Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
October 24, 2001
Prelate says arms, poverty mean disasters to come
A Vatican statement delivered at the United Nations Oct. 15 said a world trend toward "more arms and more poverty" is leading toward "disasters even greater than what we endured on 11 September.'' Archbishop Renato R. Martino, Vatican nuncio to the United "Until the technology catches up with the agents, we are our own early warning system,'' Piessens said.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., who has chaired several hearings of the House Government Reform Committee on bioterrorism, said the country is in "a race with the terrorists'' before they develop a way of putting biological weapons in a bomb or obtain a nuclear weapon.
He said that, for him, the hardest lesson of Sept. 11, when terrorists hijacked and crashed four airplanes, is that "there is no red line they're unwilling to cross. They will use a weapon of mass destruction.''
Shays said it's important to fund and develop the technology needed to battle biological and chemical attacks now, while the public is focused on the issue.
He said that the 20 hearings he has chaired or attended on such weapons drew coverage from perhaps a total of 20 reporters.
"We couldn't get CNN there,'' he said. "They were talking about O.J. Simpson and Monica Lewinsky and Gary Condit. Of course, that's what you people were watching.''
Georgetown sociology professor William Daddio, who specializes in the sociology of terrorism, said even though there have been discussions about bioterrorism for decades, people have been hesitant to take actions to prevent it for two reasons: they don't want to believe it's possible and they don't want to sacrifice freedoms to make bioterrorist attacks more difficult.
Daddio said one good thing to have come from the current wave of anthrax scares is that now the public has been alerted to the danger.
"Part of the advantage of a biological attack is you don't know anything is coming,'' he said. "Now we have been alerted.''
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