Feds Drop The Ball Again

Six years after 9/11. This is unacceptable.

Vulnerable Germ Labs Tough to Identify

Federal terror-fighting agencies can't identify all the American research laboratories that could become targets of attackers, congressional investigators have found.

The Government Accountability Office asked a dozen agencies whether they kept track of all the labs handling dangerous germs and toxins, or knew the number. All responded negatively.

The findings were prepared for a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Thursday.

The government regulates 409 laboratories approved to work with 72 of the world's deadliest organisms and poisons, including anthrax, bird flu virus, monkeypox and plague-causing bacteria.

But less is known about other labs that work with organisms that cause whooping cough, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, meningitis, typhoid fever, hepatitis, herpes, several strains of flu, rabies, HIV and SARS.

The GAO said U.S. intelligence agencies, including the FBI, told its investigators they need to track all labs that could be vulnerable to terrorism.

U.S. intelligence agencies said they already are handicapped by the failure of some foreign countries to regulate the shipment or possession of biological agents.

The Associated Press reported this week that American laboratories handling the world's deadliest germs and toxins have experienced more than 100 accidents and missing shipments since 2003, and the number is increasing as more labs do the work.

No one died, and regulators said the public was never at risk during these incidents. But the documented cases reflect poorly on procedures and oversight at high-security labs. In some cases, labs have failed to report accidents as required by law.

The GAO report disclosed that inspectors for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention visited a high-security lab at Texas A&M University in February 2006, just 13 days after one worker was exposed to Brucella bacteria. Inspectors were not told about the exposure. The worker eventually became seriously ill, but recovered.

The feds may not know, but one guess may tell you who does.

And no profiling!


Also at Ft. Hard Knox

Jeep Cherokee Attacks Glasgow Airport

Of course, much of the media is trying to downplay the story, and you'll just love the Reuters account.

A four-wheel-drive vehicle crashed into the main terminal at Glasgow airport on Saturday and exploded in flames, a day after police foiled a possible al Qaeda plot to detonate two car bombs in central London.

A Glasgow police spokeswoman said there were no immediate reports of any injuries and said the blaze was under control.

Witnesses told the BBC that the vehicle, a Land Rover or a Jeep Cherokee, had exploded shortly after crashing into the glass front doors of the terminal, and said there was a heavy stench of petrol.

"It raced across the central reservation and went straight into the building," said taxi driver Ian Crosby outside the terminal.

So reading the first four paragraphs of the story, one key detail is missing. Who was driving the vehicle?

Crosby said a stocky Asian man had got out of the car and was quickly wrestled to the ground by bystanders.

"It would appear to me to have been a deliberate attack. I think this was a terrorist attack," Crosby said.

Oh, so it wasn't the vehicle that carried out the attack.

It was a mysterious Asian man.

We all know what that means.

More here.

Two men — one of them engulfed in flames — were in the SUV, witnesses told BBC News executive Helen Boaden, who was at the airport at time. She described the men as South Asian.

Clarkson described one of the men as a large South Asian man.

"His whole body was on fire.... He was just talking gibberish," he told the BBC.

Grey described a struggle between police and one of the men in the car.

"An Asian guy had been pulled out of the car by two police officers he was trying to fight off and they'd got him on the floor," he told the BBC.

Boaden said police "wrestled him to the ground — the fire was burning through his clothes — and finally put him out with a fire extinguisher."

Why did they waste a perfectly good fire extinguisher? Should have let him burn.

Also at LGF, Hot Air, Blue Crab Boulevard.