Vulnerability Report

You have to love the MSM, and the AssPress in particular. Why is it they never can tell you who is issuing these reports or even what the name of the report is? Who exactly is the "independent commission?"
A shocking study finds that seven years after 9/11, the U.S. remains "dangerously vulnerable" to chemical, biological and nuclear attacks.

The recent political rupture between Russia and the U.S. over the former Soviet state of Georgia has made the war on terror more difficult, the study by an independent commission also says.

The panel is headed by Lee Hamilton, the former congressman who helped lead the 9/11 commission, and other leaders from that disbanded bipartisan group.

"The threat of a new, major terrorist attack on the U.S. is still very real," concludes the report, which is to be released tomorrow, the same day a congressional panel holds a hearing in lower Manhattan on .nuclear and biological terrorism threats.

"A nuclear, chemical or biological weapon in the hands of terrorists remains the single greatest threat to our nation," reports the independent panel.

"While progress has been made in securing these weapons and materials, we are still dangerously vulnerable."

I suppose I'll have to wait for the report since this isn't providing any supporting evidence. I really like the Russian reference, since we all understand that terrorism by megapowers is so much less terrorizing than that of non-state actors. If anyone actually is question if what Russia did isn't terrorism, they may look at the reaction of the Baltic states, Poland, and Ukraine. No doubt they didn't feel threatened and reacted to move away from Russia and closer to the west.

The report describes the failure of international cooperation to prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. Many countries continue to ignore a UN mandate to prevent the spread of weapons, and the ability of many countries to monitor potential bioterror is "essentially nonexistent," the report says.

What? Those that wrote the report were expecting the UN to be actually effective? Wow, that is simplicity on a grand scale.

Of course, as expected, though they waited till the last paragraph, it's all Bush's fault.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, also have a report out today. Written by the staffs of the House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees, its concludes: "The Bush administration has not delivered on myriad critical homeland and national security mandates."

It's got to be true, I mean, they don't have any ability to legislate or anything like that now do they? No doubt Bush could deliver some of the 9/11 commissions more foolish recommendations, but seeing as he already has, why bother pissing away more money on things that won't make anyone any safer. RealID, TSA "improvements" etc. See Schneier for multiple examples.

I suppose I'll need to do a lot of searching to find the report. No doubt it will be screached about all over the MSM today, but we won't actually be given a link to it in the vast majority of reports.

UPDATE:
Well the WSJ actually gives a name for the commission, though it's hard to tell which of the reports it could be discussing. I'm guessing it's the politician's report.

The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism will hold public hearings during the run-up to the November election. The first, examining the nature of the threat, is to be held Sept. 10 in New York. The commission's final recommendations are due in mid-November.

The odd part of all this is that they never give you any idea of how real the risk is. If the vulnerability were that simple to use, you'd think it would have occurred.

I think WaPo has the actual name of the independent commision:

Seven years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the federal government has made only limited progress toward preventing a catastrophic nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil and combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction abroad, according to a report card to be issued tomorrow by 22 former U.S. officials.

The bipartisan Partnership for a Secure America gave the United States an overall grade of C. The government received in total three D's, eight C's and seven B's in areas such as sustaining support of foreign scientists and governments, integrating programs to prevent nuclear terrorism and strengthening multilateral law enforcement efforts.

Of course, surfing around their website produced nothing. So we can only wait to see what the report card actually states.