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CIA Not Sharing Bioterror
Knowledge With Public Officials

By Steve Mitchell
9-3-2

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies are not relaying what they know about potential bioterrorism threats to the appropriate public health officials, making it difficult to plan counter-strategies to deal with an attack and protect citizens, experts told United Press International.
 
Richard Levinson, associate executive director of the American Public Health Association in Washington, said information about the likelihood of attacks is "desperately needed" by public health officials "because it changes your whole planning timeline and the urgency to get materials to protect the population."
 
Levinson added, "The intelligence community and the public health community have never communicated in any important way. And that's something that needs to happen."
 
Jonathan Tucker, a former United Nations weapons inspector who now is with the Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, said the lack of information sharing "is a general problem." This is because it hinders the ability of officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which is charged with safeguarding the public from a bioterrorist attack, from knowing which bioterror agents are most likely to be used and which drugs and vaccines should be stockpiled.
 
Both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have maintained they do share knowledge of bioterrorist threats with appropriate authorities.
 
A spokesman for the CIA who requested anonymity said, "If we were to find information of some kind of plot, our action would be to share that with the appropriate executive-level officials," including those at the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI. The spokesman noted, however, the agency does not brief public health officials directly.
 
DIA spokesman Tom Howard said, "All intelligence agencies certainly disseminate their information within the confines of the security networks that we have. Any information we have on any kind of terrorism or threat of bioterrorism we would certainly disseminate to the appropriate authorities. What they do with it is another story."
 
Indeed, the information does not seem to be flowing from higher-level officials to those responsible for public health. Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the subcommittee on international operations and terrorism, said at a recent meeting on smallpox vaccination strategy that he has seen classified documents from intelligence agencies showing a disconnect between classified risk assessments and public health officials' risk assessments of bioterrorist attacks..
 
Levinson noted the CIA has said the likelihood of a smallpox attack is very low, but last week Cox News quoted HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson as saying the government is operating under the assumption a smallpox attack is likely. This supports Frist's charge there is a disconnect between intelligence and public health assessments and casts doubts whether critical information is flowing between the agencies.
 
The CDC maintains it works closely with the intelligence community, however. CDC spokesman Llelwyn Grant said, "There are some close communications between the CDC and intelligence agencies and other agencies like homeland security." In addition, Grant said, the CDC "gets information through its security and biopreparedness specialists who are in constant contact with these agencies."
 
Charles Pena, senior defense analyst with the Cato Institute in Washington, said, "I would argue that right now even if (the CDC) has good information, they are not making terribly good decisions." He added that public health officials probably are aware of the most likely threats, but "given the potential for terror against the U.S. they should be aware of the most recent and up-to-date information about threat assessment."
 
Because it appears ever more likely the United States will go to war with Iraq, "we ought to be protecting ourselves against the possibility of Saddam Hussein using biological weapons," Pena said. "It's actually irresponsible that we don't appear to be doing anything to protect the public against possible reprisals (from Iraq)."
 
Saddam, the Iraqi president, is known to have attempted to weaponize and stockpile biological and chemical weapons, which could easily be smuggled into the United States and launched as a retaliatory attack following a U.S. assault, Pena said.
 
"If he's got all this nasty stuff, he's got every incentive to use it," he said.
 
Pena noted the "Israelis have already begun vaccinating against smallpox in concern over the possibility that Saddam would use smallpox against them if the U.S. attacks. I'm wondering what the Israelis know that we don't, and this raises some serious questions bout how we're addressing the bioterrorism threat."
 
Levinson agreed. The CDC seems to be unaware of critical information that would affect strategies for dealing with a bioterrorist attack, he said. This has come to light in recent months as the CDC has struggled to reach a decision about whether to vaccinate Americans against smallpox now, before the occurence of a bioterrorist attack, or wait until after an outbreak has occurred.
 
Few public health officials outside the CDC think it will be possible or effective to vaccinate after an attack the thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who may be exposed, Levinson said.
 
One barrier to an effective exchange of information is "very few people at the CDC have security clearance" and thus are unable to view classified information, Tucker said. This may change as homeland security becomes more of a priority, he noted, adding HHS, which oversees the CDC, has for the first time installed secure teleconference facilities for sensitive briefings.
 
The CIA has said it is concerned disclosing sensitive information could compromise its sources and methods. In that case, intelligence agencies "need to find ways to sanitize the information so their informants and methods are not at risk," Tucker said.
 
Levinson said intelligence agencies would not have to compromise their sources. "The only thing the public health officials need to know is that the CIA has knowledge that specific agents are likely to be used in an attack."
 
However, the intelligence community's knowledge of specific threats may be limited. Tucker noted John Modlin, chairman of the CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices and a physician at Dartmouth Medical School, was granted a special one-day security clearance to attend a CIA briefing on smallpox risk assessment. Modlin did not seem very concerned about the threat of a smallpox attack, Tucker said. Modlin and the rest of the committee later recommended the CDC not vaccinate all citizens against smallpox but instead only vaccinate a limited number of emergency and healthcare personnel, he said.
 
"So maybe the CIA doesn't know very much about smallpox," Tucker said.
 
Another problem may be the Bush administration has yet to formulate any rules for responding to terrorist threats. Pena noted, "The White House hasn't really made any final decision about how we should respond to these bioterrorist decisions ... so that makes it hard to filter information down to (public health officials) and tell them what to do with it."
 
Levinson said it is distressing that the "whole planning effort for defense against terrorism isn't moving really fast ... There's a lot of talk, but I don't see any action."
 
He added the attitude among government officials seems to be "if we don't get it done today, we can get it done next month," he said. "If you know this is an imminent danger, then you would try to move faster."
 
 
Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All rights reserved.






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