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Many analysts do firmly believe that the terrorist threat to the United States is increasing, as is the potential willingness to use WMD. A June 2000 report by the National Commission on terrorism made a strong case that this threat was imminent more than a year before the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon:

If most of the world’s countries are firmer in opposing terrorism, some still support terrorists or use terrorism as an element of state policy. Iran is the clearest case. The Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security carry out terrorist activities and give direction and support to other terrorists. The regimes of Syria, Sudan, and Afghanistan provide funding, refuge, training bases, and weapons to terrorists. Libya continues to provide support to some Palestinian terrorist groups and to harass expatriate dissidents, and North Korea may still provide weapons to terrorists. Cuba provides a safehaven to a number of terrorists. Other states allow terrorist groups to operate on their soil or provide support that, while failing short of state sponsorship, nonetheless gives terrorists important assistance.

The terrorist threat is also changing in ways that make it more dangerous and difficult to counter.

International terrorism once threatened Americans only when they were outside the country. Today international terrorists attack us on our own soil. Just before the millennium, an alert U.S. Customs Service official stopped Ahmad Ressam as he attempted to enter the United States from Canada—apparently to conduct a terrorist attack. This fortuitous arrest should not inspire complacency, however. On an average day, over one million people enter the United States legally and thousands more enter illegally. As the [1993] World Trade Center bombing demonstrated, we cannot rely solely on existing border controls and procedures to keep foreign terrorists out of the United States.