THE war in Iraq has not just changed that country forever, it will also change the future of science in the US. That’s because a huge part of the government’s spending on science is channelled to research on weapons, and military electronics and telecommunications. As the war goes, so goes that budget.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his allies in the Pentagon successfully argued against the kind of heavy armour, artillery and overwhelming troop strength favoured in the 1991 Gulf war. He favoured air power supporting a smaller, light-footed, high-tech force on the ground.
The initial bombing of Baghdad – called by some the “shock and awe” campaign – was less than shocking and awesome. But the television cameras set up in Baghdad did not capture the true effect of the aerial bombing of the Iraqi divisions to the south of the city. The number of bombs that hit Baghdad was a tiny fraction of what rained down on the Iraqi soldiers and tanks dug into the southern perimeter. Those massed forces were so decimated by the aerial attack that the US Army’s subsequent speedy advance into the capital surprised just about everyone.
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When the tacticians weigh up the contributions of the various services, the resulting research and development budget is likely to favour the Air Force. That has implications for more than just aircraft: the debate over whether to build an anti-ballistic missile system may hang in the balance. And where the Pentagon decides to spend its money affects the budgets of not only the government’s research centres but also hundreds of universities. When science policy experts say that the future of the scientific budget is “up in the air”, they may well mean that literally.
LET’S say there’s an outbreak of a new disease of uncertain aetiology, and for which there’s no definitive treatment. Let’s further say that the disease is spreading around the world and that airlines have begun cancelling services to regions where the disease is most prevalent. Finally, let’s say you’re in charge of infectious disease control for the WHO or the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta. Where should you be spending your time:
a) Consulting with experts in infectious disease control to determine how best to fight the disease?
b) Consulting with epidemiologists and microbiologists to determine the cause of the disease and how it has spread?
c) Testifying before congressional committees who have had a hard time getting any publicity because the war in Iraq has drawn the media’s attention away from Capitol Hill?
If you said c, then you certainly have a fair chance of being elected to Congress. No fewer than three congressional committees held hearings in the first week of April on how health officials should be responding to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). CDC chief Julie Gerberding, National Institutes of Health director Elias Zerhouni, and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Anthony Fauci were all asked to drop what they were doing and run up to Capitol Hill and assure legislators that they were doing all they could to deal with the outbreak. They don’t really have a choice – it’s Congress that allocates the money for the committees to mount the counter-attack on SARS. But in the early days of the outbreak, it is difficult to imagine what Congress can usefully add to the public health response.
The WHO’s David Heymann was invited to fly in from Geneva for the first round of hearings, but he didn’t. Maybe he was busy.
