- WASHINGTON (AP) -- The world
faces an estimated 50 percent chance of a nuclear, biological, chemical
or radiological attack over the next five years, according to national
security analysts surveyed for a congressional study released Wednesday.
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- Using a poll of 85 nonproliferation and national security
experts, the report also estimated the risk of attack by weapons of mass
destruction at as high as 70 percent over the coming decade.
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- The Senate Foreign Relations Committee surveyed analysts
around the world in late 2004 and early this year to determine what they
thought was the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction.
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- The study was commissioned by committee Chairman Sen.
Richard Lugar, R-Ind., whose nonproliferation efforts in Congress have
been credited with helping the states of the former Soviet Union lessen
their stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
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- ''The bottom line is this: For the foreseeable future,
the United States and other nations will face an existential threat from
the intersection of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction,'' Lugar
said in a statement.
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- Committee aides sent out surveys asking respondents the
percentage probability that a biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological
attack would occur over the next five and 10 years.
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- ''If one compounds these answers, the odds of some type
of WMD attack occurring during the next decade are extremely high,'' the
report said, using the acronym for weapons of mass destruction.
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- The study said the risks of biological or chemical attacks
were comparable to or slightly higher than the risk of a nuclear attack.
However, the study found a ''significantly higher'' risk of a radiological
attack.
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- It also said:
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- * Three-fourths of those surveyed said one or two new
countries would acquire nuclear weapons during the next five years, and
as many as five new countries could have such weapons over the next 10
years.
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- * Four-fifths of those surveyed said their country was
not spending enough money on nonproliferation efforts.
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- * Survey respondents also agreed that terrorists --
rather than governments -- were more likely to carry out a nuclear attack.
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