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Reader Contest: Tell the Pentagon How To Whup Bin Laden

By Timothy NoahUpdated Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001, at 6:01 PM ET

This sounds like a Chatterbox contest, but it’s really a Defense Department contest. One day after Donald Rumsfeld told USA Today that we may never find Osama Bin Laden (“It’s a big world”), the Pentagon made public a “Broad Agency Announcement” that

specifically seeks help in combating terrorism, defeating difficult targets, conducting protracted operations in remote areas, and developing countermeasures to weapons of mass destruction. Its objective is to find concepts that can be developed and fielded within 12 to 18 months.

Some might ask: With an annual budget of more than $300 billion, shouldn’t the Pentagon already know how to combat terrorism, defeat difficult targets, conduct protracted operations in remote areas, and develop countermeasures to weapons of mass destruction? Or at least know where to go to find out?

Still, Chatterbox has never been one to cavil about the ingenuity of ordinary people. If you have any good ideas about how to win the war on terrorism, by all means send them to Donald Rumsfeld. (For details, click here.) But please don’t send them to Chatterbox. He lacks the proper expertise to evaluate them, and, besides, he’s too busy wading through reader submissions for “Whopper of the Week.”

E-mail Timothy Noah at .

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