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  3. As if they didn’t have their hands full with Iraq and terrorism, U. S. intel

As if they didn’t have their hands full with Iraq and terrorism, U. S. intel

游客2025-04-27  1
问题     As if they didn’t have their hands full with Iraq and terrorism, U. S. intelligence agencies are being drawn into the debate over whether the United States is imminently threatened by a deadly outbreak of bird influenza and whether the Bush administration has adequately prepared for such an epidemic. Over the last two weeks, the administration has held bird flu briefings classified "Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information" for members of both houses of Congress. A counterterrorism official indicated that the intelligence community is also studying whether it would be possible for terrorists to somehow exploit the avian flu virus and use it against the United States, though there is no evidence that terrorists have in any way tried to do so. The World Health Organization is warning that if a pandemic (a disease for which there is no certain treatment and to which humans have no natural immunity.) outbreak occurs, "at least 30 million people worldwide could require hospitalization, and at least 2 million people could die." The alarming figures like these in recent weeks caught the attention of President George W. Bush and other White House aides.
    An intelligence official said, "The briefings did contain classified information. The reason the information is classified is because some of it was acquired through clan-destine means." A leading public-health expert, Dr. Irwin Redlener, said, "This is old-fashioned cold war secrecy being applied to a public-health issue-a very bad idea." Redlener has criticized President Bush and other administration officials for hinting recently that in the event of a pandemic bird flu outbreak, the federal government might rely heavily on the military to establish quarantine zones and restrict public movement to limit the possible spread of disease. Despite HSN1 (a bird flu strain) is reported mortality rate of 50 percent or more, Dr. Redlener says that by the time such a virus did arrive in the United States, its strength might be significantly degraded. But he notes that in the case of the 1918 Spanish flu, the eventual mortality rate of the virus turned out to be around 2 percent, yet millions still died.
    What is vexing the Bush administration and other public-health professionals is the fact that the United States is not particularly well prepared in the event a bird flu pandemic does strike in the near future. HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) Secretary Mike Leavitt is currently on a trip to several countries in Asia to get a firsthand look at measures some countries are taking to contain the spread of known bird flu cases. The best defense against a deadly flu pandemic would be stopping it where it starts. [br] What can we learn about the U.S. intelligence agencies?
选项 A、They believe the outbreak of bird flu is the terrorists’ trick.
B、They take the federal attitude to the bird flu outbreak seriously.
C、They participate in the debate with reluctance.
D、They’re ill-informed because it’s a top secret.
答案 B
解析 文中说，情报机构在担心恐怖分子会以散播禽流感病毒来威胁美国，并不是A表述的那样(trick把戏)，符合选项B。C中the debate指的是他们又被卷入的那场辩论。选项D的难点在于ill-informed的理解，不是“消息错误”，而是“所知不多”。top secret是一份关于禽流感的简报，两者完全不搭边，构不成因果关系。
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