SECURITY VS. PERSONAL FREEDOMS: A COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF ANTI - TERRORISM POLICY OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

Six year after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001 and the onset of US- led war in Iraq and Afghanistan in line with the Bush's policy of regime-change aimed at establishing pro-western governments in Baghdad and Kabul, we are still witnessing widespread instability and reign of terror in the region. Hasty executive branch anti-terrorism policy was followed quickly by the decision of the US Congress to approve Bush's war on terrorism without taking note of the fact that the benefits of such policies will be much less than the costs associated with them. The main objective of the paper is to discuss the weaknesses of the U.S. anti-terrorism policy. The structure of the paper is as follow: The first section is devoted to the basic theoretical discussions of the cost- benefit analysis (CBA) as a tool in public policymaking. In the second section, the authors apply the CBA to the evaluation of the anti-terrorism policy of the Bush Administration from a societal perspective. The third section presents the concluding remarks and proposals for further research in this policy issue-area.