WMD Panel Urges Focus on Biological Threats

By SIOBHAN GORMAN and DAVID CRAWFORD

WASHINGTON -- The next U.S. president should put more emphasis on countering biological threats as part of a rethinking of national security strategy, according to early assessments from the leaders of a commission investigating the threat from weapons of mass destruction.

Both biological and nuclear threats are significant in their ability to kill hundreds of thousands, but a biological attack is easier to launch and harder to combat because many biological weapon components are widely available and have benign uses, said the commission's chairman, former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida.

The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism will hold public hearings during the run-up to the November election. The first, examining the nature of the threat, is to be held Sept. 10 in New York. The commission's final recommendations are due in mid-November.

Multiple assessments of government progress against security threats are planned for release this week, timed to the seventh anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Their findings might pressure the next administration to overhaul the government's national-security operations. A report from the Project on National Security Reform, a separate government-funded initiative analyzing the government's national security apparatus, is due out next month.

The commission, which is scheduling meetings with the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns and plans to deliver its recommendations to the next president, hasn't yet settled on conclusions. Commissioners will focus much more attention on preventing an attack than on responding to one.

"My own assessment at this point is the more likely form of attack is going to be in a biological weapon," said commission chairman Mr. Graham, a Democrat who presided over the Senate intelligence panel's 9/11 investigation.

Mr. Graham grades the government's response to date to the nuclear threat a "good-plus," but he said the government is "very exposed" to biological attacks.

A German intelligence official says the threat posed by even small amounts of a biological weapon carries a disruptive potential far beyond its ability to kill or injure. "The anthrax attacks in the U.S. shortly after the Sept. 11 [attacks] crippled the flow of mail to government and businesses for months," the official said.

Congress assembled the commission in May and gave it six months to report back. The nine commissioners have traveled to meetings in Europe, and commissioners and staff members paid visits to experts around the U.S., from Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico to the New York Police Department.

Several commissioners are focused on threats from countries that possess or aspire to make nuclear weapons, such as Pakistan, Iran and North Korea. Some urge U.S. counterproliferation efforts to pay stronger attention to Pakistan as the government grows more unstable.

Several commissioners want to prevent others from emulating Abdul Qadeer Khan, who pioneered the development of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and traded in weapons technology. The international "Khan Network" of nuclear traders poses the greatest nuclear proliferation risk, experts say, because they know how to buy and sell nuclear-weapons technology and might sell to a terrorist group.

"We don't have any indication that the network was ever taken down," Mr. Graham said.

The commission is likely to emphasize the critical role of intelligence in understanding and preventing attacks. "All the controversies about intelligence in Washington, we have to resolve them and be able to move forward with a consensus," said the commission's co-chairman, former Missouri Sen. Jim Talent, a Republican.

Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com and David Crawford at david.crawford@wsj.com