In the wake of anthrax scare, Senate to hold hearings on chemical and biological agents

Paul Kane

Friday, Feb. 20, 1998 | 4:03 a.m.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the wake of Thursday's alleged domestic terrorism arrest, the U.S. Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence has agreed to hold hearings in the coming weeks about the dangers posed by chemical and biological agents in terrorist attacks in America.

Chairman Sen. Richard Shelby agreed to hold the hearings, which will examine who has access to deadly agents like anthrax, after talking Friday with Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., a member of the Intelligence Committee.

Bryan, who also spoke with FBI Director Louis Freeh Friday, said the arrests in Las Vegas shoved the issue of domestic terrorism back into the national spotlight and proved the need to review the 1996 counter-terrorism bill, which was passed in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

"It just points to the need: do we have the necessary safeguards in place?" he asked.

Particularly worrisome is the idea that such deadly weapons can be assembled rather easily. Military officials have said that anthrax factories in Iraq are quite similar to beer breweries. "This is not exactly a high-tech enterprise," Bryan said.

On the House side, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of the House military research and development subcommittee, said the Las Vegas incident illustrated the need for more federal funding to provide expert training to local emergency officials in handling these threats.

"We need to put tools in the hands of our nation's first responders, our local fire fighters, so that they can deal with these types of incidents," Weldon said.

The 1997 federal budget included funding for helping train emergency response teams in 120 of the largest cities in the nation.

"But this effort has proceeded slowly," Weldon said. "Not enough equipment has been provided to the fire departments and volunteer fire departments have been excluded from the training.

"We need to take another look at this program."