London Bombings, One Year Later: Experts Predict Similar Attack on America in the Next Year

By Consulting Specifying Engineer Staff August 4, 2006

On the heels of the first anniversary of the July 7 terror bombings in London, a majority of America’s foreign-policy experts say that a similar attack will hit the United States in the next year in a new survey produced by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress.

The bipartisan group of more than 100 experts–including a former secretary of state, national security advisor, CIA director and National Security Agency director–were surveyed for the new Foreign Policy/Center for American Progress Terrorism Index. The biannual report is the first comprehensive attempt to determine the American foreign-policy establishment’s assessment of how the United States is fighting the war on terror.More than 50% of the respondents said that an attack on the scale of the July 7, 2005 attacks in London is likely to occur on U.S. soil in the next year. Nearly 8 out of 10 said that a larger, 9/11-scale attack was likely or certain within the next five years.

Regardless of the timing and scale, more than two-thirds of the experts said that the next attack on America would come in the form of a suicide bomber.

Overall, the results reveal the experts’ view that the United States is not winning the war on terror and that the country’s national security apparatus is in a state of disrepair.

Eighty-four percent of the experts said that United States is not winning the war on terror, with 86% saying that the world has become more dangerous for Americans.

When asked to rate the performance of the various agencies charged with protecting America, only the National Security Agency received marks that were higher than below-average.

The Department of Homeland Security received the lowest rating of all federal agencies, and more than 50% said that the creation of the new Office of the Director of National Intelligence has made no positive impact.

The Foreign Policy /Center for American Progress Terrorism Index is available in the July/August issue of Foreign Policy. For complete survey results, methodology, list of participants, and experts available for comment, visit www.ForeignPolicy.com and www.americanprogress.org For more on the latest security technology being employed in public facilites, see the news section in the August issue of CSE .