U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Homeland Security
Hearing on the WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2011
June 23, 2011
Statement from Senator Jim Talent
Vice Chairman
Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center
(WMD Center)

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members, I am speaking today as the Vice Chairman of the Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center, better known as the WMD Center. Even though former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), the chairman of the WMD Center could not be here today, please consider this our joint statement.

The WMD Center is a not-for-profit research and educational organization that Senator Graham and I founded, along with Colonel Randy Larsen, USAF (ret), at the conclusion of the Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism (WMD Commission) in 2010.

WMD Commission

In early 2008, the Commission was tasked by Congress to assess the risk of WMD terrorism and to recommend steps to prevent a successful WMD attack on the United States. During its tenure, the WMD Commission interviewed hundreds of experts and reviewed thousands of pages of research and testimony. Each commissioner quickly realized that the United States was facing a growing threat of biological terrorism—a conclusion that was unexpected for many. We learned that the lethality of a sophisticated biological weapon could rival the lethality of a Hiroshima- sized bomb, and that the development and delivery of such a bioweapon would require far less money and technical expertise than a nuclear weapon.

In the commission report, World at Risk, we stated that terrorists are more likely to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon. In the late fall of 2008, we concluded that unless we act urgently and decisively, it was more likely than not that terrorists would use a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world by the end 2013. On December 2, 2008, the Director of National Intelligence publicly agreed with this assessment in a speech at Harvard University.

In an unprecedented act, Congress extended the authorization of the WMD Commission and assigned it a new task: to communicate its assessment, explain the evidence behind it, and to work with Congress and the Administration to enact the Commission’s recommendations. In other words, we were charged with encouraging Congress and the Administration to take decisive action to prevent such an act of mass lethality from taking place on American soil, and should such an attack occur, to limit its consequences.

In 2009, we worked closely with Congress and the Administration to focus on the threat of bioterrorism. As our second year of work drew to a close, we released a report card that assessed progress on a wide range of WMD issues; however, the grade that garnered the most attention in the January 2010 report was the failing grade for America’s preparedness to respond to a biological attack.

The WMD Center and its Bio-response Report Card

We founded the WMD Center to serve as an honest broker between government and the American public to ensure individual, community, and national progress in strengthening the nation’s capabilities to respond to biological threats. Our first major research project, scheduled for completion in mid-October, is a report card focused solely on America’s capability to respond to a large-scale biological event, whether man-made or naturally-occurring.

Lynne Kidder, the President of the WMD Center, is leading a highly qualified team of experts in this study. During Phase I, our project’s advisors were charged with designing the metrics for evaluating bio-response capabilities. Advisors include a former Deputy Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, the former Chief Counsel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the former Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense (in the Clinton and Bush Administrations), the Founding President of the Albert B. Sabin Vaccine Institute, the Director of Disaster Medicine at the American Medical Association, and the Director of RAND Health. (A complete list of advisors is available at www.wmdcenter.org).

In Phase II of our study, a separate, independent team of subject matter experts will collect data and provide analysis in each of seven categories:

• Detection and situational awareness
• Diagnosis and attribution
• Communicating actionable information
• Medical countermeasures (development and production of vaccines and therapeutics)
•  Distributing/dispensing medical countermeasures
• Medical treatment and response
• Environmental remediation

In order to ensure rigorous review and diverse perspectives, this second team includes experienced practitioners and thought leaders from academia, leading think tanks, former government officials, and private sector organizations that specialize in biodefense. These experts will provide their analyses and insights to the WMD Center Board of Directors, who will ultimately determine final grades, recommendations, and report content.

Our report card will be released in mid-October. It will consist of three parts: a review of the threat, an assessment of America’s current capabilities to effectively respond to act of bioterrorism, and recommendations that will set us on the course to reach our goal: removing bioterrorism from the category of WMD. While we will never be able to remove nuclear weapons from the category of WMD, it is within our power to remove bioterrorism from the category.

Given the ubiquity of select agents readily found in nature and the rapid advances in bio- technology that allow non-state actors the capability to produce sophisticated bioweapons, a major part of our biodefense strategy must be based on building a level of preparedness that will effectively remove bioweapons from the category of WMD. An attack would still cause casualties, but it would not be of a magnitude that would change the course of history.

This is a realistic and achievable goal.

WMD Bill

The WMD Center is not in the business of assigning grades to specific pieces of legislation; however, if we were in that business, this carefully-crafted, comprehensive bill would receive high marks. If all articles within this legislation were to become law, it would represent progress for America’s biodefense capabilities.

We do understand the challenges of moving this legislation through the various committees and subcommittees that will claim oversight responsibility. It should be noted that the 9/11 Commission warned of the Byzantine jurisdictional assignment of congressional oversight of homeland security. In January 2010, the WMD Commission gave Congress a failing grade for the lack of response to its recommendation: “reform Congressional oversight to better address intelligence, homeland security, and crosscutting 21st century national security missions”.

The WMD Center fully supports many of the provisions of the bipartisan bill you’ve introduced today. In particular, we support your call for the re-establishment of the position previously called, Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense.

We are also pleased with other provisions that are consistent with WMD Commission recommendations, including requirements for:

• A national biodefense plan
• A national bio-surveillance strategy
• A comprehensive cross-cutting biodefense budget analysis
• A national intelligence strategy for countering biological threats
• Improvements in how the government communicates the threat of bioterrorism
• Improved detection capabilities
• First responder guidance on WMD
• Guidelines on environmental cleanup and restoration

The Road Ahead

While we enthusiastically support this legislation, we also must ask, is it enough? This legislation will help move the nation toward the WMD Center’s goal of removing bioterrorism from the category of WMD, but it will not get us all the way there. We will not reach this goal during the tenure of the 112th Congress, but rather, it will require a long-term commitment. We must ensure that the legislation and policies we enact today and each year forward lead us toward that goal.

It is difficult to envision improvement without appropriate leadership and organizational structure. The 2008 report of the Project on National Security Reform, Forging a New Shield, examined the “uneven performance of the federal government” during several post-cold war national security scenarios, from 9/11 to Katrina.

The report concludes:

“It is facile to blame all these regrettable outcomes on particular leaders and their policy choices. Leadership and judgment matter, to be sure, but as this Report demonstrates, no leader, no matter how strategically farsighted and talented as a manager, could have handled these issues without being hampered by the weaknesses of the current system.”

While the WMD Center fully supports your call to re-establish the position of Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense, we understand that doing so will not fix all the deficiencies in leadership and organizational structure for America’s biodefense enterprise. These will be among the most important issues we consider in the assessment and recommendations of our report card.

We are fortunate to have the experience and wisdom of two dozen of America’s top biodefense and public health experts assisting our project, but we are also considering the findings of recent reports by the National Biological Science Board, the National Academies, the Defense Science Board, and others.

Senator Graham and I look forward to providing you our assessments and recommendations in October. While I can’t provide specific details today, I can predict that some of the recommendations will require neither authorization nor appropriations, and yet will provide significant improvements in capabilities. Other recommendations will require congressional authorization, and we know that will be challenging given multiple committees with jurisdiction. Some recommendations will require more funding – a huge challenge in this fiscal environment. We will talk about partnerships between the public and private sectors, and while that has been a great bumper sticker for the post 9/11 era, it has proven far more challenging to implement.

Multiple-Benefits

The good news is that many of our recommendations will have multiple-benefits for our families and local communities, whether or not they experience a large-scale bioterrorist attack. Improvements in the rapid diagnosis of disease, the capability to quickly produce safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics, and increased surge capacity in our medical care systems will benefit us all – for we know with certainty that Mother Nature will present biological threats. These no-regret initiatives will be a great legacy for our children and grandchildren, and will also help keep America at the leading edge of the biotech revolution.

The Growing Threat of Bioterrorism

Removing bioterrorism from the category of WMD will neither be quick nor easy, but it is vital to both America’s economic and national security. I would remind you that bin Laden had a background in construction. It shouldn’t be surprising that he chose to attack buildings in America, because he understood what damage could be wrought by flying fully-fueled, wide body airplanes into those structures. Al Qaeda’s new leader is just as determined to attack America. His formal training was in medicine and infectious disease—one more reason we worry about bioterrorism. But this is not just about al Qaeda.

If the FBI is correct in its assertion that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the sole perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, then a single individual with no training or experience in weaponizing pathogens, and using equipment readily available for purchase on the internet, was capable of producing high-quality, dry-powdered anthrax. The only difference between producing enough material for several envelopes and enough material to attack a city is just a matter of a few months production work in a laboratory, rather than the few hours of late night work cited by the FBI investigation.

The bottom line on the feasibility of bioterrorism is quite clear. Today, terrorists have ready access to pathogens, the capability to weaponize them, and the means to effectively dispense a biological weapon. There is no question on intent.

Removing Bioterrorism from the Category of WMD

It is well within the capacity of our nation to address this threat. The issue here is less a question of resources or knowledge than it is one of leadership and purpose. Our nation must recognize that the danger of a bioattack against the American homeland is a high priority threat.

At the explicit request of the leaders of Congress, the WMD Commission recommended the steps necessary to defend the nation against that threat. The WMD Center report card will offer even more specific recommendations this fall.

The question is the same as when the WMD Commission issued its first report in December 2008: Will our leaders take bold actions commensurate with the seriousness of this threat?

No one in history has successfully led a more complex organization than General Eisenhower during the liberation of Europe in 1944-45.  That is why I have such high regard for his dictum: “The right organization will not guarantee success, but the wrong organization will guarantee failure.

Even as a very junior officer in Vietnam in the 1960s, it was obvious that the U.S. organizational structure was dysfunctional.  General Westmoreland thought he was in charge, the US Ambassador thought he was in charge, the CIA station chief thought he was in charge, and the commander of Pacific forces thought he was in charge.  This dysfunctional national security model lasted nearly another two decades—through the failed rescue attempt in Iran, the enormous coordination problems encountered during the invasion of Grenada, and the tragedy at the Marine barracks in Beirut.

On the other hand, the organization that planned and conducted the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan represents a quantum improvement.  For that, we can thank the U.S. Congress (something I don’t frequently do). The executive branch would never have stepped forward to make the necessary organizational changes—in fact, the Chief of Naval Operations called the idea “un-American” —but Congress, in one of its greatest demonstrations of courage and wisdom, gave America the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986.

The Congressional hearings on the Marine barracks disaster revealed that there had been 44 levels of command and staff between the President and the on-scene Marine commander. There were no clear lines of authority, responsibility, and accountability. To say Goldwater-Nichols streamlined the organizational model is a gross understatement. It reduced it from 44 to 4, and provided clear lines of authority, responsibility, and accountability.

Beginning with Just Cause in Panama, closely followed by Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the Arabian Peninsula and all the way through the capture and summary execution of bin Laden, we have testament to the power of proper organizations.

Unfortunately, America’s biodefense organizational structure is far closer to Vietnam than what we witnessed in the termination of bin Laden. Today there are more than two dozen Presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed individuals with some responsibility for biodefense, but no one has it for a full-time job and no one is in charge. This is so troubling because the planning, preparation, and execution of a response to an act of bioterrorism is far more complex than the bin Laden operation, and in some respects, even more complex and time-sensitive than Eisenhower’s European campaign.

We have plenty of examples of the results delivered by dysfunctional organizations and some notable models of success.  Will Congress once again demonstrate the courage and wisdom to provide the solution to a critical national security problem, or will it be up to a commission appointed by Congress to examine the disastrous response to an act of bioterrorism?

In a recent Washington Examiner column, Gene Healy, a vice president at the Cato Institute, suggests that we worry too much about serious threats to national security. He posits that we are in an era of great peace and stability.   (Link)

To downplay the threat of bioterrorism, Mr. Healy quotes Milton Leitenberg from the University of Maryland: “The idea that four guys in a cave are going to create bioweapons from scratch — that will be never, ever, ever.”

The statements of both Mr. Healy and Mr. Leitenberg require rebuttal.

Mr. Healy believes that: “Free trade leads to a wealthier world, and a wealthier world is a safer world.” He also quotes the new Human Security Report: “Greatly increased levels of international trade and foreign direct investment have raised the costs of conquest and shrunk its benefits.… In today’s open global trading system, it is almost always cheaper to acquire goods and raw materials by trade than to invade a country in order to steal them.”

While a strong supporter of free trade, this line of argument always takes me back to the Nobel Prize winning book, The Great Illusion by Norman Angell, first published in 1909 and one of the best selling books of its era.

The great military historian John Kegan best described Angell’s work: “Europe in the summer of 1914 enjoyed a peaceful productivity so dependent on international exchange and co-operation that a belief in the impossibility of a general war seemed the most conventional of wisdoms. In 1910 an analysis of prevailing economic interdependence, The Great Illusion, had become a best-seller; its author Norman Angell had demonstrated, to the satisfaction of almost all informed opinion, that the disruption of international credit inevitably to be caused by war would either deter its outbreak or bring it speedily to an end.”

Four years later, the world learned that this economic interdependence would neither deter war nor keep it short.  Following World War I, Angell revised his work and re-released it in 1933, arguing it is almost always cheaper to acquire goods and raw materials by trade than to invade a country.  (Do you understand why I had the déjà vu when I read the quote from the recently released Human Security Report?)

Bottom line: I am not ready to nominate the authors of the Human Security Report for the Nobel Peace Prize. The world remains a dangerous place, arguably far more dangerous than either 1914 or 1939.  People have not changed, but technology has, and that is where Mr. Leitenberg continues to mislead and misinform.

“The idea that four guys in a cave are going to create bioweapons from scratch — that will be never, ever, ever.” This is a favorite sound bite of Mr. Leitenberg and it is frequently quoted in the press. Like many of his statements, it is factually correct and totally irrelevant to the debate.

The more appropriate quote comes from Dr. Gerald Epstein at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “I don’t worry about terrorists in caves becoming biologists, I worry about biologists becoming terrorists.”  Most competent analysts spend little time worrying about guys in long robes and unkempt beards sitting in a cave brewing up a dangerous bioweapon. And one doesn’t need to be a Nobel Prize Laureate microbiologist to become a bioterrorist — a small group of graduate students with a budget of less than six figures could likely succeed.

According to Mr. Leitenberg’s biographical information on the University of Maryland web site he has not worked as a “scientist” since 1966.  (Link)  Laboratories and technologies have changed dramatically since the time of his last laboratory experience four decades ago, when it did take superpower technology to produce a sophisticated biological weapon.

Mr. Leitenberg frequently claims it is difficult, if not impossible for a non-state actor to:

• Acquire a sample of a deadly pathogen
• Weaponize a pathogen
• Effectively deliver weaponized material

All three assertions are wrong.

A recent report by the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC clearly demonstrates the ubiquity of deadly pathogens. ( Link)  The short article and inter-active map clearly demonstrate where one could have found 30 of the pathogens on the U.S Select Agent List (including the causative agents for: anthrax, plague, tularemia, Ebola and Marburg) during a recent 22-month period, when these all caused cases of human and/or animal infections/deaths. Locating, locking down, and eliminating nuclear weapons material may be sound approaches to keeping these materials out of the hands of terrorists, but such an approach cannot possibly protect us from bioterrorists.  These deadly pathogens, the raw material for bioweapons, are readily available in nature.

Weaponization was the most challenging part of developing a bioweapons program when Mr. Leitenberg was working in a laboratory. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Everything one needs to know about weaponization (creating 3-5 micron-sized particles, adding stabilizers to reduce environmental degradation, and eliminating electrostatic charge) is common industrial practice, well-documented in the private sector. Just take a look at the tutorials offered at last October’s conference of the American Association of Aerosol Research  (Link).

Mr. Leitenberg’s assertion that effective delivery of a weaponized pathogen is a serious technical challenge is egregiously wrong. He should ask about a recent test of the biosensors at the Pentagon.  In this test, a simulant was used to test the sensors’ ability to detect a release of bioweapon-sized particles upwind of the Pentagon.  A $50 leaf blower was used as the delivery device — technology that is most likely available to terrorists.

Mr. Leitenberg is obviously a favorite of the CATO Institute.  Several years ago I was invited to debate Mr. Leitenberg at CATO. I was a bit surprised when I arrived and discovered that Mr. Leitenberg was going to have 20 minutes for his remarks, and I was given only five.  I almost left before the event, but then realized, it only takes about five minutes to refute his long outdated assertions.

It is delusional to believe we are not living in a dangerous world, arguably, far more dangerous than any other time in history.  It is also misguided to accept the ill-informed assertions of Mr. Leitenberg, a man who chooses to remain out of touch with the realities of modern biotechnology.

“Locate, lockdown, and eliminate loose nuclear material.”  That is the correct strategy for preventing nuclear terrorism. Non-state actors are not capable of enriching uranium or producing plutonium. They can only buy it or steal it.  Preventing the theft or sale of this material will prevent a mushroom cloud over an American city.

Preventing nuclear terrorism is simple—not to be confused with easy, but it is simple. Unfortunately, some leaders in the national security community seem to believe the same strategy of  “locate, lockdown, and eliminate” will work against the threat of bioterrorism.

A short article released today at the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC by Rambhia, Ribner, and Gronvall in Biosecurity and Bioterrorism demonstrates the fallacy of this argument.  The chart alone is worth a thousand words.

Some have called for a draconian lockdown on America’s laboratories. Last year, the Senate Committee on Government Affairs and Homeland Security introduced legislation that would have moved the responsibility for lab security to the Department of Homeland Security. The Chair and co-chair of the Congressional Commission for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, former Senators Bob Graham (D-FL) and Jim Talent (R-MO), were strongly opposed to this initiative. One advisor to the WMD Commission, and a former director of the National Science Foundation and a professor of microbiology, stated that a misguided attempt to lock down US labs (that would seriously disrupt research) “would be a greater long-term threat to the US than al Qaeda.”

Responsible efforts to secure deadly pathogens in laboratories make good sense. However, no one should believe that locking them down will significantly reduce the threat of bioterrorism, and no one should be claiming that it is very difficult to obtain pathogenic strains of bacteria and viruses as one terrorism expert did last week at the Aspen Institute. This article by Rambhia, Ribner, and Gronvall should end this debate once and for all.

Article

(Click on the chart in the article to expand.)

Proper pronunciation is not a likely topic for a blog on biosecurity, particularly when written by someone who has great difficulty pronouncing the word “nuclear”.  (I blame that on spending too much time in Texas.)

However, it never ceases to amaze me how many people mispronounce the name of the Secretary of Homeland Security.  Not only do many broadcast journalists get it wrong, but so do people at DHS—even some very senior people.

The fourth syllable in her last name sounds like “tan”.  Just think of what a great tan one can get in Arizona (where she previously served as Governor).  When I mention this, many doubt my assertion.  The best way to prove my point, is to listen to how the Secretary pronounces her name.  (I have found that few people mispronounce their own names.)

So why do I write about this?  Two reasons. First, it is important (and polite) to correctly pronounce people’s names. Second, it gets me to the real message in this blog.

When I served as the chairman of the Department of Military Strategy and Operations at the National War College, I kept only one book on my desk: The Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. We discovered a long time ago that using the right word or term is incredibly important.  Communication is difficult enough, but even more so when people are sloppy with their word selection.  The complex, diverse field of homeland security has made this even more of a challenge.

This was well demonstrated to me in 2002.  I conducted a series of workshops at Wye River that were funded by Dr. Peggy Hamburg, who at that time was running the biodefense program at NTI.  The purpose was to bring together senior leaders from law enforcement, intelligence, public health, and agriculture to discuss the security of the US food industry.  We quickly discovered that words were one of our greatest challenges.  When a law enforcement person used the word “surveillance”, their definition was quite different than those from intelligence, public health, and agriculture.

The old joke in the military about this problem is based on the word “secure”. Tell the Marines to “secure” a building and they will bring tanks, air strikes, and ground troops to bear until there is nothing left of the building or its occupants. Tell the Army to “secure” a building and they will bring in a company of infantry and surround the building and dig in, with their guns facing outward.  Tell the Navy or Coast Guard to “secure” a building and they will send a junior Petty Officer around to lock the doors and turn out the lights. But tell the Air Force to ‘secure” a building and they will send a Colonel with a contracting warrant to sign a lease.

The DoD dictionary didn’t solve all the problems with communications in the military, but it did go a long way in getting people on the same sheet of music.  For instance, when one of my students at NWC would say “total war”, I would ask them to look up that term in the dictionary—which says:  “Total War: do not use this term.”

Total war is a terribly confusing concept. To some it may mean using all available weapons, from bayonets to thermonuclear-tipped missiles.  To some one else it may mean nationalizing industry and drafting all able-bodied persons between 18-50.  To others it may be synonymous with a “Carthaginian Peace”.(1) In addition to saying “do not use this term”, the dictionary also suggests appropriate terms that should be used.

Unfortunately, the field of homeland security is far more diverse and complex than the military.  Two years ago, David Heyman (currently serving as the Assistant Secretary of Policy at DHS) and I were listening to a homeland security briefing from a state official in California.  He said, “We have recently seen a spike in SARs.”  This got our attention and a quick question because to us SARs meant severe acute respiratory syndrome.  The briefer was actually talking about suspicious activity reports.  Different acronyms and terms in the dozens of different fields associated with homeland security is but one of the problems.

Another problem, and the one that has no excuses, is just plain sloppiness.  I have no formal education in either public health or medicine.  In my attempt to avoid sounding like the village idiot when speaking about these subjects I try to be very careful with terminology.  What I find surprising is how often I hear high-level public health and medical personnel use the words “infectious” and “contagious” interchangeably.  When they do this to a highly informed public health audience, it is of little or no harm—everyone knows what the speaker meant to say.  The same is not true when speaking to the larger homeland security and national security communities.

There are countless other examples such as the difference between distributing and dispensing medical countermeasures, the difference between a county executive in Maryland and a county judge in Texas (virtually none), and the difference between a dirty bomb (RDD) and an IND (considerable).

Bottom line:  Please show the courtesy of pronouncing Secretary Napolitano’s name correctly (remember that tan from Arizona) and perhaps, someone should consider publishing a Homeland Security Dictionary.  It wouldn’t solve all of our problems, but it would be a step in the right direction for improving communications in this diverse, complex community.

________________

(1) If you are not familiar with a Carthaginian Peace, and work in the field of national security, consider it your professional development research for the week.  See: http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1194412

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