Addressing the Threat: An Examination of Science and Technology Policy Addressing Weapons of Mass Destruction

Recent history, including the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon on September 11^th, the Atocha commuter rail train in Madrid, the multiple London tube bombings, and the discovery of Anthrax within Washington, D.C., has reinforced the science and technology focus upon post event response capability and attribution. In fact, technologies in support of post event response capability and, in the case of terrorism, attribution, have been the key drivers in funding and policy. Unfortunately, the technologies, and methodologies, used to detect chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosive (CBRNE) weapons have not fundamentally changed in many years. Although there has been some confirmation of rogue nations and terrorists attempts to obtain WMD, there is substantial evidence of the use conventional explosives. While the use of WMD would be catastrophic (High risk, High impact), the difficulty in implementation makes the actual threat minimal compared to the historical and frequent success of terrorist organizations using relatively simple Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) on soft and/or highly populated targets (Low risk, Low-Medium impact). The benefit or effect from altering the focus, the funding, and changing the current policy toward a better use of current capabilities in detection, communications and decision support, and generation ofnontraditional detection and disruption technologies is improved effectiveness and efficiency of limited specialized personnel assets, decreased response time, maximization of emergency responders effective reach, standardized detection and response methodology, and, ultimately, the possibility of mitigation and pre-emption.