The report, released on Dec. 3, appealed to the incoming administration
of President-elect Barack Obama to prepare for a WMD strike in the United
States.
The commission, led by former Senators Bob Graham of Florida and
Jim Talent of Missouri, called on the next administration to assign a
position that would coordinate the U.S. intelligence community to spread the
proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons.
"At this moment, Al Qaida is judged to be the sole terrorist group
actively intent on conducting a nuclear attack against the United States,"
the report said. "For the forseeable future, no extremists or groups to
which they belong will be able on their own to produce nuclear
weapons-usable materials."
The commission, mandated by Congress, determined that no insurgency
network contained the capability to launch a biological or nuclear strike.
But members agreed that WMD material and technology were leaking from
Pakistan and the former Soviet Union.
"The United States should be less concerned that terrorists will become
biologists and far more concerned that biologists will become terrorists,"
the report said. "Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing. Were one
to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction today, all roads would
intersect in Pakistan."
The commission warned that the assembly of biological weapons,
particularly anthrax, was less of a technological challenge than nuclear
weapons. The report said insurgency groups or state sponsors could acquire
pathogens and convert them into aerosol spray.
"The biological threat is greater than the nuclear; the acquisition of
deadly pathogens, and their weaponization and dissemination in aerosol form,
would entail fewer technical hurdles than the theft or production of
weapons-grade uranium or plutonium and its assembly into an improvised
nuclear device," the report said.