Abstract
The devastation in Oklahoma City belies the ordinariness of the likely bomb components that caused it. There are many indications a key component was ammonium nitrate, widely used as a fertilizer. Bomb disposal experts say terrorists the world over favor ammonium nitrate, and for good reason: It is cheap, easy to acquire, and effective. Ammonium nitrate is available in fertilizer form or as an industrial product. As such, its trade is not subject to special restrictions. And there are no controls on the sale of fuel oil, which, it is suspected, was mixed with ammonium nitrate to produce the Oklahoma bomb. By contrast, the commercial blasting agent ANFO (ammonium nitrate-fuel oil) is strictly controlled. To buy it, one needs a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, and records of transactions are scrupulously kept, says Thomas T. Dowling of the Institute of Makers of Explosives, Washington, D.C. And the Administration is ...
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