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Abstract
The problem of risk communication in the context of imperfect intelligence regarding a prospective, rather than actual, terrorist attack is examined in order to assess recommendations for precise guidance for the public. Particular problems are noted with the iterative quality of risk communications about terrorism, as they allow the terrorists to change their behaviour, the difficulty of offering tactical warning without a prior strategic analysis, and the tendency to focus on the vulnerabilities of a society rather than the intent of the terrorists. These issues are assessed through a case study of the Bali attacks of 2002, before an analysis of the American experience following the attacks of 9/11. This experience confirms the difficulties of attempting to convey risks to the public by altering public alert levels.
Notes
Professor of War Studies, King's College London. This study has been made possible by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council. I am grateful for comments from Ragnar Loftstedt, Ben Sheppard, John Stevenson and Simon Wessely.
1 Intelligence and Security Committee, Inquiry into Intelligence, Assessments and Advice prior to the Terrorist Bombings on Bali, 12 October 2002, December 2002, Cm 5724.
2 See for example Baruch Fischhoff, ‘Risk Perception and Risk Communication’, in D. Kamien (ed.), The McGraw-Hill Handbook of Terrorism, in press. Fischhoff considers issues such as smallpox vaccination, surveillance and decontamination.
3 Ben Sheppard, ‘Societal Responses to New Terrorism’, InterSec Conference, June 2004.
4 Baruch Fischhoff, ‘Assessing and Communicating the Risks of Terrorism’, in A.H. Teich, S.D. Nelson and S.J. Lita (eds.), Science and Technology in a Vulnerable World (Washington DC: AAAS, 2002), pp.12, 54.
5 http://www.partnershipforpublicwarning.org. On the general theme that past experience on preparing people for emergencies can be of value see Lee Herring, ‘How Would Sociologists Design a Homeland Security Alert System?’, Footnotes (April 2003), http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/apr03/fn8.html.
6 This reflects Tom Schelling's definition of the ‘game of strategy’ in the Strategy of Conflict (London: OUP, 1960).
7 Malcolm Gladwell, ‘Connecting the Dots: The Paradoxes of Intelligence Reform’, The New Yorker, 10 March 2003, p.86.
8 Mark Sawyer, ‘Connecting the Dots: The Challenge of improving the Creation and Sharing of Knowledge about Terorrists’, July 2003, http://www.homelanddefense.org/journal/articles/Sawyer_Dots.html. The Terrorist Threat Integration Center is now charged with integrating overseas and domestic intelligence in the US.
9 Jack Davis, ‘Strategic Warning: If Surprise is Inevitable. What Role for Analysis?’, Sherman Kent Center for Intelligence Analysis, Occasional Papers, 2/1 (January 2003), http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/Kent_Papers/vol2no1.htm.
10 John Mueller, ‘Simplicity and Spook: Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggeration’, International Studies Perspectives, 6 (2005), pp.224–7.
11 Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, (Gilmore Commission), Fifth and Final Annual Report Forging America's New Normalcy: Securing Our Homeland, Protecting Our Liberty (Santa Monica: RAND Organization, 15 December 2003), pp.16, L-2.
12 Frank Furedi, ‘Refusing to be Terrorised: Managing Risk after September 11th’, Global Futures: 2002, p.13. See also Thomas Homer-Dixon, ‘The Rise of Complex Terrorism’, Foreign Policy, January–February 2002, pp.1–8.
13 Joshua Green, ‘The Myth of Cyberterrorism’, Washington Monthly (November 2002), http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0211.green.html#byline. For an example of concern about cyber-terrorism see Barton Gellman, ‘Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared’, Washington Post, 27 June 2002.
14 Lawrence Freedman, ‘War in Iraq: Selling the Threat’, Survival, 46/2 (Summer 2004), pp.7–49.
15 Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: the Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (New York: Times Books, 2004).
16 In Britain, for example, senior police officers treasure their independence and will provide their own assessments of threats which do not always accord with those of central government. In March 2004, for example, the Metropolitan Chief Commissioner declared an attack on London ‘probably inevitable’. The Guardian, 17 March 2004.
17 Beyond Bali: ASPI's Strategic Assessment 2002 (Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2002), p.3.
18 See Frank Gregory and Paul Wilkinson, ‘Riding Pillion for Tackling Terrorism is a High-Risk Policy’, ISP/NSC Briefing Paper 05/01 (Royal Institute of International Affairs, July 2005).
19 Furedi, ‘Refusing to be Terrorised’ (Footnotenote 12), pp.13–15 gives a number of examples.
20 Roxane Cohen Silver et al., ‘Nationwide Longitudinal Study of Psychological Responses to September 11’, p.1240; Leonie Huddy, Stanley Feldman, Charles Taber and Gallya Lahav, ‘The Politics of Threat: Cognitive and Affective Reactions to 9/11’, paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, 29 August–1 September 2002.
21 Leonie Huddy et al., ‘The Consequences of Terrorism: Disentangling the Effects of Personal and National Threat’, p.505.
22 R.J. Blendon, et al., ‘Harvard School of Public Health/Robert Wood Foundation survey project on Americans’ response to biological terrorism, tabulation report, October 24–28, 2001’, 31 October 2001, http://www.hsph.Harvard.edu/press/releases/blendon/report2.pdf.
23 There are claims, based on one particular document, that al-Qaeda decided in 2003 that Spain was the weakest link in the pro-American coalition in Iraq. The fact that this attack led to the defeat of the conservatives in Spain, and the election of a government hostile to a Spanish military role in Iraq, was taken to represent a notable victory for the Islamist cause (although the election result had much to do with Prime Minister Aznar's inept and opportunistic response to the first news of the attacks, for which he sought to blame ETA). A car bomb outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta on 9 September 2004 may have been attempting to have a comparable effect on the pro-American governing party in Canberra, up for election at the start of October as well as the Indonesian government, two weeks away from its own election.
24 In Canberra one was established into the ‘performance of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and other relevant agencies of the Commonwealth Government in the assessment and dissemination of threats to the security of Australians in South-East Asia in the period 11 September 2001 to 12 October 2002’, http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/fadt_ctte/bali/. In Britain the Intelligence and Security Committee was asked to examine all the intelligence assessments and advice available prior to the attack. Intelligence and Security Committee, Inquiry into Intelligence, Assessments and Advice prior to the Terrorist Bombings on Bali 12 October 2002, Chairman: The Rt. Hon. Ann Taylor, MP, Presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister by Command of Her Majesty December 2002. On 27 May 2004 the Spanish Parliament formed a commission to investigate the handling of intelligence before the 11 March train bombings.
25 Matthew Campbell et al., ‘Paradise Lost’, Sunday Times, 20 October 2002.
26 These attacks were reported to include random shooting of Israelis and Americans at hotels across Indonesia, abandoned because it would have only ‘minimal impact’; hijack a civilian aircraft and fly it into an Israeli target; a plot in May 2002 to blow up American naval vessels during US–Indonesian military naval exercises, for which Faruq was trained in planting underwater explosives; a chemical attack using cyanide to be sprayed from perfume bottles. Sunday Times, 20 October 2002.
27 The threat included Jakarta, Yogyakarta (possibly seen as the most likely), Kalimantan, Lombok, Bali and Sumatra. The six islands mentioned represent a small proportion of the 6,000 that make up Indonesia, but they cover 55 per cent of Indonesia's land mass, 40 per cent of the total population and the location of 60 per cent of all western tourists.
28 ‘Rumsfeld downplays bin Laden tape’, CNN, 7 October 2002; White House press briefing by Ari Fleischer, 10 October 2002, White House News. On 6 October a boat packed with explosives hit a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen and one crewman was killed. On 8 October two gunmen linked to al-Qaeda in Kuwait killed a US marine. In September Al-Jazeera played a recording of what it said was Bin Laden's voice naming all 19 hijackers from the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States.
29 300 non-emergency personnel and all diplomats' family members left US missions in Indonesia, as a result of a department order following the Bali bombing.
30 Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonner, ‘U.S. Says It Told Indonesia Of Plot By Terror Group’, New York Times, 16 October 2002.
31 Senate Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade References Committee, Inquiry into Security Threats to Australians in South-East Asia.
33 Con Coughlin, ‘Was it a Failure of Intelligence?’, Sunday Telegraph, 20 October 2002.
34 Stephen Bryen, ‘Misleading Americans’, National Review Online, 21 October 2002.
35 BALI UPDATE #276, http://www.balidiscovery.com/update/update276.asp.
37 http://www.balidiscovery.com/messages/message.asp?Id=815. The week after the bomb blast in Bali, Indonesia's Minister of Culture and Tourism called for a considered approach by foreign powers in issuing their travel bans and warnings pertaining to the country, on the grounds that Bali and Indonesia were also victims of the terrorist attacks and that the goal of the perpetrators was economic disruption, the minister suggested one of the means to fight the threat of terrorism is to support his efforts to rebuild tourism in the wake of the attack. http://www.balidiscovery.comMinister.
38 Hamzah Haz, chairman of the United Development Party (PPP), Indonesia's largest Muslim party, had met with Bashir and played down talk of Islamic violence. He is reported as having said, after 11 September, that the attacks on New York and Washington would ‘cleanse the sins of the United States’, Asia Times Online; Dan Murphy, ‘How Al Qaeda Lit the Bali Fuse’, in three parts, The Christian Science Monitor, 17–19 June 2003. On 11 October, US Ambassador Boyce gave President Megawati a 24 October deadline (the date she was due to meet President Bush at the Asia-Pacific summit in Mexico) to act against terrorists or face a public signal from Washington that Indonesia was a terrorist haven. An invitation was made to Indonesian intelligence and police officials to interview Faruq. The next day came the bombings in Bali, http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0619/p01s04-woap.html.
39 US Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Travel Warning, Indonesia, 19 October 2002.
40 US Department of State, Office of the Spokesman, Public Announcement, South East Asia, 2 November 2002.
41 US Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Consular Information Sheet, Thailand, 30 October 2002.
42 Raymond Bonner, ‘Qaeda Meeting in Thailand Reportedly Plotted Attacks on Tourists’, New York Times, 8 November 2002.
43 BBC, ‘Terror warning on travel to Thailand’, 25 October 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2360209.stm. Apart from the obvious parallels with Bali, one influence may have been a January 2002 meeting in Thailand involving al-Qaeda operatives to discuss attacks on ‘soft’ targets throughout Southeast Asia.
44 http://search.bangkokpost.co.th/bkkpost/2002/nov2002/bp20021101/news/01Nov2002_news05.html; http://www.msnbc.com/news/828729.asp?0si=-. After the terrible tsunami of December 2004, there were accusations that the Thai government had played down the risk of such an event because of the risk to the tourism industry.
46 Travel Editor Keith Bellows observed that ‘a warning alone isn't a sufficient reason to avoid a place. In recent years, the State Department has issued travel warnings for virtually every country in the world. So, you have to ask yourself what these warnings actually mean’, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1018_021018_bali.html.
47 ‘Protecting American Interests Abroad: U.S. Citizens, Businesses, and Non-governmental Organizations’. Testimony of Dr. Bruce Hoffman, Vice President, External Affairs and Director, RAND Washington office, before the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations, House Committee on Government Reform, April 3, 2001.
48 Muzi News, 6 November 2002, http://latelinenews.com/ll/english/1232840.shtml.
49 Samantha Brown, Agence France-Presse, 3 November 2002, http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/cj/Qthailand-attacks-tourism.R3uz_CN3.html.
50 Rachel Briggs, Travel Advice: Getting Information to those who need it (London: The Foreign Policy Centre, 2002).
51 Mark Davis, ‘Agents not Passing on Travel Warnings’, 23 October 2002, http://afr.com/australia/terrorism/2002/10/23/FFXY06BQK7D.html.
52 The parliamentary debate was on 21 October 2002: Col. 27.
53 Official Record, 11 December 2002: Cols. 257–61.
54 The system had six rankings: imminent, high, significant, moderate, low and negligible. The revised rankings would have new definitions to ‘give greater definition between levels’.
55 3 March 2003: Col. 631. The debate came just after yet another outrage in Mombassa. The opposition noted that the FCO had given a vague warning while the Australians urged ‘non-essential travel to Kenya’ to be deferred and made specific mention of ‘threats against Westerners and Western interests in Mombassa’. Straw noted that the Australians lacked any ‘specific information about the timing, location or method of the possible attacks’.
56 Ian Herbert, ‘Straw to Cut Travel Warnings about Terror’, 24 June 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3831595.stm. Only countries to which the Foreign Office advised against all travel are Burundi, Haiti, and Somalia – but it also advised against all but essential travel to Algeria, the Central African Republic, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, http://www.fco.gov.uk/travel.
57 http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1044011304926.
58 BBC, 8 November 2002.
59 PM speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, 11 November 2002.
61 http://www.MI5.gov.uk, 8 August 2004.
62 Observer.
63 According to the MI5 website it operates as a self-standing organization comprised of representatives from 11 government departments and agencies. JTAC analyses and assesses all intelligence relating to international terrorism, at home and overseas, and produces assessments of threats and other terrorist-related subjects for customers from a wide range of government departments and agencies. The work is conducted on a fully collaborative basis, with the involvement and consensus of all relevant departments, http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page65.html.
64 The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004).
65 In addition there were consular information sheets available for every country of the world. These ‘generally do not include advice, but present information in a factual manner so the traveller can make his or her own decisions concerning travel to a particular country’.
66 In all these cases standard security advice was issued:
-
‘U.S. citizens are urged to maintain a high level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness to reduce their vulnerability. Americans should maintain a low profile, vary routes and times for all required travel, and treat mail and packages from unfamiliar sources with suspicion. In addition, American citizens are also urged to avoid contact with any suspicious, unfamiliar objects, and to report tthe presence of the objects to local authorities.’
67 http://www.whitehouse.gov/deptofhomeland/sect6.html. See also Attorney General John Ashcroft, NBC, 17 September 2001.
68 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020312-5.html. For a full analysis of the system see Shawn Reese, ‘Homeland Security Advisory System: Possible Issues for Congressional Oversight’, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress: 12 November 2004.
69 On 11 May 2005 a red alert was issued in Washington DC after a two-seater Cessna 150, which had got lost, was detected heading towards the city. As the alarm was raised major public buildings were evacuated. The plane was diverted to an airfield in Maryland.
70 S. Gorman, ‘Fear Factor’, National Journal, 10 May 2003, cited in Mueller, ‘Simplicity and Spook’ (Footnotenote 10), p.222.
71 This is reference to the President's remarks to workers at O'Hare airport on 27 September 2001. There he praised people who worked in the airline industry–‘You stand against terror by flying the airplanes, and by maintaining them.’ He said that a goal of the nation's war was to ‘restore public confidence in the airline industry’. The travelling public must be told to ‘Get on Board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots.’
72 Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, 1 October 2001.
73 ‘George W. Bush Holds News Conference’, 11 October 2001 The point was reinforced by Ashcroft. The alert, he insisted, ‘should promote caution not incite alarm … We are going to be more alert to security at the airports, but we're not going to cease to fly. We're going to be more alert in a variety of aspects of our existence, but we're not going to cease to live.’ ‘John Ashcroft Holds Justice Department News Briefing’, 12 October 2001.
74 Another individual in custody had been downloading information from the Internet about aerial application of pesticides, or crop dusting. ‘John Ashcroft Testifies Before House Judiciary Committee’, 24 September 2001. Minnesota Public Radio on 21 September reported that Hollywood studios were on alert after the FBI warned they could be targets for terrorism. Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney Company were among the studios that cancelled public tours and installed metal detectors.
75 ‘We know that there are other terrorists out there and that the threats could be growing’, one federal law enforcement official was quoted as saying. ‘What we have to do now is just be prepared.’ It was also reported that a significant number of federal agents were being held back from the current investigation into 9/11 as a reserve in anticipation of possible secondary attacks. This report claimed that this was the ‘first time that the Bush administration has said it believes that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda already have in place follow-up attacks and an infrastructure for carrying them out, Los Angeles Times. 30 September 2001.
76 Dan Balz, ‘U.S. Strikes Again at Afghan Targets; Nation Put on High Alert for Attacks’, Washington Post, 9 October 2001.
77 CBS Morning News, 12 October 2001.
78 Susan Schmidt and Bob Woodward, ‘FBI, CIA warn Congress of More Attacks As Blair Details Case Against Bin Laden’, Washington Post, 5 October 2001.
79 National Public Radio (NPR), 11 October 2001.
80 Press Conference with US Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 29 October 2001. FBI Director Mueller said that there was no reason to believe that this new intelligence was related to the anthrax scare.
81 ‘The Early Show’, CBS, 30 October 2001. See also CNBC, 30 October 2001.
82 Susan Eggen and Bob Woodward, ‘“FBI Issues 2nd Global Attack Alert; Credible Reports Indicate Strikes on U.S. Possible In Next Week,” Agency Says’, Washington Post, 30 October 2001.
83 Thanks to the patience and vigilance of the American people, Ashcroft remarked on 8 November, ‘we know this: We have not suffered another major terrorist attack.’ ‘John Ashcroft Delivers Remarks To Justice Department Employees’, 8 November 2001.
84 Ramadan was specifically mentioned on a Bin Laden tape as a time of potential attack.
85 Tom Ridge, Director, Office of Homeland Security, 3 December 2001.
86 There had been other more specific warnings. In April, Attorney General John Ashcroft warned about possible attacks against banks in the Northeast and in early May US officials informed law enforcement agencies about a possible threat to high-rise apartment buildings, thinking that terrorists might rent an apartment, gradually pack it with explosives, and then detonate it in an effort to destroy the building.
87 In November 2001 the Governor of California had disclosed a threat (for which there was no corroboration) to suspension bridges on the West Coast, which led to heightened security on the Golden Gate Bridge. This was not information that had been thought suitable for publication at the Federal level, and it was later stated that this threat was not credible. CBS Morning News, 7 November 2001, SC 12 0231.
88 Ivo H. Daalder and Michael O'Hanlon, ‘Let's Cool Those Terrorism Alerts’, Newsday, 23 March 2002.
89 Washington DC, FBI National Press Office, 24 October 2002.
90 David Johnston and Eric Lichtblau, ‘Intelligence Criticized as F.B.I. Issues New Alert’, New York Times, 15 November 2002. See also ‘Preparing for Terror’, The Economist, 30 November 2002.
91 The claim that Washington, New York or Florida was about to be hit by a ‘dirty bomb’ turned out to be a figment of the imagination of a captured al-Qaeda member, garnished with a lot of information about means of delivery, including shoes, suitcases and laptops and specific targets. Brian Ross, Len Tepper and Jill Rackmill, ‘False Alarm? Terror Alert Partly based on Fabricated Information’, ABC News, 13 February 2003.
92 Philip Shenon, ‘In Terror Alerts, an Art and a Balancing Act’, The New York Times, 16 February 2003.
93 ‘Chasing Shadows’ and ‘No More Orange, Yellow and Red?’, Newsweek, 31 December 2003 and 14 January 2004. Michel Chossudovsky, ‘Bush's Christmas Terror Alert’, 24 December 2003,http://globalreseaarticlesrch.ca//CHO312D.html.
94 Secretary Ridge's Remarks at Radio-Television News Directors Association and Foundation, Las Vegas, Nevada, 19 April 2004,http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=3497. For more evidence of wider speculation at the time see the question posed by Claire Millar of the Council on Foreign Relations: ‘What are the chances of a major terror attack this summer?’, ‘Summer of Terror?, Updated: 26 May 2004,http://www.cfr.org/background/terror_summer.php.
95 On 29 April, Turkish police broke up an alleged cell of Qaeda ally Ansar al-Islam that they said was plotting to attack the NATO gathering. They arrested 16 men and seized explosives, guns, bomb-making manuals, and videotapes and compact discs featuring Osama bin Laden, according to Turkish officials.
96 Frank Rich, ‘Distraction. Propaganda. Roll ‘em’, International Herald Tribune, 26–27 June 2004; David Johnston, ‘What is (Un)Known about Al Qaeda in America’, New York Times, 30 May 2004, http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3 7…31/05/2004.
97 NY Stock Exchange, midtown Citigroup building, Prudential financial Building in Newark, NJ, World Bank and IMF in Washington DC.
99 Economist, 14 August 2004.
100 David Johnston and Don Van Natta Jr., ‘Little Evidence of Qaeda Plot Timed to Vote’, New York Times, 24 October 2004.
101 Reese, ‘Homeland Security Advisory System’ (Footnotenote 68), pp.7, 13.
102 Shawn Reese, ‘Homeland Security Advisory System: Possible Issues for Congressional Oversight’, CRS Report for Congress (Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 11 January 2005), pp.13–14.
103 Gilmore Commission (Footnotenote 11), pp.16, L-2.
104 Mimi Hall, ‘Ridge Reveals Clashes on Alerts’, USA TODAY, 10 May 2005,http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-10-ridge-alerts_x.htm.
105 Darren W. Davis and Brian D. Silver, ‘The Threat of Terrorism, Presidential Approval, and the 2004 Election’, Paper prepared for delivery at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, 2–5 September 2004.
106 Economist, 15 February 2003. An American survey in late 2004 found that most were not worried that they or a family member would become a victim of terrorism, and the majority said they would do nothing different even when the government raises the terror alert level. Calvin Sims, ‘Poll Finds Most Americans Have Not Prepared for a Terror Attack’, New York Times, 28 October 2004.
107 K. Tierney, Beliefs and Institutional Interests: Recycling Disaster Myths in the Aftermath of 9–11’, in L. Clarke (ed.), Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Vol. 11 (St. Louis: Elsevier, 2003).
108 Leonie Huddy, Stanley Feldman, Gallya Lahav and Charles Taber, ‘Fear and Terrorism: Psychological Reactions’, in Pippa Norris, Montague Kern and Marion Just (eds.), Framing Terrorism: The New Media, The Government, and the Public (London: Routledge, 2003), pp.255–278. In surveys conducted for the Pew Center the 70 per cent of Americans who declared themselves depressed immediately after 9/11 was down to 29 per cent by mid-October, while those having trouble sleeping declined from 33 per cent to 12 per cent (http://people-press.or/midoct01rpt.htm). A Swedish study shows similar results: Lennart Sjöberg, ‘The Perceived Risk of Terrorism’, Risk Management: An International Journal, 7/1 (2005), pp.43–61. This experience is confirmed by a survery following the London attacks of 7 July 2005. G. James Rubin, Chris R. Brewin, Beil Greenberg, John Simpson, Simon Wessely, ‘Psychological and behavioural reactions to the bombings in London on 7 July 2005: cross sectional survey of a representative sample of Londoners.’, BMJ, doi: 10.1136/bmj.38583.728484.3A (26 August 2005). This study found increased stress levels, and concern about using the London underground, but little requirement for professional help.
109 Philip Zimbardo and Bruce Kluger, ‘Overcoming Terror’; Psychology Today, 24 July 2003.
110 Bill Durodie and Simon Wessely, ‘Resilience or Panic? The Public and Terrorist Attack’, Lancet, 14 December 2002.
111 Reese, ‘Homeland Security Advisory System’ (Footnotenote 68), p.6. John Mintz, ‘Ridge Seeking Fewer Changes In Terror Alerts’, Washington Post, 6 June 2003.
112 Gilmore Report, D-7-2.
113 Benigno E. Aguirre, ‘Homeland Security Warnings: Lessons Learned and Unlearned’, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 22/2 (August 2004), pp.103–15. For the view that the history of earthquake preparedness demonstrates that vague, short-term warnings can be counterproductive, because they can cause both false alarms and false confidence, and it is better to boost the public capacity to cope with the incidents see Charles Meade, ‘Don't Scare the Public with Vague Warnings’, Los Angeles Times, 24 October 2001, http://www.rand.org/commentary/102401LAT.html.
114 Statement by House Homeland Security Chairman Christopher Cox, Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment Markup of the Homeland Security Information Sharing and Enhancement Act of 2005, 26 April 2005.
115 Statement of Michael A. Wermuth before the Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations U.S. House of Representatives, Improving Terrorism Warnings–The Homeland Security Advisory System, 16 March 2004.
116 Philip Shenon, ‘In Terror Alerts, an Art and a Balancing Act’, New York Times, 16 February 2003.
117 The group described itself as the Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation of Europe, http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/hi/uk/4660391.stm.
118 Patrick Mercer, Shadow Minister for Homeland Security stated that: ‘The Government … seems utterly incapable of warning the public about the threat of terrorism.’ Daily Telegraph, 12 December 2004. This was prompted by reports of an intelligence analysis that put the al-Qaeda threat as ‘severe’ and suggested as targets military establishments and ‘crowded places or events’. This was said to have created a risk to New Year celebrations. In the US the colour-coded alert system was designed for local government and law enforcement agencies but the view was taken in Washington that as it would be impossible to keep this from the public it needed to be shared.
119 Michael Evans, ‘Terror Alert Downgraded, then Attacks came out of the Blue’, The Times, 8 July 2005. Richard Norton-Taylor, Vikram Dodd and Hugh Muir, ‘Ministers Warned of Iraq Link to UK Terror’, The Guardian, 20 July 2005; Elaine Sciolino and Don Natta Jr, ‘June Report Led Britain to Lower its Terror Alert’, New York Times, 19 July 2005.
120 Philip Bobbitt, ‘Being Clear About Present Dangers’, New York Times, 11 August 2004.