Perspective: WMD detectionTrump Administration Has Gutted Programs Aimed at Detecting Weapons of Mass Destruction
The Trump administration has quietly dismantled or cut back multiple programs that were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to help detect and prevent terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, a Times investigation has found. The retreat has taken place over the last two years at the Department of Homeland Security, which has primary domestic responsibility for helping authorities identify and block potential chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats. A Los Angeles Times investigation found that the changes, not previously reported, were made without rigorous review of potential security vulnerabilities, the Times found, undermining government-wide efforts aimed at countering terrorist attacks involving unconventional weapons, known as weapons of mass destruction.
The Trump administration has quietly dismantled or cut back multiple programs that were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to help detect and prevent terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, a Times investigation has found.
David Willman writes in the Los Angeles Times that the retreat has taken place over the last two years at the Department of Homeland Security, which has primary domestic responsibility for helping authorities identify and block potential chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.
The changes, not previously reported, were made without rigorous review of potential security vulnerabilities, the Times found, undermining government-wide efforts aimed at countering terrorist attacks involving unconventional weapons, known as weapons of mass destruction.
More than 30 current and former Homeland Security employees and contractors voiced concern that the changes — including the cancellation of dozens of training exercises and the departure of scores of scientists and policy experts — have putAmericans at greater risk.
Trump pledged in that 2017 document to “augment measures to secure, eliminate, and prevent the spread of WMD and related materials … to reduce the chance that they might fall into the hands of hostile actors.”
Among the programs gutted since 2017, however, was an elite Homeland Security “red team,” whose specialists conducted dozens of drills and assessmentsaround the country each year to help federal, state and local officialsdetect such potential threats as an improvised nuclear device concealed in a suitcase, or a cargo ship carrying a radiation-spewing “dirty bomb.”
Another Homeland Security unit, the Operations Support Directorate, had helped lead up to 20 WMD-related training exercises each year with state and local authorities. The directorate participated in fewer than 10 such exercises last year and even fewer so far this year, according to internal Homeland Security documents.
Homeland Security also has halted work to update a formal “strategic, integrated” assessment of chemical, biological and nuclear-related risks.
Overall, morethan 100 scientists and policy experts specializing in radiological and nuclear threats have been reassigned or left to take jobs unrelated to their expertise,The Times found, undermining the department’s ability to protect the nation from devastating attacks.
Similar turmoil has unfolded among those who had specialized in countering such biological threats as airborne spores of anthrax.
