U.S. Homeland Defense Policy Mired in Competing Interests.

• Author: Stanton, John J.
• Position: Brief Article

Federal resources that were spent during the past five years on programs to defend the United States against potential weapons-of-mass-destruction attacks have not resulted in any substantial capabilities to cope with such threats, according to government, industry and independent experts.

These sources generally agreed that there currently is no coherent national strategy to deal with chemical, biological, and nuclear attacks; no comprehensive training or emergency response programs at all levels of government and no significant intelligence or foreign-policy effort to address these global threats. In short, experts believe that little has been done to make the American public feel any more confident than it was five years ago in the nation's ability to cope with a terrorist attack.

The push within Congress and the Clinton administration to invest more federal money on homeland defense began in earnest more than five years ago.

On March 20, 1995, members of an obscure cult named Aum Shinrikyo attacked hapless subway commuters in Tokyo with poison gas. According to Amy Smithson--senior associate of the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, D.C., and author of "Ataxia: The Chemical and Biological Terrorism Threat and the U.S. Response"--the last time Americans were so thoroughly unhinged by events coming out of Tokyo was in 1954, when Japanese soldiers battled a giant celluloid lizard fictitiously born after a U.S. nuclear test.

Shortly after the 1995 incident, Smithson said in an interview, "I began to get a number of telephone calls from Capitol Hill, the media and defense contractors. ... When you see those groups begin to coalesce, you know we are about to have a feeding frenzy, ... and it has been one big, sloppy trough."

Since 1995, approximately $10 billion in federal funds have been spent on U.S. chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) domestic preparedness programs by at least 20 agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Justice, State and Agriculture. During the same timeframe, new legislation was enacted, such as the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Act of 1996 to help the United Stares defend and respond to a CBRN attack whether from foreign or domestic sources. Legislativc modifications were made to the Stafford Act--which provides guidance for federal government assistance to states in times of emergency--and to the Posse Comitatus Act, which sets limits to military participation in domestic affairs.

Meanwhile, at the executive-branch level, former President Bill Clinton's 1998 homeland-defense speech at the U.S. Naval Academy was followed by Presidential Decision Directives 62 and 63, signaling executive-branch support for the notion of homeland defense.

Complex Issue

Homeland defense, explained Smithson, is a "complex issue that does not lend itself to PowerPoint presentations." The players involved, additionally, have vested interests that can conflict in the process of policy making. Some agencies, for example, plainly are looking for new missions, she said. Private firms are looking just to turn a profit. Elected officials tend to try to help favored constituents, said Smithson.

Some local first-responders, who are the first line of defense in cases of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, noted that federal efforts often don't address local needs.

"We spent $10 billion on terrorism," said the chief of the Arlington County, Va., Fire Department. Edward Plaugher, who coordinates the entire Washington, D.C., CBRN medical response team, said that Arlington County's was the first civilian fire-fighting organization in the nation to address CBRN issues thoroughly, and to train its firefighters to...