[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[January 22, 1999]
[Pages 85-88]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at the National Academy of Sciences
January 22, 1999
Thank you very much. Jamie, Dr.
Lederberg, I'd like to thank you for your
service in this and so many other ways. I would like to thank Sandy
Berger for many things, including indulging
my nagging on this subject for the better part of 6 years now. I was so
relieved that Dr. Lederberg, not very long
ago--well, last year--brought a distinguished panel of experts together
to discuss this bioterrorism threat, because I then had experts to cite
for my concern and nobody thought I was just reading too many novels
late at night. [Laughter]
Madam Attorney General, Secretary
Shalala, Secretary Richardson, Director Witt, Deputy
Secretary Hamre, Commandant of the Coast
Guard and our other military leaders who are
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here, Mr. Clarke, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm delighted to be here to discuss this subject--with some trepidation.
Sandy Berger noted that Dr. Lederberg won a
Nobel Prize at 33, and I was Governor; you can infer from that that I
was not very good at chemistry and biology. [Laughter]
But any democracy is imbued with the responsibility of ordinary
citizens who do not have extraordinary expertise to meet the challenges
of each new age. And that is what we are all trying to do. Our country
has always met the challenges of those who would do us harm. At the
heart of our national defense, I have always believed, is our attempt to
live by our values, democracy, freedom, equal opportunity. We are
working hard to fulfill these values at home. And we are working with
nations around the world to advance them, to build a new era of
interdependence where nations work together not simply for peace and
security but also for better schools and health care, broader
prosperity, a cleaner environment, and a greater involvement by citizens
everywhere in shaping their own future.
In the struggle to defend our people and values and to advance them
wherever possible, we confront threats both old and new: Open borders
and revolutions in technology have spread the message and the gifts of
freedom, but have also given new opportunities to freedom's enemies.
Scientific advances have opened the possibility of longer, better lives;
they have also given the enemies of freedom new opportunities.
Last August, at Andrews Air Force Base, I grieved with the families
of the brave Americans who lost their lives at our Embassy in Kenya.
They were in Africa to promote the values America shares with friends of
freedom everywhere, and for that they were murdered by terrorists. So,
too, were men and women in Oklahoma City, at the World Trade Center,
Khobar Towers, on Pan Am 103.
The United States has mounted an aggressive response to terrorism,
tightening security for our diplomats, our troops, our air travelers;
improving our ability to track terrorist activity; enhancing cooperation
with other countries; strengthening sanctions on nations that support
terrorists.
Since 1993, we have tripled funding for FBI antiterrorist efforts.
Our agents and prosecutors, with excellent support from our intelligence
agencies, have done extraordinary work in tracking down perpetrators of
terrorist acts and bringing them to justice. And as our airstrikes
against Afghanistan--or against the terrorist camps in Afghanistan last
summer showed, we are prepared to use military force against terrorists
who harm our citizens. But all of you know the fight against terrorism
is far from over. And now, terrorists seek new tools of destruction.
Last May, at the Naval Academy commencement, I said terrorist and
outlaw states are extending the world's fields of battle from physical
space to cyberspace, from our Earth's vast bodies of water to the
complex workings of our own human bodies. The enemies of peace realize
they cannot defeat us with traditional military means, so they are
working on two new forms of assault, which you've heard about today:
cyber attacks on our critical computer systems, and attacks with weapons
of mass destruction, chemical, biological, potentially even nuclear
weapons.
We must be ready--ready if our adversaries try to use computers to
disable power grids, banking, communications and transportation
networks, police, fire, and health services, or military assets. More
and more, these critical systems are driven by and linked together with
computers, making them more vulnerable to disruption. Last spring, we
saw the enormous impact of a single failed electronic link when a
satellite malfunctioned: disabled pagers, ATM's, credit card systems,
and television networks all around the world. And we already are seeing
the first wave of deliberate cyber attacks, hackers break into
Government and business computers, stealing and destroying information,
raiding bank accounts, running up credit card charges, extorting money
by threats to unleash computer viruses.
The potential for harm is clear. Earlier this month, an ice storm in
this area crippled power systems, plunging whole communities into
darkness and disrupting daily lives. We have to be ready for adversaries
to launch attacks that could paralyze utilities and services across
entire regions.
We must be ready if adversaries seek to attack with weapons of mass
destruction, as well. Armed with these weapons, which can be compact and
inexpensive, a small band of terrorists could inflict tremendous harm.
Four years ago, the world received a wake-up call when a group unleashed
a deadly chemical weapon, nerve gas,
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in the Tokyo subway. We have to be ready for the possibility that such a
group will obtain biological weapons. We have to be ready to detect and
address a biological attack promptly, before the disease spreads.
If we prepare to defend against these emerging threats, we will show
terrorists that assaults on America will accomplish nothing but their
own downfall.
Let me say first what we have done so far to meet this challenge.
We've been working to create and strengthen the agreement to keep
nations from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, because this can
help keep these weapons away from terrorists, as well. We're working to
ensure the effective implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention,
to obtain an accord that will strengthen compliance with the Biological
Weapons Convention, to end production of nuclear weapons material. We
must ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to end nuclear tests once
and for all.
As I proposed Tuesday in the State of the Union Address, we should
substantially increase our efforts to help Russia and other former
Soviet nations prevent weapons material and knowledge from falling into
the hands of terrorists and outlaw states. In no small measure we should
do this by continuing to expand our cooperative work with the thousands
of Russian scientists who can be used to advance the causes of world
peace and health and well-being but who, if they are not paid, remain a
fertile field for the designs of terrorists.
But we cannot rely solely on our efforts to keep weapons from
spreading. We have to be ready to act if they do spread. Last year, I
obtained from Congress a 39 percent budget increase for chemical and
biological weapons preparedness. This is helping to accelerate our
ongoing effort to train and equip fire, police, and public health
personnel all across our country to deal with chemical and biological
emergencies. It is helping us to ready Armed Forces and National Guard
units in every region to meet this challenge and to improve our capacity
to detect an outbreak of disease and save lives, to create the first-
ever civilian stockpile of medicines to treat people exposed to
biological and chemical hazards, to increase research and development on
new medicines and vaccines to deal with new threats.
Our commitment to give local communities the necessary tools already
goes beyond paper and plans. For example, parked just outside this
building is a newly designed truck we have provided to the Arlington,
Virginia, Fire Department. It can rapidly assist and prevent harm to
people exposed to chemical and biological dangers.
Our commitment on the cyber front has been strong, as well. We've
created special offices within the FBI and the Commerce Department to
protect critical systems against cyber attack. We're building
partnerships with the private sector to find and reduce vulnerabilities,
to improve warning systems, to rapidly recover if attacks occur. We have
an outstanding public servant in Richard Clarke, who is coordinating all these efforts across our
Government.
Today I want to announce the new initiatives we will take to take us
to the next level in preparing for these emerging threats. In my budget,
I will ask Congress for $10 billion to address terrorism and terrorist-
emerging tools. This will include nearly $1.4 billion to protect
citizens against chemical and biological terror, more than double what
we spent on such programs only 2 years ago.
We will speed and broaden our efforts, creating new local emergency
medical teams, deploying in the field portable detection units the size
of a shoebox to rapidly identify hazards, tying regional laboratories
together for prompt analysis of biological threats. We will greatly
accelerate research and development, centered in the Department of
Health and Human Services, for new vaccines, medicines, and diagnostic
tools.
I should say here that I know everybody in this crowd understands
this, but everyone in America must understand this: The Government has
got to fund this. There is no market for the kinds of things we need to
develop, and if we are successful, there never will be a market for
them. But we have got to do our best to develop them. These cutting-edge
efforts will address not only the threat of weapons of mass destruction
but also the equally serious danger of emerging infectious diseases. So
we will benefit even if we are successful in avoiding these attacks.
The budget proposal will also include $1.46 billion to protect
critical systems from cyber and other attacks. That's 40 percent more
than we were spending 2 years ago. Among other things, it will help to
fund four new initiatives: first, an intensive research effort to detect
intruders
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trying to break into critical computer systems; second, crime--excuse
me--detection networks, first for our Defense Department, and later for
other key agencies so when one critical computer system is invaded,
others will be alerted instantly, and we will urge the private sector to
create similar structures; third, the creation of information centers in
the private sector so that our industries can work together and with
Government to address cyber threats; finally, we'll ask for funding to
bolster the Government's ranks of highly skilled computer experts,
people capable of preventing and responding to computer crises.
To implement this proposal, the Cyber Corps program, we will
encourage Federal agencies to train and retrain computer specialists, as
well as recruiting gifted young people out of college.
In all our battles, we will be aggressive. At the same time I want
you to know that we will remain committed to uphold privacy rights and
other constitutional protections, as well as the proprietary rights of
American businesses. It is essential that we do not undermine liberty in
the name of liberty. We can prevail over terrorism by drawing on the
very best in our free society: the skill and courage of our troops, the
genius of our scientists and engineers, the strength of our factory
workers, the determination and talent of our public servants, the vision
of leaders in every vital sector.
I have tried as hard as I can to create the right frame of mind in
America for dealing with this. For too long the problem has been that
not enough has been done to recognize the threat and deal with it. And
we in Government, frankly, weren't as well organized as we should have
been for too long. I do not want the pendulum to swing the other way now
and for people to believe that every incident they read about in a novel
or every incident they see in a thrilling movie is about to happen to
them within the next 24 hours.
What we are seeing here, as any military person in the audience can
tell you, is nothing more than a repetition of weapons systems that goes
back to the beginning of time. An offensive weapons system is developed,
and it takes time to develop the defense; and then another offensive
weapon is developed that overcomes that defense, and then another
defense is built up--as surely as castles and moats held off people with
spears and bows and arrows and riding horses, and the catapult was
developed to overcome the castle and the moat.
But because of the speed with which change is occurring in our
society, in computing technology, and particularly in the biological
sciences, we have got to do everything we can to make sure that we close
the gap between offense and defense to nothing, if possible. That is the
challenge here.
We are doing everything we can, in ways that I can and in ways that
I cannot discuss, to try to stop people who would misuse chemical and
biological capacity from getting that capacity. This is not a cause for
panic. It is a cause for serious, deliberate, disciplined, long-term
concern. And I am absolutely convinced that if we maintain our clear
purpose and our strength of will, we will prevail here.
And thanks to so many of you in this audience and your colleagues
throughout the United States and like-minded people throughout the
world, we have better than a good chance of success. But we must be
deliberate, and we must be aggressive.
Thank you very much.
Note: The President spoke at 10:30 a.m. at the National Academy of
Sciences. In his remarks, he referred to Jamie Gorelick, vice chair,
Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and former Cochair,
Advisory Committee of the President's Commission on Critical
Infrastructure Protection, who introduced the President; Dr. Joshua
Lederberg, Nobel laureate and Sackler Foundation scholar; and Richard A.
Clarke, National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection,
and Counterterrorism.