Bioattack threat to U.S. ignored

A blue-ribbon commission headed up by former senators Bob Graham and Jim Talent ominously warned that, “A recent study from the intelligence community projected that a one-to-two kilogram release of anthrax spores from a crop duster plane could kill more Americans than died in World War II (over 400,000).” As a follow-up to this sobering news, they reported: “Clean-up and other economic costs could exceed $1.8 trillion.”

Douglas MacKinnon, a former White House and Pentagon official and a novelist, writes that Americans who worry about their jobs, the economy, health care, gay marriage, or how many troops are needed in Afghanistan should recognize this fact: “if the two former senators, their commission and the catastrophic prediction they are offering up are not given the immediate attention and respect they deserve, there’s a good chance that none of those things will matter.”

On 21 October, the congressionally mandated Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism appeared in Washington, D.C. to issue a “Progress Report on America’s Preparedness to Prevent Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.” Mackinnon writes that few representatives from the media bothered to attend or report on the commission or its findings.

“Too bad for all of us… [because] this immensely important bipartisan commission painstakingly pointed out how our nation is suicidally ignoring the easiest, most logical, and most immediate way for terrorists to hit us with a weapon of mass destruction: bioterrorism.”

We should note that most of the U.S. media ignored a report that stated, “terrorists are more likely to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon. … [I]n recent years, the United States has received strategic warnings of biological weapons use from dozens of government reports and expert panels and that, unlike nuclear weapons, which require highly advanced technology, massive infrastructure and rare materials that can be closely monitored and secured, biological weapons materials occur naturally, require no significant infrastructure to produce and can be found in nearly every part of the world.”

MacKinnon notes that aside from being troubled by a lack of media attention to this grave threat, former senators Graham and Talent also worry that their former colleagues and institution are part of the problem. As an example, they cited the Department of Homeland Security. As Talent and Graham pointed out, no fewer than 82 Senate and House committees and subcommittees have jurisdiction over the department. Why? While the former senators stopped short of acknowledging it, the answer is a naked grab for power and pork for members’ districts or states. As simple and dangerous as that.

The commission had immediate and obvious recommendations to try to stave off a bioterror attack. Among them:

• Congressional and government oversight of this issue should be cut drastically. The president should restructure the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council to create a White House principal adviser for WMD proliferation, who will report directly to him or her.

• The U.S. government needs to conduct a comprehensive review of U.S. programs to secure these dangerous pathogens.

• The United States needs immediately to enhance U.S. capabilities for rapid response to prevent just such a biological attack from inflicting mass casualties.

“[D]oes anyone honestly think that those who should will drop everything to address this issue?” MacKinnon asks. “No one I know in government believes that will happen. Complacency has set in across the nation.”

He concludes: “Should the unthinkable happen and terrorists unleash just such a bio-attack on our nation, those who survive will have every right to hold our government and our media accountable.”