On the recordJanuary 21, 1999
I would say that if the issue is how probable is it in the very near-term an American city or community would be affected, I'd say you probably shouldn't be too worried. But if the issue is, is it a near certainty that at some time in the future there will be some group, probably a terrorist group, that attempts to bring to bear either the use or the threat of a chemical or biological operation, I would say that is highly likely to happen sometime in the next few years. And therefore, I would say the appropriate response is not worry or panic but taking this issue very seriously, expecting all elected officials with any responsibility in this area to know everything they can, and to do everything we can both to erect all possible defenses and then to try to make sure we are doing everything we can to stop this. Now, we know right now--we know that a lot of what we've done already has delayed WMD programs, some of which I can't talk about, but slowed the development of WMD programs, of missile technology development that might deliver such weapons and other things. And we're doing everything we can to stop or slow down the ability of others, insofar as we know about it and can do something about it. And meanwhile, we're doing everything we can both to develop defenses and emergency responses. But I think we've got an enormous amount of work out there ahead of us, an enormous amount of work. And a lot of this has to be done with great cooperation between the Federal Government--we need cooperation of the private sector on the cyber issues, the computer issues. We need cooperation with local government on public health response issues, exposure--if there appears to be an outbreak. We had all these sort of false alarms of anthrax in California--how many?--more than a dozen, I think, in the last month. So we need to be able to diagnose and to treat and also to manage those things. Chemical and Biological Weapons
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