Preparedness Against Terrorist Attacks: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Emergency Management of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives, One Hundred Sixth Congress, Second Session, April 6, 2000

Front Cover

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 60 - First Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, /. Assessing the Threat, December 15, 1999; and.
Page 42 - Chairman and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify on the child support enforcement program.
Page 60 - For more than 3 years we have evaluated and reported on a number of issues concerning federal programs and activities to combat terrorism. A list of related GAO products appears at the end of this statement. Our testimony will first highlight Important information on the threat, focusing specifically on the threat of terrorist attacks involving chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) materials.
Page 67 - Table 1 shows some of the federal programs providing assistance to state and local governments for emergency planning that would be relevant to responding to a bioterrorist attack. While the programs vary somewhat in their target audiences, the potential redundancy of these federal efforts...
Page 42 - ... preparedness, the progress of Federal training programs for local emergency responses, and deficiencies in Federal programs for response to terrorist incidents involving WMD; to recommend strategies for ensuring effective coordination of Federal agency response efforts and for ensuring fully effective local response capabilities for WMD terrorism incidents; and to assess appropriate state and local funding for response to WMD terrorism. 8 To meet those objectives, the Panel determined that it...
Page 63 - US intelligence agencies had reported an increased possibility that terrorists would use chemical or biological weapons in the next decade. However, terrorists would have to overcome significant technical and operational challenges to successfully produce and release chemical or biological agents of sufficient quality and quantity to kill or injure large numbers of people without substantial assistance from a foreign government sponsor. In most cases, specialized knowledge is required in the manufacturing...
Page 45 - ... resources, obtainable but fairly sophisticated production facilities and equipment, quality control and testing, and special handling. In many cases, the personnel of a terrorist organization run high personal safety risks, in producing, handling, testing, and delivering such a device. Moreover, the report notes, the more sophisticated a device, or the more personnel, equipment, facilities, and the like involved, the greater the risk that the enterprise will expose itself to detection and interdiction...
Page 45 - The report explains, with some specificity, the challenges involved in each of the four unconventional device or agent topic areas—biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological—which suggests that some public pronouncements and media depictions about the ease with which terrorists might wreak genuine mass destruction or inflict widespread casualties do not always reflect the significant hurdles currently confronting any nonstate entity seeking to employ such weapons. The report acknowledges,...
Page 1 - I will ask if you will stand and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give in this hearing will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Page 67 - Similarly, multiple programs for equipment — such as the separate DOD and Public Health Service programs and the new Department of Justice equipment grant program — are causing frustration and confusion at the local level and are resulting in further complaints that the federal government is unfocused and has no coordinated plan or desired outcome for domestic preparedness. A major federal initiative to provide better focus and to coordinate federal assistance programs is the National Domestic...

Bibliographic information