PENTAGON DROWNS IN ITS OWN "DEAD POOL"

31 July 2003
The Virginian-Pilot & The Ledger-Star
FINAL
B10

If the Pentagon had carried out its cockamamie plan to establish a terrorism 
betting scheme, we could predict the headlines: "Futures high for nuke 
attack on Tel Aviv: Residents panic, investors gleeful."

Thank goodness saner heads, among them Republican Sen. John Warner, have 
prevailed in Washington.

At issue was the launch of a futures market that would allow anonymous 
traders to place bets over the Internet. They would have predicted when 
terrorist attacks, assassinations and bombings in the Middle East would 
occur - a sort of foreign policy "Dead Pool."

Investors could have bet on events such as the overthrow of Jordan's King 
Abdullah or a sarin strike on Israel. Those who predicted correctly would 
have collected the pool of money from those who did not. The winnings would 
have amounted to blood money.

Instead of existing in the realm of urban legends or bad science fiction, 
however, trading in the terror futures market was scheduled to start Oct. 1. 
Traders were to begin registering Friday through the Defense Advanced 
Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which would have managed the program 
along with two private companies, to the tune of $3 million in taxpayer money.

This idea is so bad it's hard to know where to start lambasting it.

First, it's morally reprehensible to encourage crime, instability and 
terrorism in the Middle East, especially on the watch of a Bush 
administration that launched a pre-emptive war specifically to counter such 
behavior. Faced with a large pot of money and having few scruples, Gordon 
Gekko types might be tempted to influence events, even in friendly 
countries. Alliances don't matter when there's a buck to be made.

Second, the notion that terrorists could plan an attack, wager on it and 
profit from death should both enrage and unnerve Americans, still reeling 
from the Sept. 11 attacks nearly two years ago.

And third, while the Pentagon can and does benefit from building an 
intellectual construct gleaned from the private sector, where did it think 
investors might get inside information on Osama bin Laden? At the country club?

Many Americans already see the Pentagon as an agency run by out- of-control 
ideologues; these revelations support that view. Before his own agency 
pulled the plug, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz actually defended 
DARPA before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, saying: "It is 
brilliantly imaginative in places where we want them to be imaginative."

This is the latest in a long line of hare-brained intelligence schemes. Who 
can forget the recent plot to electronically monitor Americans to catch 
terrorists? Or the CIA's dalliance with "psychic spies" in the 1990s? When 
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talked of "transformation," few knew he 
meant turning the Pentagon into a betting parlor.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this plan is how close it came to 
fruition without anyone noticing. Americans better hope Congress pays closer 
attention to - and refuses to fund - such antics in the future.