As has been the case with the multiple attempted terrorist attacks that failed only because of operator error, our government’s prevention and response efforts to the Ebola virus leave much to be desired. Better to be lucky than good is a nice cliché, but it cannot be how America faces a 21st century fraught with danger.
Recall, it was just a few months ago that a raid in the Middle East produced a laptop with significant details on how to develop and use biological weapons. We could minimize al-Qaeda’s ability to weaponize viruses, but the Islamic State has too many people and too much funding for us to take the possibility of a biological threat lightly any longer.
The response thus far to the Ebola virus indicates that the federal government has done too little over the last decade to prepare for a biological event in America. The fumbled issues we see reported on the nightly news were well known by the federal government.
Beginning 15 years ago, the federal government used a national full-scale exercise program to identify issues in preventing and responding to a wide variety of terrorist threats. As a senior official in the Bush administration, I oversaw the national exercise program, TOPOFF 3, in 2005. In TOPOFF 3 we tested the federal, state, and local response to a pneumonic plague in New Jersey.
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