By Mark Sharoff
In November, 2001, in a briefing with CIA Director George Tenet and NSA Director Condoleeza Rice, Vice President Cheney articulated what in years following would become the “One-Percent Doctrine,” the Bush administration’s approach to threats of “low-probability, high-impact” terrorism. The doctrine holds that if there is, in Ron Suskind’s words, “ a one percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction…the United States must now act as if it were a certainty.” Ten years later, this reasoning may still define the American approach to counterterrorism. In the “National Strategy for Counterterrorism,” released in June, the Obama administration identified nuclear terrorism as the “greatest threat to national security,” even though many analysts who have reviewed the intelligence predict that a biological attack on the homeland is more likely. And the administration’s FY2012 budget would give nuclear defense twice as much funding as biodefense. The administration’s rationale may be that a nuclear attack would be more deadly and would have a greater psychological impact, and because nuclear know-how and materials are easier to track and secure, money spent on nuclear defense might be money better spent. Even still, with concern about a biological attack growing, the administration’s counterterrorism priorities deserve greater scrutiny.
