The continuing misuses of fear.

The article discusses various views regarding the threat of nuclear terrorism, as the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. approaches. It has been stressed that government officials and analysts enlist nuclear terrorism and tout it as the great fear, even the communities that one might expect to express deep skepticism in the aftermath of the Iraq experience. Even the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Commission could not resist including terror in the title of its final report in 2006, which places counter-terrorism on equal ground with disarmament and nonproliferation. However, a more accurate picture of the state of WMD after five years of 9/11 is that the threat has indeed diminished.