Tampa Tribune (Florida)

August 3, 2003, Sunday, FINAL EDITION

SECTION: METRO, Pg. 1

LENGTH: 535 words

HEADLINE: All Bets Off On Terrorism Futures Market

BYLINE: STEVE OTTO, sotto@tampatrib.com

BODY:
Let's see whether I have this right.

Pete Rose was banned from baseball and the Hall of Fame because of gambling,
allegedly even betting on his team. Charlie Hustle is now scum, a pariah in the
squeaky clean world of Major League Baseball.

OK, so it's not exactly squeaky clean, and hypocrisy is in the same lineup with
drugs and corked bats, but at least they nailed Pete Rose.

Meanwhile, last week we heard that the Pentagon - yes, the Pentagon - was
setting up its own version of off-track betting.

They didn't call it that. They called it a commodity-style market.

It's funny how names get cleaned up when the government takes them over. The
Florida Lottery is so respectable I'm surprised every student isn't required to
buy at least one ticket after saying the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning.
The lottery isn't gambling; it's an investment in our children.

Anyhow, the idea was that investors would somehow be lured to the market to "buy
and sell futures contracts on world events" - in other words, bet on the
likelihood of future terrorist attacks and other chaotic events.

The scheme was going to be called the "Policy Analysis Market," and roughly half
a million dollars in tax money had been spent to set up the project.


A Death Wish?

According to the story, as many as 10,000 investors were expected to buy
contracts, speculating on whether they thought an event might occur.

Apparently the project had a Web site. One of the graphics on the site "showed
hypothetical futures contracts in which investors could trade on the likelihood
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would be assassinated."

The Pentagon had asked for $3 million for next year for the program and $5
million for the following year.

Unfortunately, they didn't budget money for spin control, and once the word got
out that we were betting on the odds of getting blown up, the public got a
little testy.
By the end of the week, the politicians had deep-sixed the project, and retired
Adm. John Poindexter, who was overseeing the plan, was expected to offer his
resignation. If you're trying to recall where you heard that name before, he was
the national security adviser to President Reagan.


Like A Bad Dream

It's weird, isn't it, how all those names suddenly come piling back into memory
- Robert McFarlane, Oliver North and John Poindexter. That was Iran-Contra,
another in a line of scandals that stretches so long they jumble together.

Poindexter was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the
government, destroying evidence and probably singing the national anthem out of
tune. He was cleared after making an immunity agreement.

I suppose a deal is a deal and if they wanted to send the admiral quietly off
into the sunset, that was OK.

What's a little more difficult to understand is how 20 years down the road that
same retired admiral is making bonehead decisions that affect the rest of us.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., was quoted as
calling the project "a rather egregious error of judgment."

The egregious error seems to be more in who allowed Poindexter to even be
hanging around the Office of Bad Ideas.