Terrorism Bets: Stupid pentagon plan makes its way to the trash

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Terrorism Bets: Stupid pentagon plan makes its way to the trash

July 30, 2003

Good riddance to a reckless idea.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz says the Pentagon has stopped plans to sell futures contracts on world disaster. That's right, the folks who brought you Total Information Awareness to track citizens' every purchase and e-mail had cooked up a plan to let people bet on where the next terrorist attack or political assassination would occur.

"Spending taxpayer dollars to create terrorism betting parlors is as wasteful as it is repugnant," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said Monday. Give that man the understatement of the week award.

The pick-the-next-celebrity-demise and predict-your-own-death-date Web sites are distasteful enough. Government-sponsored wagering on which head of state would be toppled next, or what country would suffer terrorism is worse than repugnant -- it's irresponsible, practically putting a bounty on the heads of kings and prime ministers, foes and allies alike.

Wolfowitz was both cocky and sheepish Tuesday when he told the Senate Foreign Relations committee that the Policy Analysis Market program had been scrapped. The Defense Research Projects Agency, which created the program, "is brilliantly imaginative in places where we want them to be imaginative. It sounds like maybe they got too imaginative," he said with a smile. Senators were not amused.

That's because the proposal was no laughing matter. Scarce U.S. dollars were already committed to this preposterous idea. The Pentagon has spent $600,000 so far, with plans for nearly $150,000 more this year and requests for $3 million next year and $5 million the year after.

Congress should strike its red pen through those requests, just to make sure the program really is dead.

Bet on it.