With the exception of the Revolutionary War over two hundred years ago, the vast majority of Americans have never felt threatened inside the borders of the continental United States. America is surrounded on both sides by large oceans making physical attacks against U.S. territory all but impossible. This situation began to change during the Cold War. With the advent of ballistic missile technology and large-scale atomic and nuclear weapons, the homeland was now vulnerable to direct physical attack.

The federal government attempted to deal with this relatively new threat by establishing the Civil Defense program and by increasing expenditures in strategic weapons such as bombers, submarines, and missiles. A medical system was created to handle the large number of mass casualties that would be created by a thermonuclear attack on the United States.

When the Cold War ended in 1989, Americans began to feel safe from direct attack, and many Civil Defense programs, such as fallout shelters, were discontinued altogether. Many federal agencies played a role in the Civil Defense program, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), began to focus more on preparation and response to natural disasters such as floods, fires, and hurricanes. The medical system created to handle mass casualties of a nuclear holocaust began to atrophy.

On March 20, 1995, an event that was truly unique in the annals of terrorism took place (1). An obscure religious sect calling themselves Aum Shinrikyo unleashed an attack on the Tokyo subway system using the deadly nerve agent sarin. The immediate effects of the attack were staggering as 12 people died and over 5,000 reported to local hospitals with suspected signs and symptoms of nerve agent poisoning. Also, over 10% of the responders who rushed into the subway became casualties (1).

Unbeknownst to the Japanese government, the group had been experimenting with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) agents for some time. Following a failed attempt to gain political power through elections in 1990, the group decided to develop unconventional weapons as a path to power and influence. Originally, Aum Shinrikyo tried to develop biological weapons. Fortunately the group’s attempts were unsuccessful, and after investing millions of dollars in failed attempts to develop botulinum toxin, Ebola virus, anthrax, the venom of poisonous snakes, and mushrooms, Aum Shinrikyo shifted its development effort to chemical weapons (1).

Beginning in 1993, the group spent over $30 million to develop a chemical weapons arsenal. At various times Aum Shinrikyo produced at least limited quantities of VX, tabum, mustard gas, hydrogen cyanide, and phosgene. However, beginning in 1993, the group began to focus almost exclusively on the manufacture and production of sarin. On the night of June 27, 1994, the group was ready for its first dress rehearsal. In an attack on the mountain city of Matsumoto, the sect used a truck mounted with sprayers to disperse the deadly agent. The resulting attack left 7 dead and 58 hospitalized. Another 253 sought medical treatment on an outpatient basis (1).

Finally, on March 20, 1995, Aum Shinrikyo was ready. Using five assault teams consisting of two men each, the sect members planned an attack on the crowded Tokyo subway system at the height of Monday morning rush hour. Each team boarded a different train carrying two brown paper bags containing a plastic container of sarin. Between 7:46 A.M. and 8:01 A.M., cult members punctured the bags with an umbrella and stepped off the trains. As the trains continued down the track to the next station, toxic fumes began seeping from the bags. The effects were rapid. Passengers began displaying signs of coughing, vomiting, and convulsing within a few stops (1).

The first fire and emergency medical units began to respond shortly after eight o’clock and were quickly overwhelmed by the number of casualties flooding the train stations and pouring out onto the streets. Initial responders were not equipped with personal protective equipment (PPE). Consequently, many of them became casualties as they descended into the stations. Patients were not decontaminated
at the incident scene before being transported to hospitals. In addition to almost 700 casualties transported to hospitals by ambulances, hospitals were quickly overwhelmed by over 4,000 victims self-referring to hospital emergency rooms. Of the 5,510 patients eventually treated, 85% were psychogenic, displaying no real chemical injuries. Tokyo police took over 2 hours to identify the agent as sarin. Meanwhile, hospitals had only limited stocks of 2-PAM and atropine sulfate to administer to the most seriously ill patients. Failure to decontaminate patients at the incident scene before transporting resulted in about 10% of the emergency medical technicians (EMTs) displaying symptoms of nerve agent poisoning, probably from off-gassing. The emergency room (ER) staff was also susceptible to off-gassing with approximately 16% of some ER staffs becoming casualties themselves (1).

Aum Shinrikyo’s attack was significant because it represented the first chemical weapons attack by a nonstate group on a civilian population. This was a major turning point in the history of terrorism. After March 20, 1995, no one ever looked at terrorism quite the same.

Within less than a month following Aum Shinrikyo’s deadly attack on the Tokyo subway, another terrorist attack would occur in the heartland of the United States and would shake America to its very core. At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh exploded a rented truck containing a mixture of 4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate (common fertilizer) and nitromethane (racing fuel) in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The explosion destroyed several concrete columns at the front of the building causing a structural collapse of a major portion of the building’s nine floors. The blast killed 168 people 19 of them children who attended a day care center located on the building’s ground floor. Over 600 people were injured, and 25 surrounding buildings were severely damaged or destroyed. Prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, the terrorist attack on the Murrah Federal Building was the largest domestic terrorist attack in the history of the United States (3).

The Aum Shinrikyo nerve agent attack on the Tokyo subway and the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City clearly demonstrate that the nature of the terrorist threat has changed significantly over the last few years. Twenty years ago the purpose of the majority of terrorist attacks was to gain publicity for the terrorist group. To get their name and particular cause broadcast across the world was usually their primary objective. Invariably these terrorist attacks would result in relatively few casualties. The economic impact of these attacks was also very limited. The terrorist attacks of 1995 showed that the very nature of terrorism had changed fundamentally. Now, publicity and notoriety were no longer the primary objectives. The purpose of the new attacks was to create human casualties and to effect as many economic and social consequences as possible. These objectives could only be achieved by use of WMD.

Following these attacks, the federal government took several steps to better prepare the nation’s responders to deal with this new threat posed by WMD. On June 21, 1995, President Clinton signed Presidential Decision Directive-39 (PDD-39), U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism. This classified document laid out the national policy and assigned specific missions to designated federal departments and agencies. PDD-39 reaffirmed existing Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) responsibilities for counterterrorism and the threats or acts of terrorism within the United States. The directive further clarified the role of FEMA as the primary federal agency responsible for managing the on-scene response to an act of terrorism in the United States. PDD-39 also established U.S. policy for combating terrorism. It recognized that terrorism is a threat to national security as well as a criminal act. Therefore, the policy of the United States was to use all appropriate means to deter, defeat, and respond to all terrorist attacks on U.S. territory and resources, both with people and facilities, wherever they occur (4).

To ensure that the United States was better prepared to combat terrorism in all of its forms, a number of measures were directed. These included reducing vulnerabilities to terrorism, deterring and responding to terrorist attacks, and having capabilities to prevent and manage the consequences of terrorist use of WMD. To reduce vulnerabilities to terrorism, both at home and abroad, all departmental/agency heads were directed to ensure that their personnel and facilities were fully protected against terrorism. The Domestic Emergency Support Team (DEST) was created to respond to domestic incidents of terrorism. DEST membership was limited to those agencies required to respond to the specific incident. These teams included elements capable of responding to specific types of threats such as nuclear, chemical, and biological. The development of effective capabilities for preventing and managing use of WMD materials or weapons was given the highest priority. Senior officials were very concerned about the possibility of terrorists acquiring WMD, and preventing the acquisition of such materials/weapons or removing the capability from terrorist groups was given the highest priority (4).

Concerned that WMDs were becoming increasingly available to terrorists, Congress passed the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996, commonly known as the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Act (Public Law 104-201, September 23, 1996). The act designated the Department of Defense (DOD) as the lead agency to enhance domestic preparedness for responding to the use of WMD. Under the act, DOD was tasked to provide training, exercise, and expert advice to emergency response personnel and lend equipment to local jurisdictions.

The DOD identified the nation’s 120 largest cities for receipt of training, exercises, and equipment to enhance their capacity to respond to WMD incidents. On April 6, 2000, President Clinton transferred this program to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Prior to the program’s transfer, DOD trained over 28,000 first responders, delivered all three program elements to 68 of the 120 cities, and delivered the training components to an additional 37 cities. The program was again transferred on March 1, 2003, to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for completion of training for the remaining cities (5).

In an attempt to clarify several aspects of PDD-39, and to strengthen the nation’s defenses against emerging unconventional threats, President Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directives 62 and 63 in May 1998. PDD-62 focused on terrorist acts and the use of WMD, while PDD-63 focused on unconventional assaults on the United States’ critical infrastructures and cyber-attacks.

Combating Terrorism Directive, PDD-62, highlighted the growing threat of unconventional attacks against the United States. It detailed a new and more systematic approach to fighting terrorism by bringing a program management approach to U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The directive also established the Office of National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-Terrorism to oversee a broad variety of relevant policies and programs, including areas such as counterterrorism, protection of critical infrastructure, and preparedness and consequence management for WMD. It reinforced the mission of the many federal agencies charged with defeating terrorism and codified and clarified their activities in a wide range of counterterrorism programs (5).

The Presidential Decision Directive 63 (PDD-63) specifically addressed critical infrastructure protection and called for a national effort to ensure the security of the vulnerable and interconnected infrastructures of the United States. These infrastructures included telecommunications, banking and finance, energy, transportation, and essential government services. The directive required immediate federal government action, including risk assessment and planning to reduce exposure of the critical components of America’s economy. It stressed the importance of cooperation between the government and the private sector by linking designated agencies with private sector representatives (6).

PDD-63 built upon the recommendations of the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure protection. In October 1997, the commission issued its report calling for a national effort to ensure the security of the United States’ increasingly vulnerable and interconnected infrastructures. PDD-63 was the culmination of an intense, interagency effort to evaluate those recommendations and produce a workable and innovative framework for critical infrastructure protection. The president’s policy set a goal of achieving a reliable, interconnected, and secure information system infrastructure by the year 2003 and significantly increased security to government systems by establishing a national center to warn of and respond to attacks. The directive also addressed the cyber and physical infrastructure vulnerabilities of the federal government by requiring each department and agency to work to reduce its exposure to these new threats (6).

PDD-63 was unique in that it was one of the first documents to seek the voluntary participation of private industry to meet common goals for protecting critical systems through public-private partnerships. PDD-63 set up a new structure to deal with this important challenge by establishing the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) to combine representatives from FBI, DOD, U.S. Secret Service, Energy, Transportation, the intelligence community, and the private sector in an unprecedented attempt at information sharing among agencies. The NIPC also provided the principal means of facilitating and coordinating the federal government’s response to an incident, mitigating attacks, investigating threats, and monitoring reconstitution efforts (6).

Following the unprecedented terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the president and congress took several steps to enhance homeland security against terrorist attacks. On October 17, 2002, the National Security Counsel published the National Security Strategy of the United States of America. The purpose of this document was to establish a new national security strategy focused on homeland security by deterring attacks abroad and protecting against attacks at home (7).

To further emphasize the importance of homeland security, the National Security Counsel also published the first National Strategy for Homeland Security on July 16, 2002. This document was written with the expressed purpose to “mobilize and prepare The United States to secure the U.S. homeland from terrorist attacks.” The strategy provided a national framework for homeland security by setting direction for federal departments and agencies that have a role in homeland security. It suggested steps that state and local governments, private companies, organizations, and individual Americans could take to improve their security. The document stated three strategic objectives: (a) prevent terrorist attacks within the United States; (b) reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism; and (c) minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur. Additionally, the strategy identified several major initiatives to help the nation better prepare for homeland security: (a) integration of several separate federal response plans into a single all-discipline incident management plan, (b) creation of a national incident management system, (c) preparation of health care providers for catastrophic terrorism, (d) augmentation of America’s pharmaceutical and vaccine stockpiles, and (e) introduction of several initiatives to strengthen the capability of the nation’s first responders to respond to a terrorist attack (8).

Published in December 2002, the National Domestic Preparedness Strategy was developed to help deal with various homeland security issues. This document articulates a national strategy specifically focused on combating WMD. The strategy recognized that the threat of a WMD attack represents one of the greatest security challenges facing the United States and conveys a comprehensive strategy to counter this threat. The document clearly states that the United States “… will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes and terrorists to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.” The strategy outlines three principal pillars for combating WMD. The first is counterproliferation. The United States will use interdiction, deterrence, defense, and mitigation to counter the threat of WMD. Second, the United States will pursue an active nonproliferation strategy through the use of diplomacy, threat reduction cooperation, controls of nuclear materials, export controls, and sanctions. Finally,
the strategy recognizes that all levels of government must be prepared to respond to the effects of a WMD attack (9).

One of the most important documents published by the White House following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, was Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 (HSPD-5). Published in February of 2003, this document further clarified roles of federal agencies in homeland security and mandated several important policy issues that would have a far-reaching impact on state and local response to acts of terrorism. First, HSPD-5 established the Secretary of Homeland Security as the principal federal official for management of domestic incidents. The secretary is responsible for coordinating the federal response within the United States and to prepare for, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks, major disasters, or other emergencies. Previously, the director of FEMA had been responsible for these functions. (10).

HSPD-5 also called for the establishment of a single, comprehensive approach to incident management. Previously, incident management was not standardized, and many state and local jurisdictions developed their own unique approach. While the individual incident management systems worked well for small, localized events, such as fire or other local emergencies, response to a larger event involving multiple organizations from many different jurisdictions would require a more standardized approach. Therefore, the Secretary of Homeland Security was directed to develop a National Incident Management System (NIMS). The system would provide a consistent nationwide approach for federal, state, and local governments to work effectively together to plan for and respond to domestic incidents regardless of size or complexity. NIMS would provide for interoperability and compatibility among federal, state, and local levels of government by establishing a common set of concepts, principles, and terminology. All federal, state, and local agencies are required to adopt NIMS by fiscal year 2005 (10).