Censored Study on Bioterror Doubts U.S. Preparedness

March 29, 2004 - New York Times
Censored Study on Bioterror Doubts U.S. Preparedness
By JUDITH MILLER

Two years after a report on the 2001 anthrax attacks was completed, the Pentagon has released parts of the unclassified document, which concludes that the nation is woefully ill-prepared to detect and respond to a bioterrorist assault.

In a sweeping assessment, the report identifies weaknesses in "almost every aspect of U.S. biopreparedness and response." But perhaps equally significant is the two-year battle over the Pentagon's refusal to release the study. That struggle highlights the growing tension between public access to information and the government's refusal to divulge anything it says terrorists could use to attack Americans.

The dispute has pitted the Pentagon against the center that released the study, advocates of openness in government like the Federation of American Scientists, public health officials and even current and former emergency response officials of the Bush administration.

The dispute revolves around a 44-page analysis titled "Lessons from the Anthrax Attacks: Implications for U.S. Bioterrorism Preparedness." It was written by a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research center in Washington that conducts only nonsecret research for the government and other clients. The report was based largely on discussions among some 40 government and private experts on public health, national security and law enforcement who attended a meeting the center sponsored in December 2001.

The report was written by David Heyman, director of the homeland security program at the center. It documents many systemic weaknesses in the nation's response to the October 2001 anthrax letter attacks that killed five people. The study also makes recommendations about how to prevent, detect and respond to such attacks. Many of those recommendations have been or are being adopted by the Bush administration.

Since then, the center and the Project on Government Secrecy, part of the scientists' group, have been trying to get Pentagon permission to publish the complete report. But the Defense Department has refused.

In a statement issued Friday, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Pentagon unit that commissioned the $150,000 study, said it had initially refused to release the document and was still preventing parts of it from being distributed. The statement said the study could "circumvent" Pentagon "rules and practices established to prevent the spread of information associated with W.M.D.," referring to nuclear, biological, chemical and other weapons of mass destruction.

But several civil libertarians, scientists, public health officials and emergency response experts challenged the Pentagon's position.

"This study was based on discussions that were held in an unclassified setting," said Jerome M. Hauer, a former assistant secretary for public health emergency preparedness in the Department of Health and Human Services in the Bush administration, who attended the December meeting. "To close the results of that forum is myopic and does nothing to better prepare this country to deal with those threats."

Public health officials were also critical. "It was not my impression that the report contained information so sensitive that it could not have been shared," said Patrick Libbey, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. He said he had read an uncensored version of the document several months ago.

John J. Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary in the Clinton administration and now the director of the center, said that because all the materials used to produce it were public, the entire document should be released.

Censored parts of the document were read to a New York Times reporter. In one instance in the redacted version, the summary states, "The fall 2001 anthrax attacks may turn out to be . . . to confront." The deleted passage reads: "the easiest of bioterrorist strikes."

The anthrax letter crisis was slowly winding down in December 2001 when the 40 government and private biodefense, national security and pubic health experts met at the center for a daylong discussion of lessons learned from the attacks.

In April 2002, Mr. Heyman completed his report, concluding that the attacks revealed dangerous "gaps in our scientific base" and badly strained the country's public health offices and laboratory infrastructure.

"Biological weapons have the potential to cause casualties equal to, or far greater than, nuclear weapons," the report warns. A redacted version was published quietly Wednesday on the Federation of American Scientists' Web site: www.fas.org/irp/threat/cbw/dtra02 .pdf.

Paradoxically, the study said one of the gravest problems during the attacks was the government's failure "on all levels" to provide "timely and accurate information."

The report recommends, among other things, that the government expand public health laboratories and offices, establish a chain of command during attacks; develop "mass-medication and treatment delivery strategies in advance"; increase "cooperation between medical, public health and law enforcement communities"; establish a "comprehensive, balanced research agenda"; and develop a "coordinated media strategy."

In April 2002, Mr. Heyman submitted his report to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. He said, the agency stamped it "for official use only," which limited its circulation to government officials and federal contractors, saying that public release "could reveal potential weaknesses" in the nation's emergency preparedness system.

The center protested and the report was referred to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which upheld the agency.

After the center again protested, Pentagon officials said in August 2002 that their decision was final. A year later, the Federation of American Scientists, which had learned of the study, requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy, said that the Pentagon finally informed him this month that parts of the report could be publicly distributed.

In a letter, H.J. McIntyre, chief of the Freedom of Information Act Policy Office at the Pentagon, said the censored information "could potentially aid enemies of the U.S. in development of techniques to defeat W.M.D. response efforts of the U.S. government."

Mr. Aftergood called the redactions "arbitrary and unjustified."

"While we can't expect to defend against every conceivable attack, we can learn from experience," he said. "Refusing to disclose the lessons learned from the anthrax crisis is self-defeating in that it impedes that learning process."