Fred Thompson

GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson is warning the biggest threat facing America isn't economic or social or even political: It's the danger from nuclear terrorism.

"That the years ahead will be dangerous needs no elaboration from me," Thompson, a former U.S. senator from Tennessee, says in a new video prepared for Iowa voters who will caucus later this week.

"Most Americans know the forces of terrorism will not rest until a mushroom cloud hangs over one of our cities," he said.

Thompson, who is trailing several other candidates in Iowa, said those other issues, such as "economy, taxes, protecting our borders, and protecting the right to life," are important but are not the biggest concern this nation faces.

Rasmussen Reports, considered one of the most accurate polling services, says Arizona Sen. John McCain held support from 17 percent of likely Republican primary voters, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are at 16 percent, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is at 15 percent and Thompson is at 12 percent heading into the new year.

Thompson's 17-minute video notes there is no "frontrunner," and the Iowa caucus "will be the first vote cast in this crucial election year."

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He said the nation faces "dangerous years ahead."

"The recent tragic assassination of former Prime Minister [Benazir] Bhutto in Pakistan again demonstrates that terrorist will to power and their relentless cruelty along with the threats to our national security," he said.

"The best way to avoid war is to be stronger than our enemies. If we're caught in a fight we need to win it," he said.

"You're not electing a set of position papers, you're electing a leader at a time when strong leadership is going to be needed," he continued.

"I know the world we live in. I know what we need to do. I would ask people if our worst enemy is sitting across from us at a negotiating table, who do you want sitting on our side of the table, representing you and working to keep you safe," Thompson said.

He's not the only presidential candidate to cite this danger.

Huckabee earlier told WND in one of a series of exclusive interviews the war on terror will not end in a draw.

"There's no peaceful co-existence, there's no accommodation, there's no na?ve nonsense that if we leave them alone they leave us alone," he said. "This is a war someone will win and someone will lose.

"Whoever perseveres and whoever has the strongest will, will in fact win and that's why we can't give up," he said.

Thompson was responding to a question about the likelihood of another 9/11-type attack on U.S. soil.

"There's almost an inevitability, not just a possibility," he said. "It will happen again. And it'll happen because we face an enemy that is not a nation-state that can be contained within borders and boundaries, because their war is not about borders and boundaries. Islamofascism is rooted in a theocratic Islamic jihadism that seeks to destroy and annihilate every last one of us. It wants to establish a complete Islamic theocracy across the world and for that to happen it means our culture has to be completely snuffed out."

Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, who recently ended his bid for the GOP nomination for president, expressed similar concerns. He said the U.S. must find something that will be a deterrent to terrorists or face another 9/11 that could be nuclear.

"I believe that unless you can think of a deterrent the threat will become a reality," he said. He has suggested making clear now that Islamic holy sites could be targeted with counterstrikes should such an attack ever happen.

"If somebody can show me an alternative to what I'm going to tell you, then I'm happy to listen. But right now, there is no deterrent to the commission of that crime," said Tancredo.

"What possibly can deter them, if it is not some threat to take some action that would threaten [what] their belief system tells them?" he said.

Thompson's campaign video also addressed several other issues, including his call for a return to the "fundamental conservative principles" that have unified the U.S. for two centuries.

He said that means the role of the federal government is supposed to be limited to the powers given in the Constitution, the dollar belongs in the pocket of the person who earned it, don't spend money that isn't there, the federal judiciary is supposed to decide cases, not set social policy, and the bigger government gets the less competent it is to run citizens' lives.

"I know who I am. I know what I believe, and I'm ready to lead," Thompson said.

He also touched on the importance of faith, citing George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.

"[Washington] was filled with an awe and wonder not at the workings of mere mortals but the power of Providence," Thompson said.

Thompson's remarks come after a new report revealing Osama bin Laden's quest for a nuclear weapons arsenal now is focusing on efforts to destabilize nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Writing in the Combating Terrorism Center's Sentinel, a new publication of the U.S. military academy, Bruce Riedel, a former senior U.S. official now with the Brookings Institution, says Pakistan represents the "real front line in the war against al-Qaida."

The most frightening part of advances by Islamists confronting the government of Perves Musharraf is the determination of al-Qaida to obtain nuclear weapons, the report says.

Al-Qaida has been pursuing nuclear weapons for more than a decade, according to former CIA Director George Tenet.

"Today, [al-Qaida] has a secure operating base in the country, its leadership is issuing constant guidance to its global supporters, it is threatening NATO's position in Afghanistan through its Taliban allies, and it is now a growing force in Pakistan itself," writes Riedel. "The current political crisis in Pakistan is endangering the secular democratic forces in the country, polarizing the debate about the country's future and strengthening al-Qaida's Islamist partners."

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