The latest defense spending law would subtract about 7 percent from the president’s request for numerous Pentagon chemical and biological defense programs on the grounds that they need to be more effectively executed.
A pair of former Defense Department officials who once oversaw the programs say spending adjustments like this may be needed. But the larger issue, they hasten to add, is that the programs need to spend about twice as much money as they do now, given a growing threat from chemical weapons and from disease-causing microorganisms that might either be used as weapons or arrive in the form of a new pandemic.
The approximately $126 million cut to the almost $2 billion worth of “chem-bio” programs is a marginal one, and funding for them generally attracts little attention. But these efforts could gain more prominence in the public mind when the Pentagon makes public the first-ever “biodefense posture review,” which is expected to occur soon.
