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Obama to Fill WMD Post Bush Ignored

Dem has long focused on stopping proliferation of nuclear, chemical arms

By Katherine Thompson, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 3, 2008 2:24 PM CST

(Newser) – President-elect Obama will hire an official to oversee efforts to stop terrorists from gaining nuclear and biological weapons, the Boston Globe reports, a position the Bush administration approved but left unfilled. Such efforts are currently spread among many agencies, and a report predicting a deadly attack within 5 years using weapons of mass destruction gives them new urgency.

“America’s margin of safety is shrinking, not growing,” says the report on global terror threats; VP-elect Joe Biden and Homeland Security nominee Janet Napolitano will be briefed today on the commission’s findings. The priority: Stop Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, and take greater pains to keep dangerous materials out of the wrong hands.

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The bigger worry, experts say, is not that bioterrorists will become scientists, but that scientists will become terrorists. (Getty Images)

With instructions on how to build a nuclear bomb available on the internet, the main preventative measure will have to be keeping nuclear material out of the wrong hands. (©hill.josh)

A bipartisan report recommends the next US administration derail the nuclear programs of Iran and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (AP Photo)

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Neither the Clinton administration, the Bush administration, nor the Congress ... has given preventive nonproliferation programs the priority they deserve. - Brian Finlay, associate at Washington think tank Henry L. Stimson Center

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Obama to Fill WMD Post Bush Ignored