"Attacking the Olympic Games and young athletes would do nothing but alienate the entire world," he said.

American targets

Romney, who is briefed regularly by federal officials overseeing security for the Games, said there is general agreement among security experts that the Games are not a good target for terrorism, but all precautions are being taken anyway.

"There are plenty of targets that would be more American," he insisted, adding other sporting events to that category.

However, a statement released Tuesday by the chief military commander for Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind in the Sept. 11 attacks, warned that if the United States retaliates, "wherever there are Americans and Jews, they will be targeted."

Are intelligence sources convinced the 2002 Winter Games are indeed a target? Media reports in recent days have cited those who fear that terrorists are planning to attack a large group of people at a sporting event. And they don't come much bigger than the Olympics.

Lisa Delpy Neirotti, a professor of sports management at George Washington University, believes "terrorism is always a threat" at Olympic Games, ever since the 1972 attack in Munich.

But the Winter Games in Salt Lake City are also the most prepared of any sporting event in the United States to deter such an attack.

"It's almost the safest place to be, at least when it comes to any big gathering of people," said Neirotti, a scholar of the modern Olympic movement who has attended 10 consecutive Games since 1984.

An attack on the Games, she said, could "put mud on America's face . . . but I see the Super Bowl as more of a target because it is such an American icon."

David Romano, senior research scientist in the Mediterranean Section at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and one of the world's foremost experts on the history of the Olympic Games, says the history of the Games, both ancient and modern, are replete with examples of individuals using the Games to further their political and military interests, often with considerable bloodshed.

In modern times, the Games have commonly been used as a platform for political agendas. Not only did Palestinian terrorists use the Munich Games as a stage for their cause, but Adolf Hitler used the Berlin Games for his political purposes.

The Americans boycotted the Summer Games in Moscow because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Soviets retaliated by boycotting the Summer Games in Los Angeles.