back to article Censored scenes from the Congress WMD report

World at Risk, the final report of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, received a good build-up. Its publicity stretched from reports outlining a draft of it in the Washington Post over the Thanksgiving Day weekend, with more news and private and public briefings the …

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  1. David Hicks
    Happy

    WOW!

    the public needed to be educated, not terrified?

    My god, common sense on this matter at last. Now would somebody please send this memo to the UK gov?

    or maybe just a uk paper, so that people will stop bleating about "terr'sts" and queueing up to give their rights away.

  2. Sillyfellow
    Black Helicopters

    who dunnit?

    since these 'authorities' are really the very ones responsible for the usa twin towers atrocity, i consider that statement a threat.

    translation:

    give us what we want, by end of 2013, or the 'terrrrists' will nuke and chem you.

    what most don't seem to get is who the real 'terrrrrrerrrrrrrrists' are !!

    they are the ones taking everything from you, bit by bit. and perpetually lying to you.

  3. Frank

    Future Feast

    Get that pork barrel built up and inflated. Stake your place at the table for the future feast.

  4. Bug

    re WOW

    Don't worry. I'm sure this will be lost soon and we will be back to the normal mass pushing of fear, terror and loss of liberties as a way of life.

    Would be nice if the UK gov did actually listen though.

  5. Alan Fisher

    Bioterror eh?

    So all the big contributors to the GOP; GSK and their ilk will of course not benefit at all from this eh?

  6. EvilJason

    When will the countries that harbor terrorists realise...

    Countries that harbor terrorists should realise if a group that they harbor or fund privately use a nuke or bio weapon on a major country they will be destroyed, if an American city gets nuked or infected with a bio weapon by a group unofficialy protected or funded by another country they will be destroyed and i don't mean war i mean bombed to hell and back and no other country will help or retaliate because they could be attacked by that group as well so they will stand back and watch or join in.

    So beware to the countries that believe they are protected by the wrath of neighbors they will find themselves alone along that path.

    -Jason

  7. cirby

    On the other hand

    ...all it takes for a moderately-successful bioweapon to come about is one talented person and a bunch of money.

    The tech for brewing up large amounts of some diseases is not a lot more complicated than making beer (which has been demonstrated in the past, by US scientists). If you want a sophisticated weapon, with controllable and highly-efficient dispersal systems, it takes a lot more - but if all you want to do is drop a lot of some nasty bug on a city, it's not that hard.

    Or, on the other hand, someone could just buy a couple of tons of anthrax spores or plague bacillus from some corrupt official in Russia - the USSR used to make upwards of 4500 tons PER YEAR of anthrax, and 1500 or so of good old Yersinia Pestis...

  8. Graham Marsden
    Stop

    I would like to welcome...

    ... Our FUD spouting Overlords!

    Be afraid, people. Be VERY afraid! Only through your fear can we make you safe! Don't trouble your little heads about Human Rights or Civil Liberties, such things can only make Terrorists' lives easier, so let us remove all those Rights and let us watch you wherever you go and see who you're phoning and check what websites you're visiting and record your DNA and have you carrying ID cards because only in that way will we have true Safety!

    We shall prevail!

  9. J
    Black Helicopters

    Run to the hills! Run for your lives! But where?

    "the Commission claims it gathered the thoughts of two hundred experts"

    Would be interesting to see whether the experts are, like in the DoJ, a bunch of Liberty "University" graduates...

    "jeopardize sensitive US information"

    Like, let other govs know the US is doing something it was not suppose to? Something illegal and/or immoral for sure?

    "Now would somebody please send this memo to the UK gov?"

    Oh, don't worry. No need to send anything to the UK gov. If this "common sense" trend does continue (which is a long shot), the UK (America's lapdog) will just follow along with whatever the US is doing. It's been going on for quite a while, so why would it change now? That's what the once proud British Empire became, sad sight...

  10. E

    Meh

    It is brutal but true: there are 8 or 9 billion people on the planet - how much would we really miss one or two cities' worth? Heck, there are probably a few cities we would be better off without.

  11. Danny

    Already has been a biological attack

    The United States never nuked Maryland when it launched an anthrax attack.

  12. Neoc

    Sounds familiar...

    <"The government has recommended a site in Kansas for a new $450 million laboratory to study biological threats such as anthrax and foot-and-mouth disease," read a newspaper report on December 4.>

    Ah, yes... Welcome to Project Wildfire.

  13. Richard Pauli

    Human caused global warming....

    can certainly cause "mass destruction"

    Coal and carbon fuels make it worse.

    WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US -Pogo

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Launching terror attacks is pityfully easy.

    Armed with only a small amount of knowledge, freely available not only online, but in schools, colleges, universities, public libraries, and even museums, it is incredibly easy to engineer chemical or biological weapons on a scale to injure hundreds.

    A terrorist organisation would only need a few dozen people to carry out such attacks simultaneously to kill thousands and plunge the country into complete and utter chaos (as the autrhorities would be completely unable to cope).

    The fact that such an attack has not yet taken place can mean one of several things:

    1) Whilst there are many people willing to preach terror, there are very few, if any, actually prepared to carry it out in this country.

    2) There are terrorists willing and able to launch attacks in this country, but they lack the numbers for a large scale attack and/or are biding their time for an attack to cause maximum impact.

    3) The Government's aggressive and secretive anti-Terror campaign is successfully suppressing all terrorists in the UK.

    Given that it would only take a single person to make and detonate a bomb in a crowded place, and given that no such attack has yet happened, I find it difficult to believe that the Government's anti-Terror campaign is responsible for preventing these attacks, as it would involve espionage on the population to such a degree that they see and hear everything that everyone does.

    Let us not forget that there are more than just Islamic Extremists and the IRA who would execute a terrorist attack in the UK.

    Can our Government, who are continually showing themselves to be inept and incompetent, really possess the skill, aptitude, and abilty to seek out and stop every single potential terrorist?

    Much more likely that the actual terror threat is extremely low - unless, or course, the Government is only *pretending* to be utterly incompetent, to front a hidden agenda - conspiracy theories abound!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    @cirby On the other hand

    Generally the production of some biological agents is easier than making beer, and potentially less expensive. Some common kitchen items and supermarket products are all that are required, plus a little knowledge. How do I know? Many years ago I was a medical laboratory technician and one of the experiments in my second year of training was to grow and isolate B. anthracis without having a sample culture! It could have been done from scratch in a kitchen, not a lab.

    Anonymously for obvious reasons.

  16. Jon Kale

    "it is incredibly easy to engineer chemical or biological weapons on a scale to injure hundreds."

    ORLY?

    Tried buying half a tonne of Nitram recently?

  17. Mark
    Paris Hilton

    @Jon Kale

    Chlorine is a chemical weapon.

    Boom.

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