esentatives from all departments, agencies, states and territories. Regardless of what form a new agency would take in dealing with counter terrorism policy, the fact remains that any new agency needs money. Congress must have faith in a new agency to infuse it with enough money to operate effectively. Although at this point it is hard to determine what an exact figure should be to fully fund this new agency. However, Congress has already shown that it sees counter terrorism as an important policy initiative by appropriating upwards of $10 billion over the last 5 years to be spent by at least 20 federal agencies on domestic preparedness. Another area in need of reform is the healthcare system. The threats posed by chemical and biological weapons are formidable. However, presently, U.S. hospitals are not adequately prepared to deal with mass injuries and casualties. In addition, physicians need to be trained to identify and treat many diseases that they are not familiar with like anthrax, tularemia, pneumonic plague, and smallpox. Doctors are often the first responders in disease outbreaks. If they are quick enough in detecting the possible deployment of an agent, they may be able to stem the spread of disease early. In terms of healthcare, more reform is needed. Although the U.S. government has begun to stockpile vaccines and antidotes, more needs to be done. Presently, the federal government does not have adequate supplies to make sure every American is protected from the threats of chemical or biological agents. This has occurred because it is time consuming and expensive to produce adequate supplies of medicine. Consequently, it may never be possible to have a ready supply for the populace when there are so many different agents that may be deployed. In addition, today, there is no concrete plan as to how the limited supply of medicine would be distributed to the public (at least as much as the government has stockpiled...
