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Pentagon Axes Terrorist Futures

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Pentagon Axes Online Terror Bets

BBC News

The Pentagon has abandoned plans to set up an online trading market to help predict terrorist attacks. Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he had spoken by telephone to the programme's director "and we mutually agreed that this thing should be stopped".

Under the plan, bets could have been made about future terrorist attacks and other major political developments.But the proposal ran into fierce opposition in the US Congress. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, both Democrats, wrote to the Pentagon urging it to abandon the idea.

"The idea of a federal betting parlour on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it's grotesque," said Senator Wyden. Senator Dorgan said it was "useless, offensive and unbelievably stupid". He said he had trouble in persuading other people it was not a hoax. "How would you feel if you were the King of Jordan and you learned that the US Defence Department was taking bets on your being overthrown within a year?" he asked.

Market vision

The idea had been to try to improve the prediction and prevention of events by using the expertise of the open market instead of relying on government agencies which have often failed in the past.

The US Defence Department defended the initiative and compared the proposed market to those predicting the price of petroleum, the results of elections and even the demand for cinema tickets.

"Research indicates that markets are extremely efficient, effective and timely aggregators of dispersed and even hidden information," it said in a statement earlier.