BioTerrorism Threat Overblown, Expert Says

Okay, I have been saying all along that US officials have scared the crap out of people to further their own political and self-interests. Few people want to hear this, though, especially after 911. Yet, besides mounting evidence that that catastrophe was preventable, the fact remains that it was a lucky shot.

Now comes Andrew Cordesman, well known anti-terrorism expert, who says that this supposed bioterrorism threat is blown all out of proportion...

At NTI: Global Security Newswire Cordesman's comments and the context in which he said them include the following:

Prominent exercises and arguments since the Sept. 11 attacks suggesting terrorists could effectively use biological weapons to create catastrophic destruction are backed by few facts and little hard, reliable data, said Anthony Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is a national security analyst for ABC News.

“I’m not convinced that we have been willing to admit the level of uncertainty, the level of difficulty, and the lack of credible data, particularly on an unclassified level,” he said, speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars here.

While Cordesman acknowledged he has no technical background in biological defense, he does have several decades of government national security experience. That includes shutting down U.S. military biological warfare programs at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the early 1970s after the United States signed on to the Biological Weapons Convention.

By the way, wasn't it now discredited NYTimes reporter Judith Miller who hyped this paranoic bit of propagands in a best-selling book and in numerous articles, as well as on the airwaves?

Anyway, no doubt people will accentuate the fact that the man's not a "technical expert" in the field--which means, I think, that he doesn't have a PhD in biology. So this could turn out to be a pissing match between experts.

I am willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, though, simply because it's in the self-interests of many scientists and experts to overblow threats and such so the govt. will fork over funding for their pet projects.

Oh no, I couldn't and didn't say that, did I? You mean these guys don't have our best interests at heart? Ummmm, remember I am the cynical librarian, so I get to say things like this. Paranoia? Irresponsible poetic license? I guess you have to know how these researchers think to really get a feel for how not all of them are the knights in shining armor out to save us with science that they put themselves out to be.

Talk about state welfare queens. These guys are the ones we need to stop funding and not some poor woman who supports herself and several kids on a few hundred bucks a month and food stamps.