The Economy: Poindexter Is to Leave Pentagon In Wake of Terror-Futures Plan

31 July 2003
The Wall Street Journal
A2

WASHINGTON -- The head of a Pentagon research agency is stepping down 
following an uproar over his efforts to help set up a futures-trading market 
for predicting assassinations, terrorist strikes and other upheavals in the 
Middle East.

John Poindexter, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, 
or Darpa, is expected to resign in a matter of weeks, a senior Defense 
Department official said. The office sought $8 million from Congress to help 
a private group set up a Policy Analysis Market as a way to provide Defense 
with "market-based techniques for avoiding surprise and predicting future 
events," its supporters said.

Lawmakers of both parties blasted the idea as ghoulish and a waste of tax 
money.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld quickly canceled government support for 
it, saying "it was clear that even if it happened to have been a brilliant 
idea, which I doubt, it would not have been able to function in the 
environment that was created." The Net Exchange, the San Diego group that 
would have operated the market, announced that without government support, 
its prospects are unclear.

The flap follows another Darpa firestorm. Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, 
attacks, the agency proposed setting up a "Total Information Awareness" 
program that would have tried to identify terrorists by compiling dossiers 
on millions of U.S. citizens. The program since has been renamed "Terrorism 
Information Awareness," and its developers have pledged it won't be used to 
snoop on citizens.

Mr. Poindexter, a retired Navy rear admiral, served as national-security 
adviser during the Reagan administration and was sentenced to prison 
stemming from the Iran-Contra affair. His conviction was reversed on appeal. 
Mr. Poindexter couldn't be reached last night.