Combating Terrorism

In preparing a July 1997 report on Defense Department (DOD) efforts to protect U.S. forces overseas from terrorist attacks (GAO/NSIAD-97-207), GAO visited overseas locations where U.S. forces are considered to be at high risk of attack, such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. This testimony is based on the results of those visits and related work with the U.S. military. GAO provides a brief overview and discusses in greater detail the following three issues: (1) the environment that U.S. forces abroad are facing, including the terrorist threat and the relationship with the host nation governments; (2) the measures DOD has taken to improve security for personnel stationed in the countries GAO visited; and (3) DOD's initiatives to strengthen its overall force protection program.

GAO noted that: (1) DOD has a large presence in many countries around the world, offering a plethora of potential targets; (2) predictive intelligence on terrorist attacks is difficult to obtain, and commanders may not be in a position to prevent an attack from occurring and can only prepare to minimize the consequences from an attack; (3) DOD installations are often located on host nation installations and, as a result, there are limitations on the security measures DOD can undertake; (4) the U.S. Central Command and its service component commands had taken a number of steps to improve the protection of U.S. forces from terrorist attacks, including: (a) determining the range of specific terrorist threats it needed to counteract in its area of responsibility, including a 20,000-pound truck bomb, the estimated approximate size of the bomb that struck Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia; (b) devising threat-based standards, such as stand-off, to guide the design and construction of new facilities and modifications to existing structures; (c) establishing an office that coordinates antiterrorist activities in the region and reports directly to the Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command; and (d) identifying a need for and filling hundreds of additional security positions; (5) DOD had initiated a number of changes in its overall antiterrorism program in response to the Khobar Towers bombing, including: (a) the assignment of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be the Secretary of Defense's principal advisor on antiterrorism; (b) the direction of the five geographic combatant commanders to take on increased antiterrorism responsibilities; (c) vulnerability assessments at installations by the Defense Special Weapons Agency; (d) mandated, more robust antiterrorism training for personnel deployed to medium- and high-threat countries; (e) the establishment of a centrally controlled fund to support emergency high-priority antiterrorism requirements not funded by the services; and (f) changes in the services' approach to antiterrorism; and (6) despite these changes, GAO's work raised concerns that DOD's initiatives were falling short of establishing a comprehensive and consistent approach to antiterrorism.