Security Specialists say US is More Vulnerable to Attack

A government task force is warning the country that we are now more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than before September 11, 2001, as many of the key measures needed to thwart terrorism have floundered.

In an article in the Boston Globe, Bryan Bender says last week, just before the 7th anniversary of the attacks, a congressionally-appointed Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism panel heard “sobering testimony from law enforcement officials and national security specialists who believe the country is now more vulnerable to a catastrophic terrorist attack than it was seven years ago - in part because the government has dragged its feet in defending against the threat.”

Who testified before the committee? Bender says New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the panel that a new federal project to establish a ring of sensors around the city to detect radioactive and nuclear materials is inadequately funded in this year's federal budget.

“Bloomberg’s police chief, meanwhile, said the federal government has no uniform standard for securing radioactive materials and biological pathogens, materials commonly used in hospitals and labs that could become components in a ‘dirty bomb’ or germ-based weapon,” Bender adds.

The special task force that convened in New York is required by law to deliver recommendations this fall for the incoming president. “A nuclear or biological terrorist attack would be so catastrophic, and so consequential, that our government must explore every option, take every precaution, and pursue every sensible means to deter and prevent it,” former Senator Bob Graham, who co-chairs the panel with former Senator Jim Talent, said.