Terrorism

Terrorism

Although some of the events discussed do not specifically involve terrorist activity within or against the U.S., their outcomes and effects on the U.S. warrant inclusion in this analysis. The specific milestone events covered in this report are:

1984 Salad Bar Poisoning in The Dalles, Oregon

1988 Bombing of Pam American Flight 103

1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spil

1990 to 1992 Operation Desert Storm and the Kuwait Oil Fires

1993 World Trade Center Bombing

1995 Sarin Gas Attack on Tokyo Subway

1996 Bombing of the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City

1996 Crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800

1996 Bombing Incident at Atlanta Olympics

2001 September 11 Terrorist Attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon

The attack on Kuwait by Iraq caused the United Nations Security Council to pass several resolutions to shut off Iraq from international trade. The Security Council called upon Hussein to remove his troops from Kuwait and to destroy his non-conventional weapons. Following the Gulf War, Iraq was forced to disclose its chemical and biological weapons programs, to admit that it had had acquired missiles with the intent of it to attack neighboring countries (in particular, Israel) with these weapons, and had tried to develop a nuclear bomb. In the cease fire of 1991, Saddam Hussein agreed unconditionally to give up his weapons of mass destruction. Much information about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is in the public domain from UN reports and from Iraqi defectors. (See for example Issue Brief for Congress at http://www.fas.org/man/crs/IB92117.pdf