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U.S. Responses to the Threat of CBW Terrorism
 ven before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. government
had begun to address the threat of CBW terrorism. Since September 11,
those activities have intensified dramatically.
Blast damage, U.S. Embassy, Tanzania,
August 1998 (source: FBI website)
Government Actions Before September 2001
After
the Tokyo subway attack and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the U.S.
government began paying considerably more attention to terrorism, including
the possible use of CBW. In the years following the 1995 attacks, there
were several important developments:
- Federal spending
on defenses against
weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
terrorism rose
more than ten-fold between 1997 and 2000, from $130 million to $1.45
billion. A large portion of this amount was earmarked for training
and equipping first responders to deal with CBW incidents.
- In June 1995,
President Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)-39,
"U.S. Policy on Combating Terrorism." PDD-39 provided a framework
for domestic preparedness operations and set out the responsibilities
of various federal agencies in responding to a WMD attack. The FBI
would take the lead in the initial "crisis management" phase of an
incident, while the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
would
be in charge of longer-term "consequence management" operations.
- In 1996, Congress
passed the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act (known
as the "Nunn-Lugar-Domenici" program, named after its Senate sponsors)
to help local first responders to manage the consequences of a WMD
attack before federal resources arrived on the scene. Under this program,
the Department of Defense and later the Department of Justice provided
training and equipment for first responders in the 120 largest U.S.
cities.
- In May 1998,
President Clinton issued PDD-62, "Protection Against Unconventional
Threats to the Homeland and Americans Overseas," which focused on
WMD attacks. This PDD established an Office of the National Coordinator
for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-Terrorism within
the National Security Council to oversee federal programs and policies.
- A variety of
federal response teams and capabilities were established, including
WMD Civil Support Teams under the U.S. National Guard to assist local
authorities, the Metropolitan Medical Response System under the Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide treatment for victims
of mass-casualty attacks, and the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile
to ensure sufficient supplies of vaccines, antibiotics, and antidotes.
Critics complained that these federal efforts were poorly coordinated
and often wasteful of resources.
Government
Actions After September 2001
Following
the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. government
undertook new initiatives to counter the threat of CBW terrorism. These
efforts included increased cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence
agencies, and the passage of tough laws designed to restrict the activities
of terrorists and their support networks. The government also established
new bureaucratic structures to address the threat of terrorist attacks
against the U.S. homeland, but efforts to create a new Homeland
Security infrastructure have bogged down under a drumbeat of leadership
challenges and constant criticism:
- On November
1, 2001, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) created
the
Office of Public Health Preparedness (OPHP), tasked with coordinating
a unified national response to national health emergencies. The OPHP
coordinates with state and local authorities on public health issues.
It also works with HHS agencies such as the
Office of Emergency Preparedness
(OEP) for deployment of emergency health personnel, and the
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
for infectious disease surveillance.
- On October 8,
2001, President George W. Bush signed Executive Order (E.O.) 13228
creating the Office of Homeland Security (OHS) and the Homeland Security
Council (HSC). The purpose of the OHS and the HSC was to coordinate
the 40-plus Executive branch agencies dealing with terrorism to "detect,
prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from
terrorist attacks within the United States." President Bush appointed
former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as the first director of the
OHS. Lacking budgetary authority, however, the Office soon became
entangled in bureaucratic battles with other agencies over resource
allocation and faced criticism from the House Government Reform
Committee, which declared in 2006 that Department of Homeland
Security contracts have "experienced significant overcharges,
wasteful spending and mismanagement."
- On June 6, 2002,
after initially resisting the creation of a new Cabinet-level agency,
President Bush unveiled a plan to establish a Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) to manage counterterrorism activities and coordinate
intelligence sharing among different federal agencies. Efforts to
coordinate information collection and sharing have come under
scrutiny, with, in 2006, the DHS Inspector General dismissing an
important federal/state collaborative antiterrorism/critical
infrastructure database as being full of "unusual or out-of-place"
sites "whose criticality is not readily important."
- On March 1, 2003, DHS assumed operational control of 180,000 officials
formerly under the authority of different departments, becoming the
second largest government agency after the Department of Defense.
DHS assumed responsibility for a variety of activities related
to CBW terrorism, such as the president's
Critical Infrastructure
Protection Board. The Department also makes grants to states and localities
designed to assist public safety and law enforcement personnel to
prevent, prepare for, and respond to CBW terrorist attacks; however,
local law enforcement agencies are, in 2006, facing substantial
increases in conventional criminal activity, questioning the
continued funding focus on homeland security activities.
- Anti-CBW
research projects have been mired in delay and have failed to
produce tangible results. Project Bioshield, a $5.6 billion program
to facilitate development of medical countermeasures to biological
and chemical warfare threats, has bogged down under accusations of
bureaucratic foot-dragging, a failure to devise a viable long-term
plan and a failure to build partnerships with larger, more capable
pharmaceutical companies.
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