COUNTERTERROR STRATEGY ISSUED

Abstract

THE WHITE HOUSE'S JUST-REleased National Strategy for Homeland Security outlines three major objectives: prevent terrorist attacks in the U.S., reduce U.S. vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur. It includes a chapter authored by the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). exact role of science and technology in countering terrorism has been a subject of disagreement, and that disagreement has not disappeared with the release of the strategy document. document available on the White House website, http://www.whitehouse.gov. The most serious problem with the strategy, says Lewis M. Branscomb, an emeritus professor of government at Harvard University, is that it totally in-adequate in how to mobilize the private sector. They don't have an incentive for hardening critical infrastructures, such as those provided by the airlines, telecommunications, and postal industries. Branscomb was cochair of a National Research Council study on R&...