WASHINGTON — The United States can expect a terrorist attack using nuclear or more likely biological weapons before 2013, reports a bipartisan commission in a study being briefed today to Vice President-elect Joe Biden.
It suggests the Obama administration bolster efforts to counter and prepare for germ warfare by terrorists.
"Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing,"states the report, obtained by The Associated Press. It is scheduled to be publicly released Wednesday.
The report of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, led by former Sens. Bob Graham of Florida and Jim Talent of Missouri, acknowledges that terrorist groups still lack the needed scientific and technical ability to make weapons out of pathogens or nuclear bombs. But it warns that gap can be easily overcome, if terrorists find scientists willing to share or sell their know-how.
"The United States should be less concerned that terrorists will become biologists and far more concerned that biologists will become terrorists,"The report says the potential nexus of terrorism, nuclear and biological weapons is especially acute in Pakistan.
"Were one to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction today, all roads would intersect in Pakistan,"In fact, commission members were forced to cancel their trip to Pakistan this fall. The Islamabad Marriott Hotel that commission members were to stay in was blown up by terrorist bombs just hours before they were to check in.
"We think time is not our ally. The (United States) needs to move with a sense of urgency,"[provided we don't listen to anyone's phone calls - or ask suspicious looking people questions - or...]
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[FLASHBACK: NNBrief 080623 "I'll Fight To Strip Telecom Immunity From FISA"
guess who...]
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