TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2010


We’re still unready for bioterrorism I


by Bob Graham and Jim Talent


months led a bipartisan effort to assess the danger of a WMD attack and recom- mend steps to reduce it. In December 2008 the commission we led on the prevention of prolifera- tion of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism unanimously concluded that unless the world community acts deci- sively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist at- tack by the end of 2013 — and that a bio- logical attack is more likely than nu- clear. This conclusion was publicly af- firmed by then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. Information has since come to light about the possibility that one or more nation-states may choose to provide so- phisticated biological weapons to ter- rorist groups. The scenario that would result is not that of more than two doz- en people becoming ill and five dying, as happened after the anthrax mailings in October 2001, but a much darker pic- ture, as described in a November 2009 National Security Council document. The effective dissemination of a lethal biological agent in an unprotected population could place hundreds of thousands of people at risk. The “unmit- igated consequences,” the NSC paper noted, could overwhelm our public health capabilities, causing untold num- bers of deaths. Economic costs could ex- ceed $1 trillion for each such incident. When our commission issued its re-


T


port card in January, we gave the gov- ernment a failing grade for prepared- ness to respond to a biological attack. Attaining this response capability could help in two ways: Its existence could de- ter an attack from adversaries seeking a target that would yield the highest death rate; and, if the United States were attacked, an effective response could minimize the death rate. Our report listed six areas that are key to mitigating the consequences of such an attack: detection and diagnosis, ac- tionable information for leaders and cit- izens, adequate supplies of medical countermeasures, rapid distribution of those countermeasures, treating the sick and protecting the well, and envi- ronmental cleanup. All are important, but the linchpin is having adequate sup- plies of appropriate medical counter- measures. Unless we have antibiotics to fight an


attack of anthrax or plague, the rest of our preparations won’t matter. Tens of thousands of people will die, people who could have been saved had the gov- ernment taken the common-sense pre- caution of stockpiling the necessary drugs.


Congress established the BioShield


Strategic Reserve Fund in 2004 to en- sure that money would be available to purchase critical vaccines and therapeu- tics required to protect Americans from biological, chemical and radiological weapons. The fund was designed to be an ironclad pledge by the U.S. govern- ment to the private sector: If you take the financial risks to research and devel- op these medical countermeasures, we guarantee the money will be available to purchase them. There are few incentives for the pri-


vate sector to invest hundreds of mil- lions of dollars for these important med- ical countermeasures. The only custom- er is the U.S. government. If companies spend huge sums on research and devel- opment and obtain Food and Drug Ad- ministration approval for one vaccine or drug, they need to know that funds will be available for acquisition. That is the only incentive currently provided, but it may soon go away — taking with it the most critical element in our response chain. The House voted on July 7 to raid the BioShield SRF to pay for non-biode- fense, non-national security programs. The White House has remained silent on this issue. In a bipartisan vote last week, our former colleagues in the Sen- ate saved the day by refusing to go along with the House version of the bill. But in the past few days, there have been two more attempted raids. Our nation failed to heed the warning signals that preceded the financial col- lapse in 2008 and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. This is one time when our govern- ment has the chance to contain and mitigate damage, rather than simply re- act to yet another disaster. All the offi- cials we have spoken to, both Repub- lican and Democratic, are convinced of the danger. The challenge has been how to get our government to follow through on the most elementary steps necessary to guard against the most obvious and calamitous risks.


Congress and the administration must stop treating the Bioshield SRF as an ATM card for pet projects.


Former senators Bob Graham, a Democrat from Florida, and Jim Talent, a Republican from Missouri, served as the chair and vice chair of the Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Graham is a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and is co-chair of the National Commission on the BP DeepWater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.


he two of us — at the request of Congress and in the service of two presidents — have for the past 30


KLMNO EUGENE ROBINSON The no-win war


n Afghanistan, momentum has become a substitute for logic. We’re not fighting be-


cause we have a clear set of achiev- able goals. We’re at war, appar- ently, because we’re at war. No other conclusion can be


drawn from the circular, contra- dictory, confusing statements that the war’s commanders and sup- porters keep making. President Obama, in an interview with CBS taped last Friday, said it is “impor- tant for our national security to finish the job in Afghanistan.” But as the war’s deadliest month for U.S. troops came to an end, Obama was far from definitive about just what this job might be. “Nobody thinks that Afghani- stan is going to be a model Jef- fersonian democracy,” Obama said. “What we’re looking to do is diffi- cult — very difficult — but it’s a fair- ly modest goal, which is: Don’t al- low terrorists to operate from this re- gion. Don’t allow them to create big training camps and to plan attacks against the U.S. homeland with impuni- ty.”


But if the war’s aim is to eliminate the


al-Qaeda base in Afghanistan from which the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were launched, that goal was accomplished long ago. There is no substantial al- Qaeda presence in the country anymore; the terrorist network’s affiliates in places such as Yemen and Somalia are much more robust, and the leadership is be- lieved to be hiding in Pakistan. What sense does it make to fight al-Qaeda where it used to be, rather than where it is now?


When he announced his escalation of


the war, Obama described his troop in- crease as a temporary surge and pledged to begin a withdrawal next July. The ad- ministration continues to insist that this is official policy — but warns us not to ex- pect, you know, an actual withdrawal. “My personal opinion is that draw- downs early on will be of fairly limited numbers,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday. “I think we need to re-emphasize the message that we are not leaving Afghanistan in July of 2011. We are beginning a transition process and a thinning of our ranks, and the pace will depend on the conditions on the ground.”


RICHARD COHEN


ewt Gingrich, his doctorate not- withstanding, has offered us an il- logical and ahistorical context to the ugly dispute about building an Islamic cultural center and mosque near Manhat- tan’s Ground Zero. For a while, I thought that Sarah Palin and others would be the only ones to reap the political benefit of exploiting anti-Muslim sentiment, but Gingrich was not to be denied. With a pre- posterous solemnity, he expounded the schoolyard doctrine of tit for tat. Gingrich noted that there “are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.” True enough. However, it is not the gov- ernment of Saudi Arabia that seeks to open a mosque in Lower Manhattan, but a private group. In addition, and just for the record, Saudi Arabia does not repre- sent all of Islam and, also just for the rec- ord, the al-Qaeda terrorists who mur- dered nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, would gladly have added the vast Saudi royal family to the list of victims. In recompense, the Saudis would just as gladly apply some dull swords to the necks of al-Qaeda’s leaders. It is the way of the desert, or something like that. I would also note that women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. Apply- ing Gingrichian logic, it follows that no Muslim women should be allowed to drive in the United States and its pos- sessions and territories — or, for that mat- ter, use a BlackBerry, since the United Arab Emirates is about to block some of its key functions. I’m sure Gingrich would agree.


Gingrich’s statement, written as an op-


Gingrich vs. ‘they’ at Ground Zero N


ed essay, employs two of his favorite words. The first is “they,” as in, “And they lecture us about tolerance.” Indeed they do — and what nerve. After all, “they” are themselves intolerant, which not only means that we should be too but also rais- es the question of who “they” are. A fair parsing of his essay reveals almost noth- ing about the identities of this nefarious “they.” It seems to be the people who sup- port the mosque as well as Muslims every- where, a large and amorphous group whose commonality is the enmity of Gin- grich himself. In reality, this is the dema- gogic they, the “they” that permits wild generalizations, as long as it is of minority groups lacking political power and thus safely demonized. Gingrich’s other favorite word is


“elites.” In his role as Newt the Li- onhearted, he would lead a crusade against “double standards that allow Is- lamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission.” Yea, verily, yea. And who would succumb to such pressure? “Sadly,” it is “our elites” — “the willing apologists for those who would destroy them if they could.” Thank God that Gingrich, with his several degrees, multiple marriages, am- ple fame and commensurate income, is somehow not one of the elites and can, as soon as he mounts up and gets into make- up, save us by, would you believe, possibly running for president. Nineteen so-called “jihadists” crashed four airplanes that day in 2001. This is 19 out of about 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, an infinitesimally tiny percentage


R


A15 ANNE APPLEBAUM


Pots, kettles and budget hawks H


CHARLES DHARAPAK/ASSOCIATED PRESS


President Obama speaks about Afghanistan and Iraq at the Disabled American Veterans national convention in Atlanta on Monday.


Gates claimed that the administra-


tion’s policy in Afghanistan is “really quite clear.” But this is how he described it: “We are in Afghanistan because we were attacked from Afghanistan, not be- cause we want to try and build a better society in Afghanistan. But doing things to improve governance, to improve de- velopment in Afghanistan, to the degree it contributes to our security mission and to the effectiveness of the Afghan government in the security area, that’s what we’re going to do.” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the


Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a similar de- scription of the U.S. mission: “Afghani- stan has to be stable enough, has to have enough governance, has to create enough jobs, have an economy that’s good enough so that the Taliban cannot return” to establish a brutal, terrorist- friendly regime. Is that clear enough? We’re not, repeat not, engaged in nation-building — but we’re going to reform an unresponsive government, generate economic devel- opment and create loads of new jobs. Sounds like nation-building to me. According to Mullen, “the central mis- sion in Afghanistan right now is to pro- tect the people, certainly, and that would be inclusive of everybody. And that, in an insurgency and a counterinsurgency, that’s really the center of gravity.” All right, we’re there to protect the Af-


ghan people. But by all accounts, this ef- fort has been showing few dividends. The more successful tactic has been the targeted assassination, often using drones, of Taliban leaders — which is consistent with a counterterrorism strat- egy, not with our stated policy of counterinsurgency. But it is hard to win the affection and loyalty of Afghans while at the same time killing innocent civilians in anti-Taliban airstrikes. We can be loved as the protectors who build roads and schools, or we can be feared as the warriors who rain death from the sky. It’s hard to be both. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a stead- fast supporter of the administration’s policy in Afghanistan, said he worried that “an unholy alliance with the right and left coming together” would co- alesce in opposition to the war. “To lose there would be disastrous,” he said. “To win there would be monumental. And I think we’ve got a good chance of win- ning, but by no means is the outcome certain.” He’s wrong. With no real definition of


victory or how to achieve it, our chance of “winning” is zero.


The writer will answer questions at 1 p.m. today at www.washingtonpost.


com. His e-mail address is eugenerobinson@ washpost.com.


istorical amnesia is at once the most endearing and the most frustrating of American qualities. On the one


hand, it means that — F. Scott Fitzgerald notwithstanding — there really are second acts in American lives. People can move somewhere else, reinvent themselves, start again.


On the other hand, our inability to re- member what our policy was last week, nev- er mind last decade, drives outsiders crazy. We forget that we supported the dictator be- fore we decided to destroy him. Then we can’t understand why others, especially the dictator’s subjects, don’t always believe in the goodness of our intentions or the sincer- ity of our devotion to democracy. Domestic policy is no different, as I learned from readers who wrote to de- nounce my column of two weeks ago. I ar- gued that Americans on both the left and the right have, for the past decade, consis- tently voted for high-spending members of Congress, and consistently supported ever- greater government intervention and reg- ulation at all levels of public life. As a result, the federal government expanded under George W. Bush’s administration at a rate that was, at least until President Obama came along, unprecedented in American history.


Alas, historical amnesia appears to have


affected some readers, many of whom are under the impression that President Bush actually believed in small government and that recent Republican congressional lead- ers actually opposed federal spending. Here is a more accurate assessment:


“President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presi- dents preceding him, including LBJ.” I didn’t write that: The astute libertarian economist Veronique de Rugy did. She also points out that during his eight years in of- fice, Bush’s “anti-government” Republican administration increased the federal budget by an extraordinary 104 percent. By com- parison, the increase under President Bill Clinton’s watch was a relatively measly 11 percent (a rate, I might add, lower than dur-


Before the GOP can have credibility on any spending issues, Republican leaders need to speak frankly about the mistakes of the past.


indeed. Nonetheless, this math is lost on the likes of, say, Rick Lazio, who is run- ning for New York governor and, probably as a consequence, is a vociferous anti- mosqueteer. He of all people should know that it is unfair to judge an entire people by the criminal behavior of a few: cap- iche? The irony is that the proposed Cordoba


House Islamic center — Cordoba being the Spanish city that, under the Moors, was renowned for its (relative) religious tolerance — was intended to encourage interfaith dialogue. Unfortunately, the site is a mere two blocks from Ground Zero and, as some people insist, this could cause discomfort to those who lost loved ones there. This is the argument made by the Anti-Defamation League, which has surprisingly taken the wrong side in this debate. Of course, people are entitled to their feelings, and feelings regarding Sept. 11 are still raw. But it is not all of Is- lam that took down the Twin Towers. To bar the mosque on those grounds is to ac- cede to prejudice, no matter how painful- ly earned. This mosque and Islamic center were approved by the local neighborhood ad- visory board and have the backing of the mayor. To an alarming extent, the oppo- nents are mostly Republican politicians — Palin, Lazio, Gingrich and even congres- sional candidates in other states. They pretend to have the courage of their con- victions, but the truth is otherwise. When it comes to convictions, they have none at all.


cohenr@washpost.com


POST PARTISAN Excerpts from The Post’s opinion blog, updated daily at washingtonpost.com/postpartisan


JONATHAN CAPEHART


Ethics probes are not about race


There’s a troubling story line to the eth-


ics travails faced by Rep. Charles B. Ran- gel (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D- Calif.). Both The Post and Politico ran sto- ries Monday that highlight concern that African American lawmakers are facing added scrutiny. Some would say they are being targeted. And I would say that’s ab- solutely ridiculous.


First, it should be pointed out that nei- ther Rangel nor Waters has made this claim. Nor has there been an official state- ment to this effect by the Congressional Black Caucus. I acknowledge that CBC member and House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) gave the theory some credence on “Morning Joe” on Monday.


And an anonymous caucus member told Politico that there is a “dual standard, one for most members and one for African Americans.” As an African American, I know and understand the sensitivity to unfair pros- ecution and persecution of blacks in the court of law and the court of public opin- ion. The reflex to speak against a rush to judgment is as innate as flinching from fire. But there are times when that sensi- tivity can blind us to very real questions that have nothing to do with race. In the cases of Rangel and Waters, I have to agree with a Twitter posting by NBC News political director Chuck Todd. Their trou- bles have to do with “entrenched entitle- ment.” Rangel has held his Harlem congres- sional seat for 40 years. Waters has repre- sented south-central Los Angeles for nearly 20 years. To read the alleged vio- lations by Rangel and Waters is to go into a familiar world of power, access and perks. Rules of conduct were established


to guard against abuse and excess. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) formed the Office of Congressional Ethics in 2008 as part of her promise to drain the swamp of corruption in Washington. That two powerful, high-ranking and highly re- garded members of her party are facing rigorous scrutiny shows that Pelosi meant business. Thankfully, a misguided effort by Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) to weaken that office has gone nowhere. The proceedings of the ethics commit- tee are supposed to be secret. Only when charges are filed do they become public. But journalists and good-government or- ganizations, such as Citizens for Respon- sibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), make it their business to keep the public informed. In fact, CREW has an “Under Investigation” Web site that chronicles the allegations against House and Senate members and where things stand. If you look there, you will see that the ethics committee is an equal-opportu- nity investigator.


ing Ronald Reagan’s). In his second term, Bush increased discretionary spending — that means non-Medicare, non-Social Secu- rity — 48.6 percent. In his final year in office, fiscal 2009, he spent more than $32,000 per American, up from $17,216.68 in fiscal 2001. But Bush is not the only culprit: The fed-


eral government usually spends money in response to state demands. Look, for exam- ple, at Alaska, a state that produces a dis- proportionate quantity of anti-government rhetoric, that has had Republican governors since 2002 and whose congressional delega- tion is dominated by Republicans as well. For the past decade, Alaska has been among the top three state recipients of federal funding, per capita. Usually, Alaska is far ahead — sometimes three times as far ahead —of most other states in the union. Largely, this is because of one famous Alaskan, Republican Ted Stevens, who de- voted himself to securing federal funding for his state during more than four decades in the Senate. Not only were his efforts ex- tremely popular among his Republican con- stituents — he was reelected multiple times — they won him many, many imitators. Slate’s Timothy Noah long ago pointed out that as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin hired a former Stevens chief of staff to be a Wash- ington lobbyist. As a result, the 6,700 inhab- itants of Wasilla enjoyed $27 million in fed- eral earmarks over a four-year period. Please note, angry readers, that I am not citing these figures to claim that the Obama administration has done any better: On the contrary, the Obama administration is far more profligate than Clinton or Bush, terri- fyingly so. After Obama’s first budget, De Rugy predicted “unprecedented and sus- tained levels of debt for the American peo- ple, their children and grandchildren.” But then, the Democratic Party does not call it- self the party of small government. The GOP does. Parties, of course, can change; politicians can see the light; lessons can be learned; and perhaps some Republicans have learned them. But you cannot start from scratch. You cannot forget history. You can- not pretend that the Republican Party has not supported big and wasteful spending programs — energy subsidies, farm sub- sidies, unnecessary homeland security proj- ects, profligate defense contracts, you name it — for the past decade. Before the GOP can have credibility on any spending issues whatsoever, Republican leaders need to speak frankly about the mistakes of the past. They also must be extremely specific about which policies and programs they are planning to cut. What will it be? Social Secu- rity or the military budget? Medicare or the Transportation Security Administration? Vague “anti-government” rhetoric doesn’t cut it anymore: If you want a smaller gov- ernment, you have to tell us how you will create one.


applebaumletters@washpost.com CORRECTION Fareed Zakaria’s Aug. 2 op-ed column


misstated when President Bill Clinton and Congress reached a deal to raise tax- es. It was 1993, not 1992.


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