AIDS Deemed National Security Threat

May 1, 2000 - The Clinton administration for the first time has formally designated the global AIDS epidemic to be proportions sufficient to threaten national security, reports CBS News White House Correspondent Peter Maer.

The National Security Council has never before been involved in combating an infectious disease, but is now directing a reassessment of government efforts.

Deputy press secretary Jim Kennedy told reporters the disease is "a legitimate and ongoing health concern with the potential to destabilize government."

The decision to raise it to the national security level does not carry any additional funding to fight aids. Among the direct actions taken so far was creation on Feb. 8 of a White House interagency working group to "develop a series of expanded initiatives to drive the international efforts" to combat the disease.

The intensified effort has touched off internal disputes over positions on trade policy and legal requirements that aid contractors buy only American supplies, the newspaper reported.

It said the new effort was driven by intelligence reports last year that considered the pandemic's broadest consequences for foreign governments and societies, particularly in Africa.

Authors of one intelligence report said the consequences of AIDS appear to have "a particularly strong correlation with the likelihood of state failure in partial democracies" and held out the prospect of "revolutionary wars, ethnic wars, genocides and disruptive regime transitions."

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