Discussing inevitability

Clearly, misery and hopelessness are the recruiting grounds [for terrorism]. When I speak to any audience, I ask how many think the terrorist threat would be over if the US was able to incarcerate or kill every Al Qaeda terrorist by the end of this talk? Nobody raises their hand.

In England last month, I talked with top British leaders. [Prime Minister] Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer, propose a Marshall Plan for developing nations as one [necessity] to fight terrorism. Political and church leaders and the public are talking about this plan and the UN 2015 Millennium goals to reduce poverty. In the US, the average person knows nothing about these, and I've had staffers in Congress look ... blank. Instead ... we are talking about widening the war to Iraq and using nuclear weapons.

leader of the Nonproliferation and International Security Division at the Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory

You have to look at it in terms of probabilities, and what we try to do ... is whittle away at those probabilities to make them less likely.... You could say [during the cold war] it was inevitable we would get involved in a nuclear exchange. But we didn't. Why? We worked on probabilities, and we ultimately reduced the factors that caused us to be hostile to one another.

First, we try to do is keep [nuclear] materials out of the hands of the terrorists. A lot of our activities with the Russians and others are designed to make sure that [weapons-grade] materials inventories are kept under a positive system of accountability. We've also developed sensors to detect nuclear materials in luggage or freight. You identify sanctuaries ... and deny terrorists that sanctuary – like Afghanistan.... You try to understand how terrorists fund themselves ... and interdict that money. Then you train first-responders on what an improvised nuclear weapon might look like.... You start racking these together and, hopefully, with each step you reduce the probability of occurrence to near-zero. It's a never-ending struggle.

Professor of Journalism

University of California, Berkeley

Journalists are lousy when it comes to numbers.... We've reported all this stuff, but there is no kind of probability component. Nobody even asked [about that].... [I]f the military does anything well, they are very good at gauging probabilities. Well ... do they actually have a high level of confidence [that something could happen] in the next six months?

There are two things [the media should be doing]: When you report a public-opinion poll, it is standard procedure that you put in the size of the sample, the exact wording of the question, so that the public has a standard for knowing how much confidence they should have in this poll. [W]hen they report [an official statement] about pending terrorist attack, it should be the same.... Second, if the government is saying this, what are they actually doing?

Professor of law

Harvard Law School

We need to be much more coordinated and disciplined in our responses, which have to include defensive responses, coordinating our intelligence agencies so that they actually work together, but also promoting democracy and accountability in the world. We may not be able to stop those with their finger on the bomb, but we can reach ... people who might be mobilized by them. It is very important for the US not to be acting alone.

Someone said the 20th century produced weapons of mass destruction, but it also produced tools of mass communication. The challenge for the 21st century is to be wise enough to use [these tools] to prevent the use of mass-destruction weapons. We should pay for satellites to permit free exchange of information ... and offer Internet access in places that don't have it. We need to communicate a vision of a world that holds opportunities for everyone....

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