Most experts in poll expect another 9/11 within 5 years

WASHINGTON – A majority of foreign-policy experts in a new survey believes a serious terrorist attack in the United States is likely this year, and a major attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001, within the next five years.

Fifty-seven percent of the experts, most of them with past experience in government, said an attack in the United States on the scale of the London subway bombings last year or the train bombings in Madrid, Spain, the year before was very or somewhat likely in 2006.

But 84 percent said a bigger attack on the scale of Sept. 11 was likely in the next five years. An equal number said the United States is not winning the “war on terror,” contrary to claims by President Bush, and the experts graded all the U.S. agencies dealing with that struggle below average, except for the National Security Agency.

The survey of 116 experts was carried out by two Washington think tanks, the Carnegie Endowment and the Center for American Progress.