is reality that the war in Afghanistan could not be won without Pakistan’s cooperation. Former Pakistani President has stated that success in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without the inclusion of Pakistan. This strategy means more help to the Pakistani armed forces so that the Pakistani army could fight the Taliban better. Another good idea is to send more troops to Afghanistan, shifting US troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Another initiative is to help expand the Afghan Army to provide the much-needed security to enhance the economic and social development. These initiatives will help in the long term to weaken the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Won’t Use Nukes
Terrorists won’t get nucs––5 reasons
, 9 (Debunking Myths About Nuclear Weapons and Terrorism
May 29, 2009 | 1426 GMT) TH
Loose Nukes and Clandestine Acquisition But what about acquiring a nuclear weapon that has already been built? The security of nuclear weapons is and has long been an important concern. However, the effort involved in actually trying to steal a nuclear weapon would entail a significant dedication of resources and an immense intelligence effort beyond the reach of almost any terrorist organization. Indeed, the odds of a failure are high, no matter how careful and meticulous the planning. Some nuclear weapons facilities around the world are obviously not as hardened as others, but taken as a whole, they are some of the hardest targets on the planet, and the personnel better vetted than almost any other institution. Even the lightest attempt to begin probing runs the risk of not only failing to acquire a bomb, but setting off a series of alarms and red flags that brings such an aggressive investigative and law enforcement/military response down on the terrorist organization that it could be completely wiped out before it ever attempted to target its true objectives (whatever they might be). And even if one could be stolen or otherwise acquired, modern nuclear weapons have been designed to include a series of (highly classified) safety features. Though all nuclear weapons are not created equal, these range from permissive action links without which the device cannot be armed (a feature Pakistan is now thought to employ) to configurations that will actually render the fissile core(s) useless if improperly accessed. has long been something STRATFOR has kept a close eye on, and something we continue to monitor. The Hollywood scenario of a terrorist group stealing away with a nuclear device in the night and automatically being able to arm it at its convenience is not grounded in reality. Furthermore, the theft would be difficult to carry off without setting off the same alarms and red flags that would leave little opportunity for the device to be smuggled particularly far — much less half way around the world. Nuclear weapons are complex devices that require considerable care and maintenance — especially the small, modern and easily transportable variety. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, fears arose of a series of Soviet nuclear weapons were somehow lost, well after the fissile and radioisotope materials in the design would have decayed significantly enough to effect the performance of the weapon, in addition to the diminished functionality of its other components after being handled roughly over the years.
The impact of nuclear terrorism would not be catastrophic
Mueller 99 (John Mueller, Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester, and Karl Mueller, Assistant Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the School of Advanced Airpower Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, May/June 1999, Foreign Affairs)
Nuclear weapons clearly deserve the "weapons of mass destruction" designation because they can indeed destroy masses of people in a single blow. Even so, it is worth noting that any nuclear weapons acquired by terrorist groups or rogue states, at least initially, are likely to be small. Contrary to exaggerated Indian and Pakistani claims, for example, independent analyses of their May 1998 nuclear tests have concluded that the yields were Hiroshima-sized or smaller. Such bombs can cause horrible though not apocalyptic damage. Some 70,000 people died in Hiroshima and 40,000 in Nagasaki. People three miles away from the blast sites received only superficial wounds even when fully exposed, and those inside bomb shelters at Nagasaki were uninjured even though they were close to ground zero. Some buildings of steel and concrete survived, even when they were close to the blast centers, and most municipal services were restored within days. A Hiroshima-sized bomb exploded in a more fire-resistant modern city would likely be considerably less devastating. Used against well-prepared, dug-in, and dispersed troops, a small bomb might actually cause only limited damage. If a single such bomb or even a few of them were to fall into dangerous hands, therefore, it would be terrible, though it would hardly threaten the end of civilization.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Extinction Takouts
Nuclear terrorism won’t cause extinction.
Easterbrook 3 [Gregg, The New Republic Editor, Nov. 7, ]
If we're talking about doomsday - the end of human civilization - many scenarios simply don't measure up. A single nuclear bomb ignited by terrorists, for example, would be awful beyond words, but life would go on. People and machines might converge in ways that you and I would find ghastly, but from the standpoint of the future, they would probably represent an adaptation.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Bioweapons Takeouts
Threat of retaliation deters bioweapons use
Stern, 9 (Jessica, Council on Foreign Relations, The Prospect of Domestic Bioterror, 3-5-9, )
No law prohibited Harris or any other U.S. citizen from acquiring the agent. The law has been tightened up since, although many fear it is still not restrictive enough. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Louis Freeh reports that "a growing numberwhile still smallof `lone offender' and extremist splinter elements of right wing groups have been identified as possessing or attempting to develop or use" weapons of mass destruction.16 In February 1998, Harris boasted to an informant that he had enough military-grade anthrax to wipe out all of Las Vegas. Eight bags marked "biological" had been found in the back of a car he and his accomplice were driving.17 Several days later, federal authorities learned that the anthrax Harris had brought to Las Vegas was a vaccine strain not harmful to human health. Nevertheless, the incident frightened many people and sparked a proliferation of anthrax hoaxes and threats in the second half of 1998 continuing into 1999 by groups including Identity Christians and other antigovernment groups, extortionists, antiabortion activists, and presumed prochoice groups. In many cases, the perpetrator's motives were unknown, but some incidents appear to have been student pranks, demonstrating the extent to which the threat of anthrax has entered U.S. consciousness Terrorism with biological weapons is likely to remain rare. This is especially the case for attacks intended to create mass casualties, which require a level of technologic sophistication likely to be possessed by few domestic groups. While state-sponsored groups are most likely to be capable of massive biological weapons attacks, the state sponsor would presumably have to weigh the risk for retaliation.
Deterrence works against bioterrorism now, the impact doesn’t equal nuclear war, and multiple checks prevent spread
Danzig, 3 (Richard, Former Secretary of the Navy and Senior Fellow at The CNA Corporation, April 2003, Cardozo Law Review, 24 Cardozo L. Rev. 1497, p. 1510-1511)
One of the striking differences (though it has not been broadly grasped) about biological terrorism in this regard is that self-protective mechanisms are, in fact, stabilizing rather than destabilizing. They increase deterrence. If you are thinking about unleashing a biological weapon, and the United States has thought about it in advance, has worked up a methodology for dealing with it, and has come to grips with many of the kinds of issues I described, it decreases, rather than increases, the incentives to use it. So, that is the first of the three differences that I would cite. A second major difference is in the continuous nature of a biological attack, and the fact that, unlike a nuclear attack, it is not cataclysmic at the moment of release. As a result, you have some opportunities for limiting damage: for example, the ability to quarantine so that your smallpox cases are limited in number. [*1510] Similarly, you have the ability to administer treatment, so that the anthrax cases result in relatively small numbers in terms of deaths caused. In fact, we have substantially improved our anthrax and smallpox response capabilities in the wake of the 5/11 attacks. That is a big achievement. Thus, a biological attack is very different from nuclear warfare and the creation of a civil defense against nuclear warfare. We have to jettison the old paradigm both for the reasons of deterrence and also because of the opportunities for consequence management. The third difference is that investments in civil defense shelters in the 1950s were essentially sterile. If there was no nuclear attack, they yielded no reward to this country. They sit there and absorb our resources for no benefit. By contrast, investments in a public health capacity, which is the main form of preparation against bioterrorism, yield enormous rewards against everyday infectious diseases. Put another way, we are consistently being attacked by nature. Having a capacity to deal with that is very important. In 1918, the United States suffered, along with the rest of the world, from a global influenza epidemic. More than half a million Americans died as a result. We have progressed considerably in modern medicine, but we still do not know how to deal with viruses in ways that would thwart such an epidemic. Every year there is the potential for that kind of epidemic. So, quite apart from civil defense, investments in dealing with these epidemic-like issues can be extremely rewarding to society. Putting these together - the difference in deterrence, consequence management, and the everyday utility of these investments - you come up with a very different world from the traditional 1950's civil defense paradigm.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Chem Weapons Takeouts
Chemical weapons are not a threat
Smithson 2 Senior Associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center
The options for delivering poison gas range from high to low tech. Theoretically, super toxic chemicals could be employed to foul food or water supplies, put into munitions, or distributed by an aerosol or spray method. Because of safeguards on both our food and water supplies as well as the difficulty of covertly disbursing sufficient quantities of agent, this method is unlikely to be an effective means to achieving terrorist aims. Chemical agents could also be the payload of any number of specially designed or modified conventional munitions, from bombs and grenades to artillery shells and mines. However designing munitions that reliably produce vapor and liquid droplets requires a certain amount of engineering skill. Finally, commercial sprayers could be mounted on planes or other vehicles. In an outdoor attack such as this, however, 90 percent of the agent is likely to dissipate before ever reaching its target. Effective delivery, which entails getting the right concentration of agent and maintaining it long enough for inhalation to occur, is quite difficult to achieve because chemical agents are highly susceptible to weather conditions.
A chemical attack would kill very, very few
Mueller, 99 (John, Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester and Karl Mueller Assistant Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the School of Advanced Airpower Studies at
Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Foreign Affairs, May/June 1999)
Chemical weapons, meanwhile, are virtually incapable of killing masses of people in open areas except when used in vast quantities, and so their inclusion in the WMD category is highly dubious unless the concept is so diluted that bullets or machetes could be included as well. As with terrorism, the problem here is primarily fear rather than actual consequences. Matthew Meselson, a biologist at Harvard University, calculates that it would take a ton of nerve gas or five tons of mustard gas to produce heavy casualties among unprotected people in an open area one kilometer square. Even for nerve gas this would require the concentrated delivery into a rather small area of about 300 heavy artillery shells or seven 500-pounds bombs. A 1993 analysis by Congress' Office of Technology Assessment concluded that a ton of sarin perfectly delivered under absolutely ideal conditions over a heavily populated area against unprotected people might cause between 3,000 and 8,000 deaths. Under slightly less ideal circumstances -- if there were a moderate wind or if the sun were out, for example -- the death rate would be a tenth as great. Discussions of chemical weapons often stress their ability to cause many casualties -- both dead and wounded -- glossing over the fact that historically most of those incapacitated by such weapons have not actually died. When, following its unsuccessful efforts with biological weapons, Aum Shinrikyo released "deadly" sarin into a Japanese subway, the attack caused 5,000 casualties but only 12 deaths (although a more competent attack would have taken a higher toll). Iraq used chemical weapons against substantially unprotected Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War, but Iran reported that of the 27,000 gassed through March 1987, only 262 died. In World War I only two to three percent of those gassed on the western front died, whereas wounds caused by conventional weapons were 10 to 12 times more fatal. On average it took over a ton of gas to produce a single fatality, and gas accounted for less than one percent of total battle deaths in the war. In the official British history of the war chemical weapons are accordingly relegated to a footnote which asserts that gas "made war uncomfortable . . . to no purpose." Defense analyst Thomas McNaugher considers this conclusion "overly glib" but concedes that "it is closer to the truth than the contention that chemical weapons are nearly magical devices that invariably cause large casualties and inspire panic."
Aff Answers: Impact D: Dirty Bomb Takeouts
Impact of dirty bomb would be minimal
San Francisco Chronicle, 2 (March 7, 2002)
The most likely threat is from a dirty bomb, experts testified yesterday. Such a device could be made by taking radioactive material commonly found in X-ray machines or used to sterilize medical instruments and food, in a variety of industrial uses and at nuclear power plants. The device would be detonated with conventional explosives. "I believe that the deliberate dispersal of radioactive materials is a significant and plausible threat," said Steven Koonin, Caltech's provost in Pasadena. The good news, if there is any, is that not many people would die from such an attack, perhaps none immediately. Koonin calculates that dispersal of just three Curies of a radioactive isotope, equal to a fraction of a gram, over a square mile would mean that for every 100,000 people exposed, four cancer deaths would be added to the 20,000 cancer deaths that would have occurred anyway.
Dirty bombs don’t cause catastrophes
San Francisco Chronicle, 1 (September 16, 2001)
In theory, terrorists could use a small rocket or explosive to disperse radioactive materials and extend the damage. However, experts know how to clean up such a radioactive spill, and it would not "cause a catastrophe like a (nuclear) fission weapon would," Pate said. Asked whether any terrorist groups might have independently developed nuclear weapons, Pate scoffed, pointing out the extreme difficulty of obtaining the crucial ingredient: fissionable enriched uranium or plutonium. Even "countries with nuclear power infrastructures . . . have worked for years and years and years trying to develop nuclear weapons and have failed," he said.
Aff Answers: Impact D: No Risk of Attack
There will be no major attack- several reasons.
Brookings Institution 8 (independent research and policy institute, 8 “Have we exaggerated the threat of terrorism?” Brookings Institute, July 18, 2008, terrorism.aspx)
One participant argued that terrorism presents minimal cause for concern. Discounting war zones, studies show that there have been very few people killed by “Muslim extremists” each year—in fact, more people drown in bathtubs each year in the United States. The FBI reported in 2005 that it had not found an al-Qaeda presence in the United States. Additionally, terrorism, by its very nature, can be self-defeating: many attacks by al-Qaeda have caused the group to lose popularity. This participant questioned both the intentions and capability of al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden has threatened many attacks that he has not been able to execute. In specific, this participant thought it unlikely that that al-Qaeda would obtain nuclear weapons, despite fears to the contrary. Another participant agreed that the fears about terrorism are exaggerated and differentiated between the actual campaign against al-Qaeda and its supporters and the idea of a general “war on terrorism.” However, participants also detailed the larger problems that terrorism can create, regardless of the numbers it kills directly: terrorism often leads to insurgencies or civil wars; it could destabilize U.S. allies in the Middle East and the whole Middle Eastern architecture; terrorism keeps oil prices high; and it has psychological effects beyond the actual death tolls. Additionally, many planned attacks have been stopped before they were carried out; one participant noted that there have been several near-misses recently. One participant argued that the war on terrorism is actually about an ideological battle between the United States and its allies and radical forces. Another participant agreed with this assessment of the general struggle between the United States and “radical Islamic extremism.” This participant noted that the larger struggle is much more complicated to understand than terrorism in specific and that this leads to a disproportionate focus on terrorism and the accompanying misallocation of resources. Participants highlighted the difference between the risks presented by terrorism in the United States and around the world. The impact of terrorism in Iraq and Lebanon, for instance, is completely different than the impact in the United States, which one participant categorized as being essentially psychological. The relevance of the capability of governments at preventing terrorism was also addressed. Terrorism is particularly dangerous in places where there is weak government capacity and rule of law. Participants discussed why has there not been another terrorist attack in the United States since September 11, 2001. One participant presented several reasons: the United States has a supportive domestic Muslim population; the would-be terrorists in the United States are not skilled; and U.S. counterterrorism policy has made it more difficult for the al-Qaeda core to plan complex attacks. This participant argued, however, that there are risks that this situation may change going forward. As the al-Qaeda core reconstitutes itself in Pakistan, it may be able to plan more complex attacks again. Additionally, the U.S. Muslim population may become less supportive overtime as a result of U.S. homeland security policy. However, another participant did not think the attitudes of the U.S. Muslim community were particularly relevant to this debate.
Aff Answers: Impact D: No Risk of Attack
Terrorists won’t attack—impact is empirically denied.
Mueller, 6 (Mueller, John, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, "Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?: The Myth of the Omnipresent Enemy" Foreign Affairs, September/ October 2006,
)
For the past five years, Americans have been regularly regaled with dire predictions of another major al Qaeda attack in the United States. In 2003, a group of 200 senior government officials and business executives, many of them specialists in security and terrorism, pronounced it likely that a terrorist strike more devastating than 9/11 -- possibly involving weapons of mass destruction -- would occur before the end of 2004. In May 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft warned that al Qaeda could "hit hard" in the next few months and said that 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack on U.S. soil were complete. That fall, Newsweek reported that it was "practically an article of faith among counterterrorism officials" that al Qaeda would strike in the run-up to the November 2004 election. When that "October surprise" failed to materialize, the focus shifted: a taped encyclical from Osama bin Laden, it was said, demonstrated that he was too weak to attack before the election but was marshalling his resources to do so months after it. On the first page of its founding manifesto, the massively funded Department of Homeland Security intones, "Today's terrorists can strike at any place, at any time, and with virtually any weapon." But if it is so easy to pull off an attack and if terrorists are so demonically competent, why have they not done it? Why have they not been sniping at people in shopping centers, collapsing tunnels, poisoning the food supply, cutting electrical lines, derailing trains, blowing up oil pipelines, causing massive traffic jams, or exploiting the countless other vulnerabilities that, according to security experts, could so easily be exploited? One reasonable explanation is that almost no terrorists exist in the United States and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad. But this explanation is rarely offered. HUFFING AND PUFFING Instead, Americans are told -- often by the same people who had once predicted imminent attacks -- that the absence of international terrorist strikes in the United States is owed to the protective measures so hastily and expensively put in place after 9/11. But there is a problem with this argument. True, there have been no terrorist incidents in the United States in the last five years. But nor were there any in the five years before the 9/11 attacks, at a time when the United States was doing much less to protect itself. It would take only one or two guys with a gun or an explosive to terrorize vast numbers of people, as the sniper attacks around Washington, D.C., demonstrated in 2002. Accordingly, the government's protective measures would have to be nearly perfect to thwart all such plans. Given the monumental imperfection of the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, and the debacle of FBI and National Security Agency programs to upgrade their computers to better coordinate intelligence information, that explanation seems far-fetched. Moreover, Israel still experiences terrorism even with a far more extensive security apparatus. It may well have become more difficult for terrorists to get into the country, but, as thousands demonstrate each day, it is far from impossible. Immigration procedures have been substantially tightened (at considerable cost), and suspicious U.S. border guards have turned away a few likely bad apples. But visitors and immigrants continue to flood the country. There are over 300 million legal entries by foreigners each year, and illegal crossings number between 1,000 and 4,000 a day -- to say nothing of the generous quantities of forbidden substances that the government has been unable to intercept or even detect despite decades of a strenuous and well-funded "war on drugs." Every year, a number of people from Muslim countries -- perhaps hundreds -- are apprehended among the illegal flow from Mexico, and many more probably make it through. Terrorism does not require a large force. And the 9/11 planners, assuming Middle Eastern males would have problems entering the United States legally after the attack, put into motion plans to rely thereafter on non-Arabs with passports from Europe and Southeast Asia. If al Qaeda operatives are as determined and inventive as assumed, they should be here by now. If they are not yet here, they must not be trying very hard or must be far less dedicated, diabolical, and competent than the common image would suggest.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Acquisition Takeouts
Terrorists cant get nukes––three reasons
Williams 7 (Phil, Professor of International Security in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, “Terrorism, Organized Crime, and WMD Smuggling: Challenge and Response,” Strategic Insights, Volume VI, Issue 5, August)
The possibility that terrorists will engage in their own nuclear theft and smuggling activities has been raised by reports from Russia that terrorists have engaged in surveillance of nuclear facilities.[ They might even have considered a “smash and grab” raid that would acquire strategic materials through direct assault and blatant theft. The difficulty is that this would be noisily overt, resulting in hot pursuit and a systematic mobilization of state resources to track down both perpetrators and materials. The risks would be very high as would the potential costs. And even if the subsequent pursuit was unsuccessful, the incident would reverberate internationally, confirming that nuclear terrorism is a real threat and thereby making the end game of getting an IND into the United States more difficult. A second possibility is that terrorists would simply contract out the materials acquisition process, hiring a criminal organization or trafficking network to steal the materials and then transfer their ownership for the agreed upon payment. Such an arrangement would be far less likely to set off alarm bells than a direct assault. From the terrorists’ perspective, however, it would require a great deal of trust, as they would be required to make an up front payment prior to the theft and delivery of the materials. The criminals could then renege on the deal—quitting while they are ahead and disappearing with the advance—or prove unsuccessful in their efforts to acquire the material. Alternatively, they could be detected and turned by the authorities who could then carry out a seller sting operation against the terrorists. Such risks aside, the attraction of this approach from the terrorist perspective is that it does not leave acquisition to the vagaries of the market. The attraction might not be sufficient to outweigh the risks. The third possibility, therefore, is simply for terrorists to work within the existing black market in nuclear materials, hope that sufficient material is available, and find a reliable seller. This will not necessarily be easy. Much of the black market trade has involved nothing more than radioactive junk, while scams and fraudulent offers of weapons-grade material have also been almost common-place. Yet, the number of cases involving weapons grade material has been sufficient to sufficient to make this a plausible option for the terrorists. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), between 1993 and 2005 there were 16 confirmed incidents involving trafficking in HEU or plutonium. More recently, in January 2006, Georgian authorities arrested a Russian who was carrying 100 grams of highly enriched uranium. Although the amounts of weapons-grade material have remained relatively small, the very discovery of this material being trafficked suggests that this might be the preferred option for terrorists.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Escalation Takeouts
US won’t retaliate after terrorist attack
Bremmer 4 (Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, September 13, 2004, The New Statesman)
What would happen if there were a new terrorist attack inside the United States on 11 September 2004? How would it affect the presidential election campaign? The conventional wisdom is that Americans - their patriotic defiance aroused - would rally to President George W Bush and make him an all but certain winner in November. But consider the differences between the context of the original 9/11 and that of any attack which might occur this autumn. In 2001, the public reaction was one of disbelief and incomprehension. Many Americans realised for the first time that large-scale terrorist attacks on US soil were not only conceivable; they were, perhaps, inevitable. A majority focused for the first time on the threat from al-Qaeda, on the Taliban and on the extent to which Saudis were involved in terrorism. This time, the public response would move much more quickly from shock to anger; debate over how America should respond would begin immediately. Yet it is difficult to imagine how the Bush administration could focus its response on an external enemy. Should the US send 50,000 troops to the Afghan-Pakistani border to intensify the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and "step up" efforts to attack the heart of al-Qaeda? Many would wonder if that wasn't what the administration pledged to do after the attacks three years ago. The president would face intensified criticism from those who have argued all along that Iraq was a distraction from "the real war on terror". And what if a significant number of the terrorists responsible for the pre-election attack were again Saudis? The Bush administration could hardly take military action against the Saudi government at a time when crude-oil prices are already more than $45 a barrel and global supply is stretched to the limit. While the Saudi royal family might support a co-ordinated attack against terrorist camps, real or imagined, near the Yemeni border - where recent searches for al-Qaeda have concentrated - that would seem like a trivial, insufficient retaliation for an attack on the US mainland. Remember how the Republicans criticised Bill Clinton's administration for ineffectually "bouncing the rubble" in Afghanistan after the al-Qaeda attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in the 1990s. So what kind of response might be credible? Washington's concerns about Iran are rising. The 9/11 commission report noted evidence of co-operation between Iran and al-Qaeda operatives, if not direct Iranian advance knowledge of the 9/11 hijacking plot. Over the past few weeks, US officials have been more explicit, too, in declaring Iran's nuclear programme "unacceptable". However, in the absence of an official Iranian claim of responsibility for this hypothetical terrorist attack, the domestic opposition to such a war and the international outcry it would provoke would make quick action against Iran unthinkable. In short, a decisive response from Bush could not be external. It would have to be domestic. Instead of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, leading a war effort abroad, Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary, and John Ashcroft, the attorney general, would pursue an anti-terror campaign at home. Forced to use legal tools more controversial than those provided by the Patriot Act, Americans would experience stepped-up domestic surveillance and border controls, much tighter security in public places and the detention of a large number of suspects. Many Americans would undoubtedly support such moves. But concern for civil liberties and personal freedom would ensure that the government would have nowhere near the public support it enjoyed for the invasion of Afghanistan.
Aff Answers: Impact D: No Risk Of Attack
No risk of terror attack - Al qaeda is weak and fractured
9 (Debunking Myths About Nuclear Weapons and Terrorism
May 29, 2009)
In planning the 9/11 attacks, al Qaeda enjoyed financing that included patronage from Saudi royalty and — perhaps even more importantly — sanctuary from which to operate in Afghanistan. Hardened radicals, bent on re-establishing a Caliphate across the Muslim world, al Qaeda had time and resources to consider devoting to potential chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) programs. Their only success (they tinkered unsuccessfully with biological and chemical weapons) was in weaponizing hijacked civilian airliners. Presently, al Qaeda is a shadow of its former self, and empirical evidence in the years since 2001 has shown a steady erosion — especially after the July 2005 London Underground and March 2004 Madrid bombings — of the apex leadership’s capability to orchestrate global strikes. Al Qaeda’s remaining leadership is on the run and focused only on operations in the Middle East and South Asia
Terrorists won’t undertake any more large scale operations.
Mueller 6 (John, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, “Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?: The Myth of the Omnipresent Enemy,” Foreign Affairs, September/October)
One reason al Qaeda and "al Qaeda types" seem not to be trying very hard to repeat 9/11 may be that that dramatic act of destruction itself proved counterproductive by massively heightening concerns about terrorism around the world. No matter how much they might disagree on other issues (most notably on the war in Iraq), there is a compelling incentive for states -- even ones such as Iran, Libya, Sudan, and Syria -- to cooperate in cracking down on al Qaeda, because they know that they could easily be among its victims. The FBI may not have uncovered much of anything within the United States since 9/11, but thousands of apparent terrorists have been rounded, or rolled, up overseas with U.S. aid and encouragement. Although some Arabs and Muslims took pleasure in the suffering inflicted on 9/11 -- Schadenfreude in German, shamateh in Arabic -- the most common response among jihadists and religious nationalists was a vehement rejection of al Qaeda's strategy and methods. When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979, there were calls for jihad everywhere in Arab and Muslim lands, and tens of thousands flocked to the country to fight the invaders. In stark contrast, when the U.S. military invaded in 2001 to topple an Islamist regime, there was, as the political scientist Fawaz Gerges points out, a "deafening silence" from the Muslim world, and only a trickle of jihadists went to fight the Americans. Other jihadists publicly blamed al Qaeda for their post-9/11 problems and held the attacks to be shortsighted and hugely miscalculated. The post-9/11 willingness of governments around the world to take on international terrorists has been much reinforced and amplified by subsequent, if scattered, terrorist activity outside the United States. Thus, a terrorist bombing in Bali in 2002 galvanized the Indonesian government into action. Extensive arrests and convictions -- including of leaders who had previously enjoyed some degree of local fame and political popularity -- seem to have severely degraded the capacity of the chief jihadist group in Indonesia, Jemaah Islamiyah. After terrorists attacked Saudis in Saudi Arabia in 2003, that country, very much for self-interested reasons, became considerably more serious about dealing with domestic terrorism; it soon clamped down on radical clerics and preachers. Some rather inept terrorist bombings in Casablanca in 2003 inspired a similarly determined crackdown by Moroccan authorities. And the 2005 bombing in Jordan of a wedding at a hotel (an unbelievably stupid target for the terrorists) succeeded mainly in outraging the Jordanians: according to a Pew poll, the percentage of the population expressing a lot of confidence in bin Laden to "do the right thing" dropped from 25 percent to less than one percent after the attack.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Acquisition Takeouts
Terrorists wont get the bomb––acquisition and delivery not feasible.
5-29-09 (Debunking Myths About Nuclear Weapons and Terrorism )
Though al Qaeda is only one example, it is important to note that the immense security, sanctuary, financial backing and time that al Qaeda had was insufficient to begin attempting to produce a crude nuclear device in any meaningful way — the furthest they got was attempting to procure nuclear materials that turned out to be fake, sold to them by con men. Even chemical and biological weapon pursuits (which were certainly explored and experimented with) were not seriously or successfully pursued, given the complexity and cost. Efforts to clandestinely build a nuclear device require a coherent and consistent investment measuring in the billions (if not tens of billions) of dollars over a period likely spanning a decade or more. They require large, fixed, well-powered and vulnerable installations for a variety of aspects of the effort. These installations represent an enormous risk and opportunity cost for a terrorist organization. The international community closely monitors some of the equipment required, and they will concentrate an enormous investment of intellectual, financial and material resources into just the sort of target that the United States can bring air power to bear upon. Though the history of the use of CBRN in terrorist attacks is limited, the fact of the matter is that most cases where groups have considered pursuing these capabilities have ultimately led to them being abandoned in favor of more obtainable and efficient tactics. They simply fall well short of the destruction wrought by simpler and more conventional explosive devices. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar and hour for hour of effort, high explosives are far more effective at inflicting massive casualties. The innovation of using hijacked civilian airliners as human-guided cruise missiles is far more in line with al Qaeda operational thinking than concepts of concentrating so much in easily targetable facilities for long periods of time. Doing so runs in the face of basic operational security considerations for any terrorist organization.
No detonation possible – too complex.
The Statesman, 1 [November 21, 2001, p. l/n]
Activating the weapon would require special technical skills and intimate knowledge of sophisticated electronic codes. Only a few nuclear scientists with experience in the assembly of ADMs could be expected to have the skills necessary for the purpose. Overcoming the hurdles of breaking electronic locks would be infinitely more difficult and, besides state-of-the-art super computers and personnel trained to operate them, would require a highly advanced intelligence gathering system. Neither Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, nor any of the other large terrorist organizations supporting it, is likely to have acquired the ability to trigger a mode
rn brief case nuke that it may have bought or stolen, especially if the Tritium triggers needed to ignite them have decayed.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Acquisition Takeouts
Organized crime won’t help terrorist get weapons
Williams 7 (Phil, Professor of International Security in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, “Terrorism, Organized Crime, and WMD Smuggling: Challenge and Response,” Strategic Insights, Volume VI, Issue 5, August
Most criminal organizations not only seek to obtain significant profits from crime, but also want to enjoy the proceeds. Consequently, risks have to be modest and controllable. Even if very high rewards were offered by a terrorist organization for smuggling an IND into the United States, these rewards would not be sufficient so long as a group was making significant profits from its existing criminal enterprises, believed it would continue to make such profits in an environment characterized by acceptable risks, and recognized that agreeing to smuggle IND would be a high risk activity—which if successful would almost certainly lead to subsequent identification and retribution. In short, for a successful criminal organization, the risks incurred in assisting a terrorist organization to smuggle an IND into the United States would be prohibitive. For some criminal groups—particularly Mexican drug trafficking organizations and Mexican and Chinese alien-smuggling networks—additional considerations militate against this kind of cooperation with terrorists. Not least, the United States is their most important market and they would not want to do anything that disturbs the market. Moreover, for Mexicans, there are often family members and friends in the United States who would be put in harm’s way by an IND attack. Chinese alien smugglers, often called snake-heads, are in a similar position. They have displayed a capacity to bring ships to the United States and offload them before law enforcement and immigration authorities can react. Consequently, they are a natural candidate for terrorists looking for smuggling partners. Yet, they have a long-term business in which the United States is promised land and customer for cheap labor, rolled into one. Assisting a terrorist organization in turning the United States into a target for an IND is not readily compatible with maintaining it as the major destination for Chinese immigrants. A one-off payment would have to be particularly attractive, therefore, for the offer even to be considered, let alone accepted.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Acquisition Takeouts
Rogue states won’t give nukes to terrorists
9 (Debunking Myths About Nuclear Weapons and Terrorism
Another concern is that North Korea, Iran or Pakistan might hand off a nuclear weapon to a non-state actor or proxy of some sort — one that would detonate it at a mutually-agreeable target as soon as possible. Subsets of this same issue are whether one of these countries might not use a shipping container or some other clandestine means to carry out an attack on the United States or another target — the deniable use of nuclear weapons. Three factors must be considered when addressing the above concern. The first is an issue of trust and control. Non-state, militant proxies like Hezbollah rely on patrons like Iran for support and training. But they have their own interests as well — and they hold those close. Despite its own rhetoric about Israel, for example, Hezbollah’s senior leadership often owns property in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon, and has grown wealthy off the proceeds. They are no more interested in seeing their livelihood and retirement destroyed in the Israeli retaliation than Tehran. This older generation does not have complete control over the organization (nor is it a monolithic, unified entity), and there is certainly no shortage of young, ideologically motivated militants in Lebanon. But that assumes Tehran would ever hand over a nuke to Hezbollah in the first place. Proxies must be kept dependent, otherwise they cease to be proxies. They do not share some deep bond of trust. Though there may be some shared ideological affinities (like their hatred of all things Israeli), they attempt to maintain control over their proxies. Handing over even a crude nuclear device is anathema to that relationship and would destroy the dynamics by which the country enforces its will as a patron. It would have provided an organization that it can never fully trust with the one true guarantor of sovereignty. Second, the nuclear device is the product of an immense, expensive national effort. Each individual weapon or device — especially early on — represents an enormous investment of national resources. By handing one over to an outside group, the country not only has no assurance of it being employed in the way they want, but opens itself to the prospect of that immense investment being wasted or misused. Because a meaningful nuclear deterrent rests on not one weapon, but many, the incentive will be for the country to consolidate its stockpile and deploy it to multiple locations that it has strong control over in order to work towards establishing that deterrent. Finally, there is the issue of risk. A nuclear weapon used in a terrorist attack — not just against the United States or Israel, but anywhere in the world — will be followed by the most intense, broad and meticulous investigation in human history. The idea that because a bomb was involved in a terrorist attack that the fissile material that made it possible will not be traced ruthlessly to its source simply does not hold water. The necessary investigative processes are not only possible and well understood, but work to improve and further refine them has only intensified and received additional funding after 9/11. Indeed, a country providing a nuclear weapon to a non-state group could not have even reasonable assurances that it would not come back to haunt them, either through investigation or interrogation of those that carried out the attack. Far from being able to carry out a nuclear strike clandestinely or deniably, Tehran would be opening itself up to responsibility and accountability for Hezbollah’s actions. Again, the material will almost certainly be traced back to Tehran. And it would be Tehran that suffered the consequences. Indeed, the closest Pyongyang has come to this is an attempt to share some civilian technology with Syria — its trial run with the idea of low-level proliferation of some civilian (though inherently dual-use) precursor technologies. It quickly decided that the entire idea was too risky and sold Syria out to Israel and the United States. So while the concern about technology sharing is real (and validated by the now infamous network of A.Q. Khan), there are also limitations to how much one country is willing to risk for another. The Israeli bombing and North Korea’s betrayal of Syria will not be soon forgotten. And if countries like Syria and North Korea cannot trust each other when it comes to such high stakes, the idea that a country would be willing to trust a non-state actor is even more problematic. Ultimately, such doomsday scenarios cannot ever be completely ruled out, and continual, ever-improving efforts to further secure global nuclear stockpiles and vigilance over them are certainly warranted from a security standpoint. But man has controlled nuclear weapons for more than half a century, and we do not see the latest nuclear crisis playing out any differently than every other nuclear crisis that has come before it. Furthermore, STRATFOR does not subscribe to the idea that countries build nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately, thereby triggering nuclear war, or freely hand them off to non-state actors that would.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Acquisition Takeouts
Terrorists wont smuggle nukes
Carafano, 9 (James Jay, Ph.D. Assistant Director, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Senior Research Fellow, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, 1-13-09
Nuclear Deterrence: A Defensible Defense.
Moving a nuclear weapon would likely require 100 percent success "guaranteed." And that would require a sophisticated smuggling operation -- one far more effective than drug and arms smugglers routinely use. Criminal smugglers expect to lose some of their product along the way (so they ship more to keep the profit margin up). Nuclear smugglers, by contrast, couldn't afford even one mistake. Nuclear smuggling is also a lot harder than it used to be because of the Bush administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative. PSI is a multinational effort to thwart trafficking in materials, technology and actual weapons. It poses a real problem to anyone interested in FEDEXing nuclear weapons or trying to ship them themselves. Smuggled weapons are also not as effective. The danger of "dirty bombs" (explosives that simply spread radioactive material) is, excuse the pun, way overblown. A truck-borne small "real" nuclear weapon detonated in downtown New York might kill 40,000. The same weapon detonated as the warhead of a missile in a low-altitude airburst might cause half-a-million causalities. If you wanted to send a message to America, which attack mode would you chose?
Aff Answers: Impact D: Retaliation Threats Solve
Retaliation threats prevent terrorists from acquiring nukes
Lewis A. Dunn, Summer 2007 IFRI- a research center and a forum for debate on the major international political and economic issues “Deterrence Today- Roles, Challenges and Responses”
Going beyond traditional deterrence strategies, a complementary approach aimed at the al-Qaeda-Jihadist leadership’s cost-benefit calculus would seek to influence perceptions of whether use of nuclear weapons or other WMD would help their overall agenda. Put otherwise, it would seek to shape their views not of whether such use is justified – which increasingly is becoming an established “fact” among the most extreme Jihadists – but of whether such use is smart – a more open question. As a start, U.S. and western statements could stress that any such WMD use would result in a truly no-holds-barred campaign against the al-Qaeda-Jihadist movement. Such a campaign could include, for example, far less readiness to defer to issues of “national sovereignty” in rooting out al-Qaeda’s leadership or in using whatever means necessary to get at sources of financial, logistics, and other support; use of extra-legal means in gathering needed intelligence to disrupt operations or kill leadership, operatives, and supporters; a willingness to use coercive military measures to force governments to act against the al-Qaeda-Jihadist movement; pressures on international financial institutions to impede financial flows to that movement; and a readiness to hold any government accountable –though in ways not necessarily specified in advance – for actions by its firms or citizens that directly or indirectly contributed to terrorist access to WMD. Concern about just such an all-out escalation, for example, is said to have been one reasonwhy some members of the southeast Asia extremist group Jemaah Islamiya were not prepared to help al-Qaeda acquire biological weapons.23
More evidence that no state would risk retaliation
Haffa 9 ( Director of the Northrop Grumman Analysis Center, graduate US Air Force Academy, M.A. degree Georgetown and Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. et al (Ravi R. Hichkad, Dana J. Johnson. Philip W. Pratt) Deterrence and Defense in “The Second Nuclear Age” March 2009.
Those who believe that deterrence strategies will have little success with transnational terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda tend to urge policies of defense, preemption or prevention rather than threats of punishment. Sophisticated defenses have important roles in the second nuclear age, and they are discussed below. But there are those who argue that, because terrorists seeking to use nuclear weapons are highly dependent on other actors in their quest for nuclear capability, deterrence also will play a role.74 While threats of retaliation will not have much utility if terrorists are bent on blowing up themselves along with their victims, “deterrence tactics can be employed against their organizations and territorial bases in a targeted manner.”75 Nuclear terrorism is likely to be the result of theft or transfer from a nuclear-capable state, from indigenous production or the purchase of nuclear weapons or material. But these proliferations of nuclear capability cannot occur without some state support.76 The deterrent prescription, according to Paul K. Davis and Brian Jenkins, is stark: the United States must “credibly announce that any state or non-state organization that even tolerates the acquisition of WMD by terrorists within its borders will be subject to the full wrath of the United States.”77 This statement, with tones reminiscent of U.S. policy during the Cuban-missile crisis, is followed up by the authors with the assertion that the United States might “lower standards of evidence in ascribing guilt and may violate sovereignty” in its preemptive attack to remove guilty regimes by force.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Retaliation Threats Solve
Deterrence prevents states from giving nukes to terrorists
Fisher 7 (Yuri. Deterrence, Terrorism, and American Values. Homeland Security Affairs. PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Colorado. Feb 2007. )
Deterring state sponsors of international terrorist organizations presents perhaps the most theoretically straightforward attempt to utilize deterrent strategies in the war on terrorism. Even those who are generally skeptical of deterrence being applied to terrorism believe the U.S. may be able to deter states from harboring or supporting terrorist organizations. Of the many elements that comprise a terrorist network, rogue regimes that support terrorists are the easiest to find. Assets of a rogue regime that can be targeted, such as the territory under its control or the lives of the ruling elite, are more apparent than the assets held by individual members of terrorist organizations. Efforts to dissuade states from forming relationships with terrorists also represent one of the critical aspects of the war on terrorism. Indeed, only days after the September 11 attacks, President Bush articulated what came to be known as the Bush Doctrine: “Any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.” 9
The most salient concern for U.S. defense planners is the prospect of rogue states providing CBRN to a group such as al-Qaeda. The U.S. currently lists six countries as potential state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, and Sudan. In 2006 the U.S. State Department removed Libya because it apparently was assisting the U.S. in its war on terror. It appears that over the past few years, state sponsorship of terrorist organizations has waned. Libya, for example, has been cooperating with the U.S. to find Libyan members of al-Qaeda. Even more noteworthy, in December 2003, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi stated that the Libyan government would cease research and development of CBRN and would allow weapons inspectors to confirm its disarmamanent efforts. While the impetus for such positive steps are multifaceted, the U.S. success in ousting the Taliban from power and killing many of its members in Afghanistan has “served notice” to rogue regimes around the world that the U.S. is willing and able to destroy what rogue regimes value. Moreover, the possibility of Saddam Hussein acquiring CBRN and then passing these capabilities along to terrorists was a significant rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Many argue that Libya’s decision to dismantle its CBRN programs and other governments’ decisions to ratchet up the pressure they exert on al-Qaeda cells within their borders is at least partly due to a growing fear that U.S. military force might be used against regimes that continue to harbor terrorist organizations. 10 As Vice President Dick Cheney stated in the 2004 vice presidential debate with John Edwards, the Libyan decision to abandon its CBRN programs was one of the “great by-products” of U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. 11
While it appears that U.S. military operations and legal actions since September 11 have established a deterrent mechanism against state sponsorship of terrorism, the threat of these initiatives remains a critical concern to policymakers. Osama bin Laden has voiced an interest in acquiring mass-casualty weapons and many analysts suggest that al-Qaeda would not hesitate to use CBRN weapons if it acquired these capabilities. To do so, however, terrorist groups need help, either by smuggling CBRN materials from poorly secured facilities or by developing relationships with foreign governments willing to transfer CBRN capabilities. Thus far, it appears that al-Qaeda’s pursuit of CBRN capabilities has been unsuccessful. In 2002, The New York Times reported that U.S. administration officials stated that “…analysis of suspected radioactive substances seized in Afghanistan has found nothing to prove that Osama bin Laden reached his decade-long goal of acquiring nuclear materials for a bomb.” 12 However, U.S. intelligence agencies suspect that Pakistani scientists gave al-Qaeda members information on how to construct a radiological weapon, or “dirty bomb.” 13 North Korea increased the fear of a state transferring weapons materials, when in 2003 it threatened to sell a quantity of plutonium to the highest bidder. Additionally, as Iran is on the cusp of developing nuclear capabilities, this scenario is becoming even more critical to U.S. defense planners.
Aff Answers: Impact D: Retaliation Threats Solve
Deterence checks terrorist acquisition
Talmadge 9 (Caitlin. Doctoral candidate and member of the Security Studies Program in the
Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Deterring a Nuclear 9/11. The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Washington Quarterly. Spring. 30:2 pp. 21–34.)
Can the United States deter a nuclear terrorist attack? Two conventional wisdoms prevail on this question. One contends that Cold War ideas about deterrence are utterly irrelevant to coping with an enemy such as al Qaeda, whose members are unafraid of earthly punishments and whose leaders lack a return address at which to direct retaliation.1 The other suggests, more optimistically, that nuclear forensics make it possible for the United States to determine the origin of nuclear bombs and thus credibly threaten retaliation against any state that transfers nuclear material, weapons, or knowledge to terrorists.2 Following this logic, the United States need only combine modern nuclear physics with concepts of deterrence honed in the Cold War to solve its most worrisome present-day threat. Both arguments are half correct. Deterring a suicidal, transnational terrorist enemy is a dubious proposition and by itself hardly a comforting strategy for protecting the country. Nevertheless, nuclear terrorism is not like other forms of terrorism because states have to be involved at some stage in the decision chain leading to this type of attack. It is possible to deter nuclear terrorism by threatening retaliation against regimes or military establishments that either deliberately transfer nuclear materials, weapons, or knowledge to terrorists, as North Korea might do, or that turn a blind eye to substate organizations or actors engaged in such activities, as Pakistan did when the father of its nuclear program, A. Q. Khan, began to sell secrets.3
More evidence that deterrence checks
Long 8 (“DETERRENCE- Lessons from Six Decades of RAND Research From Cold War to Long War” The RAND National Defense Research Institute is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.)
However, deterrence theory does offer insights into combating these organizations. The first is that, while the threat of deterrence by punishment may be ineffective, deterrence by denial is still an option.24 This has been, along with offensive action, a major component of the strategy of the United States, seeking to make the conduct of terrorist attacks more difficult and thus deterring would-be terrorists from even attempting an attack. Such efforts might be most effective against spontaneous terror cells, which might simply give up rather than risk failure. This approach does have its limits, as every eventuality cannot be prepared for without incredible cost and societal disruption. The most vital area for denial is terrorist possession of nuclear weapons. Fortunately, denial in this area, while not easy, is possible. Such steps as attempting to deny nuclear capability to terrorists by securing fissile material are one clear example of this approach that is not cost prohibitive. Plans to expand nuclear-detection capabilities in both U.S. cities and in cargo ships are other possibilities. The second insight, however, is one that has only recently been discussed (at least widely and openly). This is the possibility of deterring states from providing nuclear materials to terrorists by expanding nuclear forensics. Nuclear forensics is a technique of determining the isotopic composition of nuclear material (either before or after a nuclear explosion) and then using this composition to determine, for example, the material’s origin and weapon design characteristics.25 If origin can be determined, then the state that provided the material can be held responsible. Given that response to even an attempted nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland is likely to be met with a ferocious response, potentially including nuclear weapons, the ability to identify the source of nuclear material could make deterrence highly credible in this narrow but critically important instance. Moreover, as states and state organizations are virtually the only sources of fissile material (the barriers to entry for production being very high), successful deterrence of transfer of fissile material will all but eliminate the potential for nuclear terror. Some expansion of nuclear-forensic efforts is already taking place, but this expansion should be given both a higher profile and more resources. If both well known and credible, nuclear forensics could contribute greatly to the deterrence of the most catastrophic form of terrorism.
Aff Answers: Terrorism Inevitable
Sqo policies can’t solve flow of immigration based terrorism
Washington Post 7-18-10
Given the world's integrated economy, and the rapidly changing nature of, and constraints on, the nation-state -- think terrorism, or the flow of illegal drugs, or the regulation of multinational corporations, or the Internet, or pollution -- no wall, moat or border patrol will be large or wide or deep enough to fully stop the flow of immigrants. Trying to tightly seal any border will almost inevitably bring unintended consequences -- in reluctant illegal residents, in increased offshoring of industry and jobs, in cross-border smuggling and crime or, as with Arizona's new immigration law, in a whole new set of foreign policy problems. "Show me a 50-foot wall," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said when she was governor of Arizona, "and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder."
Aff Answers: Crime
Immigrants are less of a crime risk than native born citizens
Preston 8 (Julia – Journalist, Feb 26, New York Times, “California: Study of Immigrants and Crime,” ) JJN
Immigrants in the state, about 35 percent of adults, are far less likely than native-born Americans to commit crimes, according to a study by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research group. Among men ages 18 to 40, the group most likely to commit crimes, native-born Americans were 10 times more likely than immigrants to be incarcerated for crimes in California prisons and jails. The study included both legal and illegal immigrants, without focusing separately on illegal immigrants. But it found that native-born American men ages 18 to 40 were at least eight times more likely to be imprisoned for crimes than Mexican immigrants in that age range who were not naturalized citizens — a group likely to have a high percentage of illegal immigrants.
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.