Breaking News, World News and Taiwan News.

Updated Wednesday, December 3, 2008 9:39 am TWN, By Joby Warrick, The Washington Post

Sponsors
▪	Find great real time deals on China Flights. Book flights to China or China domestic flights 24/7.
▪	Buy china wholesale products from reliable chinese wholesalers on DHgate.com!
▪	Save 75% for all hotels in Shanghai, Beijing and whole China. Lowest rates for Flights in China.
▪	Get the best deals for Guangzhou Hotels or choose from more than 10,000 hotels in 499 Chinese cities.

Nuclear or biological attack on major cities seen as likely: U.S. task force

WASHINGTON -- The odds that terrorists will soon strike a major city with weapons of mass destruction are now better than even, a bipartisan congressionally mandated task force concludes in a draft study that warns of growing threats from rogue states, nuclear smuggling networks and the spread of atomic know-how in the developing world.

The sobering assessment of such threats, due for release as early as Tuesday, singled out Pakistan as a grave concern because of its terrorist networks, history of instability and arsenal of several dozen nuclear warheads. The report urged the incoming Obama administration to take “decisive action” to reduce the likelihood of a devastating attack.

“No mission could be timelier,” says the draft report of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, which spent six months preparing an assessment for Congress and the new president-elect. It adds: “In our judgment, America’s margin of safety is shrinking, not growing.”

The report, ordered by Congress last year, concludes that terrorists are more likely to obtain materials for a biological attack than to buy or steal nuclear weapons. But it says the nuclear threat is growing rapidly, in part because of the growing global supply of nuclear material and technology.

“Without greater urgency and decisive action by the world community, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013,” says the draft report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. The Post reported excerpts from an earlier draft in Sunday’s editions.

The creation of the commission, chaired by former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., with former congressman James Talent, R-Mo. serving as vice chairman, was one of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which explored the causes of the 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States. The new panel’s bipartisan members and staff conducted more than 260 interviews with government officials and experts around the world to assess the problem of weapons of mass destruction as well as offer proposals for reducing the threat.

1|2|Next Page>>