EXPLAINING THE US DECISION TO STRIKE TERRORISTS
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Explaining the United States’ Decision to Strike Back at Terrorists
 MICHELE L. MALVESTI  

Reprinted from Terrorism and Political Violence
Volume 13 * Summer 2001 * Number 2
A Frank Cass Journal
ISSN 0954-6553  

When an anti-US international terrorism incident occurs, the preferred US counter-terrorism response is law enforcement action. Sometimes, however, US decision-makers supplement or supplant this approach with a ‘power’ approach via overt military action. Among the more than 2,400 anti-US incidents over a 16-year period, the US has applied military force in response to only three: the 1986 Libyan bombing of a West German discotheque; the 1993 Iraqi attempt to assassinate former President Bush in Kuwait; and the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in East Africa by bin Laden operatives. What differentiates these incidents from other anti-US attacks? Although the presidents who ordered the strikes offered justifications common to each, this article uncovers five other factors that may have greater explanatory power.

Introduction

Over a 16-year period, from 1983 to 1998, more than 2,400 incidents of international terrorism1 were directed against the citizens, facilities and interests of the United States throughout the world. Over 600 US citizens lost their lives and nearly 1,900 others sustained injuries in these attacks.2

During these 16 years, the four-pronged counter-terrorism policy of the United States has remained virtually unchanged.3 The first element is to refuse to make concessions or strike deals with terrorists. The second element is to bring terrorists to justice for their actions. The third component is to isolate and apply pressure on state sponsors of international terrorism to force them to cease their terrorist-related activities. Finally, the fourth element of US counter-terrorism policy is to strengthen, via co-operative efforts, the capabilities of other countries to combat terrorism.

Within the context of this policy US decision-makers, when confronted with an anti-US incident of international terrorism, have recourse to five broad instruments of statecraft as methods of response.4 First, US officials could decide to pursue political and diplomatic measures against the terrorist perpetrators and their state sponsors, ranging from public censure and condemnation to the institution of travel barriers to the severance of diplomatic relations. A second option available to US officials is the enactment of economic measures, such as the institution of trade embargoes, the withdrawal of economic aid, the restriction of US investment in a country or the seizure of US-based assets and prohibition of US-based fundraising. A third counter-terrorist measure is the application of direct, overt military action, including bombings, air strikes or other overt uses of military force designed to facilitate the disruption or destruction of a terrorist organization’s network. A fourth option is the initiation of covert operations against the terrorists. Covert operations in general can encompass various political, economic and military methods; in response to international terrorism specifically, covert action could include the deployment of US special operations forces to rescue hostages or the secret training of surrogates to penetrate and attack anti-US terrorist cells. The fifth weapon available in the arsenal to counter anti-US international terrorism is law enforcement action - the investigation, pursuit, apprehension and prosecution of terrorist entities. These five offensive methods of response are not mutually exclusive; they overlap in many areas and US decision-makers often opt for a combination of measures. However, law enforcement action is the standard approach used by the United States government today in response to anti-US acts of international terrorism.5

Despite the US preference for the juridical option, sometimes decision-makers will supplement or even supplant this ‘criminal justice’ approach with a ‘power’ approach via the application of covert operations or overt military action. This article is interested in the latter. Particularly, this article seeks to develop an explanatory theory of the conditions under which the United States decides to move beyond the standard juridical approach and initiate a use of force via overt military action in response to an incident of anti-US international terrorism. Of the more than 2,400 acts of anti-US international terrorism that occurred from 1983-98, it is noteworthy the United States decided to apply overt military force in response to only three. Specifically, the US conducted military air strikes against facilities in Tripoli and Benghazi after determining Libyan complicity in the April 1986 bombing of a West German discotheque that killed three persons, including two US soldiers, and wounded more than 200 others, including 70 US citizens. Second, the US executed strikes against the Iraqi Intelligence Service Headquarters in June 1993 after agents of Iraq conceived, orchestrated and pursued a plot to assassinate former President George Bush via a car bomb in Kuwait that April; Kuwaiti authorities uncovered and thwarted the attempt. Finally, in August 1998 the US executed a two­-pronged missile attack against facilities allegedly6 related to terrorist financier Usama bin Laden in Sudan and Afghanistan in response to the near-simultaneous destruction of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by bin Laden terrorists earlier that month. The two terrorist explosions killed a total of 224 persons, including 12 US citizens, and injured over 4,000 others.

            Given the stark disparity between the overall number of anti-US international terrorist incidents and the number of times the United States has decided to execute overt military strikes in response to an attack, what differentiates Libya’s bombing of a discotheque frequented by US soldiers, Iraq’s plot to assassinate former President Bush and the destruction of two US embassies in East Africa by bin Laden operatives from the more than 2,400 other anti-US terrorist incidents that occurred in a 16-year period? For illustrative purposes, why did the United States opt to apply military action in response to Iraq’s plot to assassinate former President Bush, an act that was thwarted by Kuwaiti authorities and thus never materialized, yet has refrained from applying overt military force against Iran and its primary surrogate, Lebanese Hizballah, the terrorist group known responsible for more US deaths than any other terrorist organization to date?7 Or why, for example, did the United States decide to strike against terrorist-related facilities in Libya in 1986 in response to Tripoli’s complicity in the La Belle discotheque bombing, yet favored law enforcement action against Libyan state agents in response to Tripoli’s hand8 in the 1988 destruction of Pan Am flight 103? What factors are unique to the incidents in response to which the US moved beyond standard law enforcement action and applied overt military force?

Toward the Development of an Explanatory Theory

Following each of the three US military retaliatory strikes, Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton addressed the nation, publicly offering justifications for the US strikes against Libya, Iraq and bin Laden-related targets, respectively. An examination of these addresses yields factors common to each anti-US terrorist incident that precipitated the application of US military force, thus constructing the foundation of an explanatory theory.

In the wake of the US air raids against terrorist-related targets in Libya, President Reagan offered the following reasons for the strikes.9 First, he noted the United States had incontrovertible confirmation that the attack, directed against US servicemen in a West German discotheque, was conceived and discharged under the explicit instructions of the Qadhafi regime in Libya. Second, Reagan conveyed he had previously warned the Libyan leader that his regime, which Reagan noted had had a hand in prior anti-US incidents of international terrorism, would be held accountable for any new operations directed against US citizens. Third, the United States had employed other counter-terrorism instruments in response to Libya’s sponsorship of international terrorism such as ‘quiet diplomacy, public condemnation, economic sanctions, and demonstrations of military force’10 but none was effective in curbing Qadhafi’s foreign policy of terror. Moreover, President Reagan asserted Qadhafi had been engaging in international terrorism with near impunity, observing that for years the Libyan leader

…suffered no economic or political or military sanction; and the atrocities mounted in number, as did the innocent dead and wounded. And for us to ignore by inaction the slaughter of American civilians and American soldiers, whether in nightclubs or airline terminals, is simply not in the American tradition. When our citizens are abused or attacked anywhere in the world on the direct orders of a hostile regime, we will respond so long as I’m in this Oval Office11.

President Bill Clinton, while addressing the US public after he ordered the strikes against Iraq for Baghdad’s complicity in the plot to assassinate former President Bush, offered his justifications for the application of military force.12 First, the President affirmed the United States had compelling confirmation the Iraqi Intelligence Service directed and facilitated the assassination plot against the former President. Second, he contended the plot was not only an attack against Bush but also an attack against the United States and all its citizens and thus could not have gone unanswered. He later added that Iraqi leader ‘Saddam Hussein has demonstrated repeatedly that he will resort to terrorism or aggression if left unchecked.’13 Third, President Clinton acknowledged to congressional leaders that other possible avenues of response available to the United States to counter Iraq’s terrorist aggression such as ‘new diplomatic initiatives or economic measures’14 would not be effective in altering Saddam’s behaviour. Additionally, the President noted the retaliatory strikes served as a warning to all terrorists who would strike not only at US leaders but its citizens as well that the US will respond to protect its people. Specifically, he said, ‘There should be no mistake about the message we intend these actions to convey to Saddam Hussein, to the rest of the Iraqi leadership, and to any nation, group, or person who would harm our leaders or our citizens. We will combat terrorism. We will deter aggression. We will protect our people’.15

Five years later Clinton again addressed the American people to explain why the United States conducted military strikes against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan related to terrorist financier Usama bin Laden. He specified four reasons.16 First, President Clinton noted the United States had compelling evidence bin Laden’s organization conducted the near­ simultaneous bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dat es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 12 US citizens. Second, he noted these attacks were not the first anti-US operations conducted by bin Laden’s terrorists; rather, malcontents operating under the rubric of bin Laden’s terrorist network had previously conducted terrorist operations against US citizens. Third, the United States had convincing information the terrorists were preparing to execute additional acts of terrorism specifically targeting US citizens. Finally, Clinton asserted the terrorists were attempting to procure chemical weapons.

An Initial Model

Extrapolating from the publicly professed reasons why the United States resorted to overt military retaliation in response to the discotheque bombing, the Bush assassination plot and the East Africa bombings, four explanatory factors are common to all three incidents. First, the United States maintained it had compelling intelligence information regarding who perpetrated each of the incidents. This factor is termed positive perpetrator identification and is a necessary, if obvious, requisite for military targeting.

Second, the respective US President asserted each of these positively identified terrorist perpetrators had conducted previous acts of terrorism against US interests. This factor is termed perpetrator repetition. For instance, Reagan noted the US would hold Qadhafi responsible for ‘any new terrorist attacks launched against American citizens’17 thus conveying the Libyan regime had perpetrated prior acts of international terrorism against US citizens. Although Clinton does not explicitly refer to previous anti-US terrorist acts perpetrated by Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s regime had indeed executed prior terrorist initiatives against the United States, particularly during and in the wake of the Persian Gulf War in 199O-91.’18 Thus when Clinton stated the Iraqi leader ‘has demonstrated repeatedly that he will resort to terrorism or aggression if left unchecked’19 he was most likely alluding to these prior anti-US terrorist operations. In his statement addressing the 1998 US strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan against bin Laden’s terrorist infrastructure, President Clinton clearly noted Usama bin Laden’s organization, which the US has charged with conducting the US embassy bombings in East Africa, had ‘executed terrorist attacks against Americans in the past.’20 Accordingly, there is, at least from the viewpoint of the United States, an established history of Muammar Qadhafi, Saddam Hussein and Usama bin Laden ordering or sponsoring attacks against US interests. This history of conducting terrorist operations has ramifications for the future. Implicit in this factor of repetition is the notion of a continued future threat. This is either explicitly stated or, at the very least, alluded to in each of the presidential statements. Indeed, each US strike was undertaken not simply in retaliation for a particular incident but with the larger objectives of attempting to disrupt the terrorists’ ability to conduct future acts of terrorism or to force them to alter their behaviour.  While the future threat posed by the terrorists is most explicitly illustrated with bin Laden, whom the US claimed was preparing for additional imminent attacks,21 by having executed prior acts of terrorism, a repetitive pattern is established and this pattern implies a continued threat of future anti-US terrorism.

A third factor common to each of the attacks is direct US targeting, which is intertwined with the factor of perpetrator repetition. Inherent in the notion of having established a pattern of attacks against the United States is the fact that the terrorist operations were designed specifically to target US interests. An attack directed against US interests as the primary target contrasts with terrorist incidents during which US citizens or facilities were injured or sustained damage but were not the ultimate target of the incident. For instance, the La Belle discotheque, although not officially connected with the United States, was bombed because it was frequented by US servicemen, who were the primary target of the attack; the 1993 Iraqi operation was designed to kill a specific US citizen — former President Bush; and the vehicle bombs in Kenya and Tanzania explicitly aimed to destroy two US embassies. In these three operations US interests were the ultimate targets of attack. For illustrative contrast purposes, in June 1985, 329 people, including 19 US citizens, died when a bomb detonated aboard an Air India flight en route to Ireland from Canada. Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1988 notes Sikh extremists, who target Indian interests as part of a concerted campaign to establish an independent Sikh state, likely executed the operation. The publication also observes that, despite 19 US citizens being killed in the Air India bombing, Sikh groups have not targeted US interests for attack.22 Indian interests, not those of the US, were the intended victims. Another example would be the October 1994 abduction and subsequent murder of Israeli Army Corporal Nachson Wachsman, a dual US—Israeli citizen, at the hands of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas, an organization that has executed numerous attacks against both Israeli military and civilian targets as part of its effort to establish an Islamic Palestinian state in all of Israel, undoubtedly targeted Wachsman for attack because of his status as an Israeli soldier and not because of his US affiliation.

The fourth explanatory factor is US citizen involvement. When both Presidents Reagan and Clinton described the international terrorism incidents in response to which the US retaliated, as well as the previous attacks perpetrated by Libya, Iraq and individuals operating under bin Laden’s umbrella, they consistently referred not to attacks against US­related facilities or property, for instance, but rather to attacks against US citizens, against the people of the United States. President Reagan specifically stated he would hold Qadhafi liable for additional attacks ‘launched against American citizens’ and later noted, ‘When our citizens are abused or attacked anywhere in the world on the direct orders of a hostile regime, we will respond so long as I’m in this Oval Office.’23 President Clinton affirmed the retaliation against the Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters was a signal ‘to any nation, group, or person who would harm our leaders or our citizens.’24 In addressing the nation after the US strikes against bin Laden-related targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, Clinton noted the operation was designed to ‘damage their capacity to strike at Americans and other innocent people’; to counter those who had ‘executed terrorist attacks against Americans in the past’; and to thwart additional terrorist operations planned ‘against our citizens and others’.25 The emphasis is on the fact that these anti-US terrorist incidents harmed or intended to harm the people - the citizens - of the United States, not merely cause property damage to an unoccupied US embassy warehouse or a US-owned company overseas, for instance. What these attacks have in common then, and what the Presidents placed emphasis on, is the citizen target.

In the larger research project upon which this article is based, a four-factor model comprised of positive perpetrator identification, perpetrator repetition, direct US targeting and US citizen involvement was initially posited toward explaining the US decision to use overt military force in response to a given act of anti-US international terrorism. This model was then tested against the other anti-US incidents of international terrorism that occurred from 1983-98. If the initial model were accurate and all-encompassing in explaining the conditions under which the US will respond with overt military force to a terrorist incident, the test would spotlight only the three terrorist incidents in response to which the US initiated military force. However, if terrorist incidents other than the 1986 La Belle discotheque bombing, the 1993 plot to assassinate George Bush and the 1998 East Africa bombings also met each of the model’s four criteria, then the initial model would be incomplete in its explanatory power.

Initial Model Test

The application of the four-factor model against other anti-US incidents of international terrorism over the 16-year period yielded sixty-one other anti-US incidents that meet each of the model’s four criteria yet failed to incite the US to conduct military action in response (see Table 1). For instance, on 13 May 1990, assassins from the New People’s Army (NPA) shot and killed two US Air Force airmen near Clark Airbase in the Philippines. The killings occurred just before exploratory talks were set to begin between the Philippines and the US regarding the future of US military bases in country.26 The US Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1990 states the group conducted the operation, indicating positive perpetrator identification. Further, the NPA, the guerrilla arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines, was dedicated to ousting the Philippine Government via protracted warfare. To this end, the NPA directed its operations against the country’s security apparatus, corrupt Filipino politicians and, until US base closures in 1992, against the US military presence in the Philippines, which it opposed.27 Accordingly, the incident illustrates direct US targeting and, with the deaths of two US airmen, US citizen involvement. Moreover, the attack is one of 11 in a series of repetitive anti-US incidents conducted by the NPA from 1983-98. If these killings — along with the other incidents detailed in Table 1 - meet the four criteria laid out by Presidents Reagan and Clinton, why did the US not initiate military action in response to these terrorist challenges? The four-factor model, therefore, is not all-encompassing in its explanatory power. Factors other than, or in addition to, positive perpetrator identification, perpetrator repetition, direct US targeting and US citizen involvement must account for the United States’ decision to strike at Libyan, Iraqi and bin Laden-related targets.

Explanatory Expansion

A critical review of the history and events surrounding the US strikes against Libya, Iraq and Usama bin Laden yields five additional common characteristics found in their precipitating incidents as well as in the events leading up to the strikes. The first two additional shared properties relate to the terrorist incidents themselves. First, the three incidents were faits accomplis — already accomplished and irreversible in nature; they were not on-going incidents. The La Belle discotheque bombing and the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were incidents that had come to fruition and were, in effect, over the moment the explosives detonated. There would be no on-going crisis to manage, only consequences with which to contend. The same applies to the plot to assassinate former President Bush. Once Kuwaiti authorities uncovered the plot and arrested those involved in the murderous conspiracy, the immediate crisis itself had been obviated. Materialized bombings, thwarted plots and, for example, assassinations, arsons and armed attacks represent faits accomplis. Other types of terrorist incidents, however, are on-going situations that require or, at the very least, lend themselves to crisis management rather than retaliatory armed action. Abductions, hostage barricade incidents and hijackings fall into this latter category. The execution of overt military action during an on-going incident would necessarily place the US citizens involved in danger, either via the military action itself or, if they are held at a site not targeted, via possible retaliation by the terrorists who have them. This is a risk that tends to be operationally and politically unpalatable. It is hypothesized, therefore, that the US is more inclined to use overt military force in response to fait accomplis anti-US terrorist incidents, defined here as materialized bombings, thwarted plots, assassinations, arsons and armed attacks, than in response to on-going hostage-related situations where US lives continue to remain at risk.

The second characteristic each of the three incidents has in common is that the primary targets of attack — US servicemen, a former US President and two US embassies — are related to the US government. The two US servicemen who died in the La Belle discotheque bombing were members of the US armed forces, carrying out official US military duties overseas. Former President Bush, who was once the chief of state and head of government, was targeted by Iraqi agents in response to actions he undertook as President of the United States. The near-simultaneous bombings that occurred in August 1998 in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were directed at US diplomatic missions, sovereign US facilities, and at the US diplomatic and government-related personnel inside their walls. These incidents contrast sharply with terrorist incidents directed against US business-related facilities or private US citizens.

Interestingly, with the exception of 1983 and 1990, the type of US target most frequently attacked during the years under examination in this article has been business-related.28 For instance, of the 111 anti-US terrorist incidents in 1998, 77, or nearly 70 per cent, were bombings of a single US-related business venture - a multinational oil pipeline in Colombia that Colombian terrorists consider a US target.29 US business-related facilities are probably attacked most frequently due to their relatively low-security profile compared to the security measures in place at US diplomatic missions or US-related military facilities overseas. Moreover, a terrorist’s choice of target, be it business or government-related is contingent upon the terrorist group’s capabilities, objectives and, intertwined with these, whether or not the group desires to maximize casualties. Regardless, US businesses were the most frequently attacked target in anti-US international terrorist incidents from 1983—98, yet the three incidents in response to which the US retaliated with armed action had government-related facilities and personnel as the ultimate targets. US officials responsible for counter-terrorism decision-making were probably influenced by the fact that the primary targets in these three trigger incidents were US government-related. Attacks against US diplomatic missions are attacks on sovereign US territory and thus are direct challenges to US power, authority and jurisdiction. US decision-makers probably perceive terrorist incidents perpetrated against US government-related personnel in a similar light; this is highlighted in the extreme case of the plot to assassinate Bush. Indeed, as the evidence began to mount against Iraq, the United States began to examine various courses of action, including the standard juridical response: requesting the government of Kuwait to extradite the suspects to the US to stand trial. However, Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Defense officials reportedly argued a plot to assassinate a former President of the United States mandated more severe punishment.30 The US, therefore, is more inclined to use military force in response to incidents -where the target is a US diplomatic mission or personnel, military facilities or personnel, or other government-related interests such as civilian employees of the Department of Defense, for example, than in response to incidents that do not involve official US government interests.

The third additional property the three trigger incidents have in common -is that there was relatively immediate positive perpetrator identification. With the La Belle discotheque bombing, intelligence revealed Libya’s hand that same night. The bombing had occurred at 1:49 a.m., Saturday 5 April. Just prior to the attack that evening Britain’s General Communications Headquarters intercepted a transmission from the Libyan People’s Bureau in East Berlin to Tripoli foretelling an upcoming ‘joyous event’.31 Nearly coinciding with the bomb detonation in the discotheque, the British agency received another intercept from the same parties describing the operation as 32 a success and one that could not be linked to the Libyan People’s Bureau. Indeed, within hours the United States had its ‘smoking gun’.33

The 1998 US embassy bombings did not produce a ‘smoking gun’ the -very day the incident occurred, as the La Belle bombing had, but in a press briefing with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on the day of the US strikes, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger makes it clear that:

From quite early on in the investigation, the intelligence community began to receive substantial amounts of credible information from many sources and many methods indicating that the Osama bin Laden group of terrorist organizations was responsible for the bombing. And that information culminated in the last few days in the conclusion reached by the intelligence community that we have high confidence that these bombings were planned, financed and carried out by the organization bin Laden leads.34

The US had positively identified the perpetrators of the US embassy bombings within days. Indeed, Berger notes that ‘Last Friday, exactly a week after the bombings, Director [of Central Intelligence] Tenet, I think, had reached a judgment about responsibility…’35

Positive perpetrator identification of the Iraqi plot to assassinate former President Bush did not occur within days, unlike the identification in the other two incidents. To be sure, the United States initially questioned the veracity of information pointing to a plot actually to assassinate Bush; rather, US officials tended more toward an assessment that the suspects were engaging in sabotage.36 Following the arrest of the suspects, however, President Clinton ordered an investigation into the April 1993 incident. Attorney-General Janet Reno and Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey presented their findings to the President on Thursday 24 June 1993, Clinton ordered the strikes that Friday and the strikes were executed on Saturday 26 June.37 Accordingly, from the time the incident occurred in mid April until the findings were given to the President on 24 June, the US bad determined responsibility for the incidents within roughly ten weeks.

These relatively immediate assignations of culpability contrast with other terrorist incidents where positive perpetrator identification takes months, sometimes years, to determine. One of the most illustrative examples of ‘non-immediate’ perpetrator identification is the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. It was not until nearly three years after the bombing, in November 1991, that US and British courts indicted two Libyan agents for the attack38 The United States, however, once positive perpetrator identification was established in 1991, did not respond to this incident, which met all four initial criteria in the explanatory model, with military action against Libyan terrorist-related targets as it had done against Libya five years earlier; rather, the Bush administration opted for a juridical response.

Defining relatively immediate positive perpetrator identification is problematic in that any time period proffered would necessarily be arbitrary. Conceding this inherent problem, however, relatively immediate positive perpetrator identification is defined for the purposes of this article as within one year of the incident. Within the confines of this definition, US decision-makers were probably influenced by the relatively immediate identification of the perpetrators. Overt military retaliation is one of the most aggressive instruments available to counter anti-US terrorism and often is perceived as a tool of hostility rather than one of justice. Furthermore, some may argue that a manifestation of hostility could be brought on by the ‘heat of the moment’, as it were. Accordingly, if the US identified the perpetrators of a particular incident years after the event took place, such as with Pan Am flight 103, it is possible the US, thus removed from the immediacy and hostility of the moment, may be more inclined to pursue other, less aggressive response options. Indeed, while discussing the Bush administration’s decision not to use military force against Libya in response to the downing of Pan Am 103, Brent Scowcroft, President Bush’s national security advisor, later conceded that, “you have to strike while the situation is hot”. Libya did not emerge as a prime suspect until more than a year after the bombing.’39 Conversely, the US had identified the perpetrators of the La Belle bombing, the plot to assassinate Bush and the US embassy bombings relatively quickly, while emotions were still raw. Accordingly, the US is more inclined to initiate overt armed force in response to incidents where positive perpetrator identification occurs within one year of the incident than in response to incidents whose perpetrators are identified later than one year.

The fourth additional characteristic the three incidents have in common is that the individuals ultimately responsible for the attacks, Qadhafi, Saddam and bin Laden, each exhibited a very public and flagrantly defiant attitude against the United States. For instance, from late December 1985 until April 1986, Reagan pursued a strategy to coerce Qadhafi to alter his behaviour40 via political measures, economic sanctions and military displays of power, during which time the Libyan leader grew increasingly inflammatory in his anti-US public statements. He not only publicly mocked Reagan’s efforts, he applauded previous anti-US terrorist attacks and confirmed his intentions to continue his support for future attacks. In one instance, referring to those terrorist groups operating under his influence, Qadhafi affirmed that his state would train them for suicide missions and provide the necessary weapons to execute attacks.41 The bellicose statements built to a crescendo in late March 1986, when Qadhafi warned, ‘It is time for confrontation, for war. If they [the US] want to expand the struggle, we will carry it all over the world’.42 Ten days later, on 5 April, Libyan-sponsored terrorists placed a bomb in the bathroom of the La Belle discotheque.

Saddam Hussein had been publicly challenging the United States directly and through the United Nations before, during and in the wake of the Gulf War. President Clinton noted in his address that ‘Saddam has repeatedly violated the will and conscience of the international community’.43 In her June 1993 address to the UN Security Council, then-Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright noted the United States’ displeasure with the continued Iraqi defiance, admonishing Iraq for refusing to comply with UN Security Council Resolutions regarding its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs, the acceptance of the Iraq—Kuwait boundary and the repression of the Iraqi peoples. More specifically, she asserted that Iraq, during and immediately following the war, let it be known it would hunt down and exact revenge against George Bush.44 Saddam’s regime would come close to fulfilling its threats two years after the allied victory over Baghdad but the plan would not be brought to fruition.

In August 1996, terrorist patron and private financier Usama bin Laden fired what can most likely be considered his opening salvo in the public verbal war with the US: from his headquarters in Afghanistan he called for attacks against US armed forces, professing that Americans must die.45 Subsequent to this announcement he gave interviews and issued various pronouncements calling for jihad against the US. His inflammatory rhetoric and anti-US threats reached their peak in February 1998 when, in the name of a movement called World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders, bin Laden and his allies issued a religious decree exhorting Muslims the world over to kill US citizens, both military and civilian.46 In late May 1998, the terrorist financier, speaking at a press conference in Afghanistan, proudly claimed the results of his efforts would be visible to the world ‘within weeks’.47 On 7 August 1998, roughly eleven weeks after his May press conference, near-simultaneous vehicle bombs destroyed the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

Qadhafi, Saddam and bin Laden were sabre-rattlers. They continually drew attention to themselves, making it difficult for the United States to ignore them. To be sure, other terrorist organizations and state sponsors also publicly speak out against the United States, denouncing US policy, publicly condemning US actions and, at times, increasing this rhetoric to inflammatory excitations to violence. Such actions, however, usually are not on a par with the flagrant anti-US behaviour demonstrated by Qadhafi, bin Laden and especially Saddam Hussein, who expressed a willingness to target Bush directly. The words and actions of these men transcended routine criticism of US policy and occasional vehement anti-US outbursts. They were repeatedly flagrant in their support for terrorism, their defiance of international norms and their specific, publicly stated intentions to strike at US interests. Such posturing is difficult to ignore and US decision-makers may have become increasingly hostile over the perpetrators’ continued brazenness. The repeated anti-US threats and defiant actions carried out by the perpetrators most likely influenced the decision of US officials to pursue one of the more aggressive counter-terrorism response options. Thus it is hypothesized the US is more inclined to conduct armed action in response to an incident whose perpetrators have repeatedly and publicly challenged the US, making them difficult to ignore, than in response to those incidents whose perpetrators were relatively more subtle or discreet in their approach.

The fifth additional characteristic the La Belle discotheque bombing, the Bush assassination plot and the two US embassy bombings in East Africa have in common is that their perpetrators were militarily and politically vulnerable to US military response. Military planners involved with the US strikes against Libya considered Tripoli to be a ‘fourth-rate military power’ and no match for the $60 bn worth of equipment and personnel the US allocated against the Libyan regime.48 Politically, Libya was isolated. Even during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union earnestly competed for influence with Third World countries, Soviet officials called Qadhafi a ‘madman’ in conversations with US officials and later even distanced themselves publicly from the Libyan leader; indeed, the Libyan state had no significant allies upon which to rely.49

Iraq was in a similar position two years after the US and the Allied coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait. General Cohn Powell; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed Iraq’s vulnerable military status in a CNN interview the day after the US strikes, noting the regime’s air power was relatively impotent and that the US would be able to counter any Iraqi ground operation; indeed, he defined Iraqi’s military prowess as a ‘mischief-making capability’ rather than a ‘war-making capability’.50  Politically, Saddam engaged in flagrant political transgressions against the US and the UN. At the time of the 1986 and 1993 US strikes, both Qadhafi’s Libya and Saddam’s Iraq, respectively, were international political pariahs and militarily vulnerable to US strikes.

The same case can be made for Usama bin Laden. Militarily, his terrorist locations in Afghanistan and Sudan were vulnerable to US power. bin Laden did not have military forces under his command with the equipment necessary to counter effectively the US air strikes. Moreover, Afghanistan and Sudan, on whose territories the strikes impacted, most likely posed no threat to the US strikes in the eyes of US military planners. In Afghanistan, while some elements of the former armed forces, National Guard and Border Guard Forces still existed, a national, unified Afghanistan military did not, and while there were tribal militias in the country, factionalization mitigated their threat.51 Moreover, striking at bin Laden’s facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan was politically feasible, or at least likely was deemed so at the time. Afghanistan does not have a government officially recognized by the United States, thus minimizing political fall-out, and Sudan has been on the US State Department’s List of State Sponsors of International Terrorism since 1993. The US deemed at the time it most likely had little to lose politically in its relations with either Afghanistan or Sudan.

This is probably a critical component in the United States’ decision to bomb facilities related to a non-state actor. Although the ultimate target may be a sub-national actor, its network and facilities necessarily reside on the territory of a sovereign state. What distinguishes bin Laden from other sub-national terrorist entities is that the territories on which his network was located were militarily and, more importantly, politically vulnerable to a US strike. Compare bin Laden’s situation with another non-state actor. The New People’s Army (NPA), addressed earlier in the article, is known to be responsible for the deaths of eleven US citizens. The United States knows the group operates in the Philippines’ rural Luzon, Visayas and areas of Mindanao and has established cells in Manila.52 Accordingly, the US could have conducted armed action against NPA-related targets but instead supported less aggressive options in response to the NPA terrorist threat.53 There are most likely numerous reasons why the United States has never decided to apply military action against the NPA, most prominently the US preference for peaceful law enforcement action as a method of response, but another reason likely lies in the action’s political inexpedience.

            Accordingly, one could hypothesize the United States is more inclined to conduct military retaliatory strikes in response to incidents whose perpetrators are vulnerable to such strikes both militarily and politically. More specifically, the US is more inclined to strike against countries (or the non-state actors residing in countries) that are militarily unable to thwart or significantly confront the strikes and whose relations with the US are politically tenuous, particularly regarding issues of terrorism, than in response to incidents whose perpetrators present military and political challenges to the US.

Public Opinion

Interestingly, the fifth additional factor of political and military vulnerability is echoed in the public outcry noted in the Middle East following the US strike on Baghdad. Some Arab commentators noted, for instance, that the strike was an attempt to increase Clinton’s domestic popularity and strengthen his foreign policy initiatives by ‘projecting an air of decisiveness and flexing his hi-tech military muscles at an easy target’.54

Indeed, overall public opinion throughout the Middle East condemned the US military strikes, all three of which occurred on Arab and/or Muslim soil. Many viewed the strikes as illustrative of a double standard perpetrated by the US. In response to the US strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan, for example, one Middle East publication highlighted Washington’s desire to use military force against Muslim Sudan and Afghanistan and its contrasting complacency regarding the killing and oppression of Muslims and Arabs, especially Palestinians.55 The official responses of governments in the region have varied, from Kuwait’s public support for the Iraqi strike to muted resignation to vehement condemnation. Although most denounce terrorism and, at the time of the US strikes, were not necessarily endeared with the perpetrators, a former US ambassador in the region observed, “…there is a nationalist component to opposing intervention by outside powers in the Middle East’.56

Public opinion in the US stands in sharp contrast.57 Polls in the wake of the strikes showed 77 per cent of US citizens supported the raid on Libya and 66 per cent supported the strike against Iraq. One poll following the two-pronged strike in Sudan and Afghanistan indicated 66 per cent supported the operation while a second poll showed support at 80 per cent. Accordingly, US public opinion has strongly favoured the US ‘power’ approach to countering terrorism. That said, these strikes were relatively surgical operations that did not stretch the public’s attention span or its tolerance.58 Recognizing this fact, in the wake of the Libyan raid George Shultz, who advocated the ‘power’ approach, reassuringly stated, ‘we’re not going to get into a kind of automatic pilot on this’59 and, indeed, the US has not.

Conclusion

This article has shown the justifications Presidents Reagan and Clinton publicly offered for their decisions to initiate counter-terrorist military action in 1986, 1993 and 1998 are not sufficient60 to explain why the United States conducts overt armed action in response to an anti-US terrorist incident; their decisional reasoning failed to differentiate the three precipitating incidents from 61 other anti-US terrorist events. If the resultant four-factor model were sufficient in its explanatory power the US would have executed armed action in response to the 61 additional anti-US terrorist incidents that also met the four-factor model criteria. Accordingly, the occurrence of positive perpetrator identification, perpetrator repetition, direct US targeting and US citizen involvement does not imply the occurrence of US retaliatory strikes. Rather, considerations other than, or in addition to, these four factors must account for the US decision to initiate overt military force in response to the La Belle discotheque bombing, the plot to assassinate Bush and the US embassy bombings in East Africa. An in-depth review of the Libyan, Iraqi and bin Laden case histories revealed they had five themes in common in addition to the initial four factors: fait accompli ‘trigger’ incidents, US government-related targets, relatively immediate perpetrator identification, flagrantly defiant perpetrator behaviour and political and military vulnerability. These five factors are critical additional explanatory components of the US decision to conduct overt military action in response to these three anti-US international terrorist incidents.61

Accordingly, despite the stated reasons given by Reagan and Clinton, nine factors unique to the three terrorist incidents may actually explain the US decision to apply overt military force as a counter-terrorism response mechanism. For the sake of brevity, these nine are combined and simplified into six explanatory factors:

1.         relatively immediate positive perpetrator identification
2.         perpetrator repetition
3.         direct targeting of a US citizen working in an official US government-related capacity
4.         the fait accompli nature of the incident
5.         flagrant anti-US perpetrator behaviour
6.         the political and military vulnerability of the perpetrator

Absent from this explanatory model is one factor many terrorism and counter-terrorism researchers initially may have hypothesized would be critical in a US decision to use overt military force as a method of counter-terrorism response: maximization of casualties in an anti-US terrorist incident. It would not be illogical to hypothesize that the more severe an anti-US attack is, the more severe — meaning an overt use of military force -- would be the US response. A definition of severity, however, should not be restricted to the number of US casualties in a given incident. While the deaths of 241 US citizens in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut, for instance, undoubtedly is ‘severe’, a state-orchestrated plot to assassinate a former US President, although never resulting in a single US death, arguably is equally ‘severe’ an incident. Although maximization of casualties was not a factor in the US decision to use overt military force in response to an anti-US incident of international terrorism, a measure of ‘severity’ arguably is built into the explanatory model via the factor of ‘direct targeting of a US citizen working in an official government-related capacity’.

Predictive Value

Do the modified six explanatory factors account for the totality of circumstances that influence a US decision to use overt military force as a counter-terrorist measure? Admittedly, the model developed in this article narrowly restricts itself to an analysis of the anti-US terrorist incident and concomitant perpetrators rather than incorporating the broader domestic and international modifying conditions that could influence a decision to use military force. For instance, factors such as public opinion, the presidential election cycle, the degree of priority given to counter-terrorism efforts in a presidential administration, the availability of US military units to execute a response and the level of overall anti-US international terrorist activity, to name a few, may also influence the decision of whether or not to supplant the standard juridical response mechanism with overt military force.

Acknowledging that any future US decision to apply military force in response to a terrorist incident will necessarily be made under the rubric of larger modifying conditions, the explanatory model developed in this article does have a degree of predictive value. While the occurrence of all six (modified) factors in future acts of anti-US international terrorism will not necessarily result in the application of overt military action, should the US respond to a particular incident with military force in the future, that incident likely will exhibit some, if not all, of the six explanatory factors. Any future US decision to use military force as a counter-terrorist measure should be examined in light of these findings. Further analyzing and explaining the conditions under which this ‘power approach’ is taken instead of pursuing the standard juridical approach will contribute more than just new research to the fields of crisis decision-making and counter­-terrorism strategy; it will provide practical instructive value for those officials faced with making such an important decision in the future.

1.          A debate exists over the precise nature of terrorism and thus a universally accepted definition remains elusive. Since this research project focuses on the US response to anti-US international terrorism, the United States government’s definition of terrorism is employed: ‘premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine state agents, usually intended to influence an audience.’ With the parameters of this definition the United States also makes clear the term ‘noncombatant’  is not restricted to civilians; rather, noncombatants can include military personnel who are either unarmed or off-duty at the time of the incident.  Furthermore, the US also considers acts of terrorism attacks that are directed against military hostilities. International terrorism is an act thus defined but which involves the territory or citizens of more than one state. United States Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1998 (Washington, DC: Department of State April 1999), pp. vi-vii.

2.          Data gathered from United States Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism series for the years 1983-98.

3.          See, for example, United States Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1987 (Washington, DC: Department of State August 1988), p.iii and United States Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1998 (note 1), p.iii.

4.          See, for example, Louis J. Freeh, U.S. Government’s Response to International Terrorism, 3  September 1998. Available http://www.tbi.gov/pressrm/congress/98archiveS/terror.html

5.          The preference for the law enforcement approach, which most likely emanates from the lawful context in which the instrument is applied as well as from its ability to bring to fruition a tangible success — namely, the apprehension and prosecution of a terrorist — in the war against terrorism, is exemplified in the increasing responsibilities, roles and capabilities the US has extended to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with respect to anti-US international terrorism. For example, the FBI not only is the lead agency with respect to terrorism executed on US soil but also has jurisdiction when US interests are attacked overseas: ‘The FBI’s counter-terrorism responsibilities were further expanded in 1984 and 1986, when Congress passed laws permitting the Bureau to exercise federal jurisdiction overseas when a US National is murdered, assaulted, or taken hostage by terrorists, or when certain US interests are attacked’, Freeh (note 4).

6.          Controversy surrounds the decision to strike the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. US officials claimed the plant was producing deadly chemical agents and was part of bin Laden’s infrastructure to acquire a chemical weapons capability. Information revealed since the strike, however, indicates otherwise. See, among others, Vernon Loeb, ‘US Wasn’t Sure Plant Had Nerve Gas Role’, Washington Post, 21 August 1999; and James Risen, ‘To Bomb Sudan Plant, or Not: A Year Later, Debates Rankle’, New York Times, 27 October 1999.

7.          Based on information compiled from the United States Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism series, 1983—98. Hizballah is known to be responsible for the deaths of more than 260 US citizens: the April 1983 suicide vehicle bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, Lebanon (17 US killed); the October 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut (241 US killed); the January 1984 shooting of Malcolm Kerr, President of the American University of Beirut (1 US killed); the March 1984 abduction in Beirut and subsequent death of CIA station chief William Buckley (1 US dead); the suicide truck bombing of the US embassy annex in east Beirut in September 1984 (2 US dead); the singling out and subsequent murder of two US Agency for International Development employees during the December 1984 hijacking of Kuwaiti Airlines flight 221 (2 US killed); the murder of US navy diver Robert Stethem during the June 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847 (1 US killed); and the February 1988 abduction and subsequent murder of Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon (1 US killed). Hizballah may also be indirectly responsible for the death of US citizen Peter Kilburn, an American University of Beirut librarian. The group abducted Kilburn in November 1984. His body was discovered on 17 April 1986; Libyan involvement — probable retaliation for the April 1986 US air strikes against Tripoli — is suspected in his death.

8.          In April 1999, more than seven years after the US and British governments issued indictments, Tripoli surrendered two Libyans accused of planting the bomb on the aircraft. In January 2001, a Scottish court seated in the Netherlands convicted Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Au al-Megrahi of 270 counts of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years. Co-defendant Lamen Khalifa Fhima was acquitted.

9.          Ronald Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation on the United States Air Strike Against Libya’, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1986, Book 1 (Washington, DC: GPO 1988), pp.468—69.

10.      Ibid., p.469.

11.      Ibid.

12.      Information regarding Clinton’s statements are taken from the following two sources: William J. Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation on the Strike on Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters’, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1993, Book 1 (Washington, DC: GPO 1994), pp.938-39 and William J. Clinton, ‘Letter to Congressional Leaders on the Strike on Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters’, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1993, Book 1 (Washington, DC: GPO 1994) pp.940-41.

13.      Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation’ (note 12), p.938.

14.      Clinton, ‘Letter to Congressional Leaders’ (note 12), p.940.

15.      Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation’ (note 12), pp.938-39.

16.      William 1. Clinton, ‘Statement by the President, Edgartown Elementary School, Marthas Vineyard’, 20 August 1998. Available http://www.pub.Whitehouse.gov/uri-…/oma.eop.gov.us/1998/9/20/2.text.1.

17.      Reagan (note 9), p.468 (emphasis added).

18.      For examples of prior anti-US terrorism incidents perpetrated by Iraqi agents see United States Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1990 (Washington, DC: Department of State 1991), and United States Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism:          1991 (Washington, DC: Department of State 1992).

19.      Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation’ (note 12), p.938 (emphasis added).

20.      Clinton, ‘Statement by the President’ (note 16).

21.      For use of the word ‘imminent’ see William J. Clinton, Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, 22 August 1998. Available http://www.fas.org/man/dod- 101/ops/docs/980822-Wh.3.htm

22.      United States Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1988 (Washington, DC: Department of State 1989), p.81.

23.      Reagan (note 9) (emphasis added).

24.      Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation’ (note 12), p.938 (emphasis added).

25.      Clinton, ‘Statement by the President’ (note 16) (emphasis added).

26.      Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1990 (note 18), p.44.

27.      Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1998 (note 1), p.78.

28.      See United States Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism series for the years. 1983—98.

29.      Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1998 (note 1), p.1.

30.      Douglas Jehl, ‘U.S. Cited Evidence in a Plot on Bush’, New York Times, 9 May 1993.

31.      David C. Martin and John Walcott, Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America - War Against Terrorism (New York: Harper & Row 1988), p.285.

32.      Ibid., p.286.

33.      Ibid.

34.      Madeleine K. Albright and Sandy Berger, Press Briefing on U.S. Strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan, 20 August 1998. Available http://secretary.state.gov/www/statements/ 1998/980820.html

35.      Ibid.

36.      Jehl (note 30).

37.      Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation’ (note 12), p.938.

38.      Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1991 (note 18), p.32.

39.      John Lancaster, ‘Compromising Positions’, Washington Post Magazine (9 July 2000), p.22.

40.      See Tim Zimmerman, ‘Coercive Diplomacy and Libya’, in Alexander L. George and William E. Simons (eds.), The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1994), pp.201-28.

41.      Bernard Gwertzman, ‘U.S. Navy Exercises Starts Off Libya’, New York Times, 15 January 1986.

42.      John Kifner, ‘Qaddafi Threatens a Wider Struggle’, New York Times, 26 March 1986.

43.      Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation’ (note 12), p.938.

44.      Madeleine K. Albright, ‘Albright Addresses UN Security Council’, Cable News Network Transcript #432—3, 27 June 1993.

45.      Karl Vick, ‘Assault on a U.S. Embassy: A Plot Both Wide and Deep’, Washington Post, 23 November 1998.

46.      United States Department of State, Fact Sheet: Usama bin Ladin, 21 August 1998. Available http://www.state.gov/WWW/regions/africa/fs_bin_ladin.html

47.      Ibid.

48.      Martin and Walcott (note 31), p.280.

49.      Ibid., p289.

50.      Cohn Powell, ‘General Cohn Powell Discusses US Air Attack on Baghdad’, Cable News Network Transcript #430—1, 27 June 1993.

51.      Central Intelligence Agency, World Factbook 1998 (Washington, DC: CIA 1998), p.3.

52.      Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1998 (note 1), p.78.

53.      In accordance with its preference for law enforcement action, the US government supported the legal efforts of the Philippine government in response to the NPA’s anti-US terrorist activity. For instance, the Philippine government convicted two NPA operatives for the 1989 assassination of US Army Colonel James Rowe; both were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1991, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1991 (note 18), p.5. The US is not known to have pursued a ‘power approach’ against the NPA; rather, the US has worked bilaterally with the Philippine government on counter-terrorism measures, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1990 (note 18), p.6

54.      ’Arab Press Rails Against Clinton’, Mideast Mirror, 28 June 1993 (emphasis added).

55.      ‘Why Washington’s Arab Allies Won’t Support Its Missile Strikes’, Mideast Mirror, 24 August 1998.

56.      George D. Moffett III, ‘Tallying Diplomatic Score of US Raid on Libya’, Christian Science Monitor, 16 April 1986, p.1.

57.      Data regarding US public opinion is taken from the following sources: James Reston, ‘Leave it to the People?’, New York Times, 20 April 1986; Reuters, ‘Americans Favor Killing Saddam Hussein’, Los Angeles Times, 29 June 1993; John Diamond, ‘At War With Terror; US Missile Attacks Kill at Least 21’, Buffalo News, 21 August 1998.

58.      Martin and Walcott (note 31), p.312.

59.      Ibid.

60.      A sufficient condition is defined as ‘X is sufficient for Y if the occurrence of X implies the occurrence of Y’. Douglas Dion, ‘Evidence and Inference in the Comparative Case Study’, Comparative Politics 30/2 (1998), p.128.

61.      A full, in-depth case study of the 61 additional anti-US terrorist incidents that met the initial four-factor model yet failed to incite the US to military action was beyond the scope of this research project but a cursory examination of the 61 incidents reveals that none of these incidents also meets every one of the five additional critical conditions. If the results of this cursory examination hold true under an in-depth study they would add credence to the criticality of the five additional conditions. More research into this area will help improve the decisional model.

62.      Table sources: US Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism annual series, 1983—98; and the US Department of Defense’s Terrorist Group Profiles (Washington, DC: GPO 1988), an outgrowth of then-Vice President Bush’s Task Force on Combating Terrorism. Despite the availability of various databases that record international terrorism statistics, only the Terrorist Group Profiles publication and the Patterns of Global Terrorism series were used as sources. Employing these US government-published documents gave uniformity to the data, as there is an active debate regarding what is and is not an act of terrorism. Since this article attempts to account for the disparity in the US government’s decision to initiate overt military action in response to terrorism crises, it was important to use data the US government considers to be anti-US international terrorist incidents.

63.      This author notes that while the data used for this article is restricted to the years 1983—98, some of the terrorist groups under examination came into existence and had conducted terrorist attacks prior to 1983. Accordingly, an incident that may appear to be the first or second executed by a group in the timeframe noted actually may be the fourth or fifth. The author acknowledges this anomaly presented by the restricted scope of the research and concedes it presents a methodological inconsistency but contends it does not negate either the overall methodology or the conclusions of this article.

64.      See note 7. 

Terrorism and Political Violence

Volume 13 * Summer 2001 * Number 2
A Frank Cass Journal
ISSN 0954-6553

Michele L. Malvesti, a former intelligence officer and Middle East terrorism analyst for the US Government, is currently a PhD candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.  Her article is an abbreviated version of her Master’s thesis.  She is currently concluding research that evaluates the overall counter-terrorism policy of the US as well as the US decision to use covert action in response to terrorism.