Global Security Newswire

Inadequate coordination and other issues have restricted U.S. progress since Sept. 11, 2001, in establishing new defenses against WMD attacks, a bipartisan panel of former U.S. officials said in a report slated for publication tomorrow (see GSN, Feb. 1). The report by the Partnership for a Secure America gave the United States a "C" for its general WMD defense and counterproliferation efforts, the Washington Post reported today. 

The report assigned seven Bs, eight Cs and three Ds for various programs aimed at countering the threat of nuclear terrorism, bolstering law enforcement activities and ensuring the involvement of other nations' scientists and governments.

"The threat of a new major terrorist attack on the United States is still very real," former Representative Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), former Senator Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) and former Governor Thomas Kean (R-N.J.) wrote in the report's introduction, adding that the prospect of terrorists acquiring chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons poses "the single greatest threat to our nation."

"We are still dangerously vulnerable," the report states.

The report urges the next U.S. presidential administration to immediately name a Cabinet-level official to manage the nation's counterproliferation strategy as well as related efforts and funding.  The official would also work to bolster coordination in counterproliferation efforts internationally.

"We can no longer afford to hope that our patchwork of programs and initiatives will naturally cohere into an effective whole," the report states.  "The United States cannot be safe working alone."

The report is a "helpful and useful tool," said Wendy Sherman, who served in the State Department during the Clinton administration and contributed to the analysis.  "Our report will deepen both the assessment of the threat today and what we can do about it."

The United States received the most positive assessments for its chemical-weapon disposal efforts, seizures of nuclear weapons and materials in other nations, and securing potential biological terrorism materials in the former Soviet Union.  Among the weaknesses identified were lack of integration of programs intended to prevent nuclear terrorism, insufficient involvement in the Biological Weapons Convention and other international efforts, and ensuring continued involvement in WMD defense activities by other nations (Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, Sept. 9).

Meanwhile, a separate panel has called on the incoming administration to increase its focus on defending against potential biological attacks, the Wall Street Journal reported (see GSN, May 18).

The widespread distribution and accessibility of biological-weapon ingredients could make attacks using such materials easier to conduct than nuclear strikes, said former Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.

"My own assessment at this point is the more likely form of attack is going to be in a biological weapon," Graham said, adding that the government is "very exposed" to such a situation.

Another priority is preventing black-market operations similar to the smuggling ring once run by former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, according to some commission members.

"We don't have any indication that the network was ever taken down," Graham said.

Different members of the panel are concentrating on various nations seen to pose WMD-related threats.  The group plans to issue formal proposals in November (Gorman/Crawford, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 9).

Elsewhere, Democratic members of the House Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees have issued a report criticizing Bush administration progress on 25 national security priorities, including interdicting weapons of mass destruction and scanning cargo for potential WMD ingredients, the Associated Press reported today.

The lawmakers also highlighted the absence of any official responsible for coordinating the nation's WMD counterproliferation efforts.

"The administration has just failed to act in so many ways," said Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Miss).  "Let's say that we've been fortunate that we have not been attacked" by terrorists since 2001, he said.

The Bush administration rejected the accusations.

"I fundamentally reject the charge that the administration has made the world less safe from terrorism," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said before viewing the report (Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press/Google News, Sept. 9).