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<p>The Pentagon will abandon a plan to establish a futures market to help predict terrorist strikes, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday.</p> <p>Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said he spoke by phone with the program's director, "and we mutually agreed that this thing should be stopped."</p>

<p>Senate Democrats are in an uproar about a new Pentagon project they're calling too bizarre to be true: an online futures exchange where the "commodities" are possible Middle East events such as the assassination of political leaders.</p> <p>The intent of the project, called the Policy Analysis Market is to use "market-based techniques for avoiding surprise and predicting future events," according to a Pentagon report to Congress. One question posed in the Pentagon report: "Will terrorists attack Israel with bioweapons in the next year?" Traders would be those willing to bet their own money on when the events will occur.</p>

WASHINGTON - The Senate's Democratic leader called on the Bush administration Tuesday to renounce a Pentagon plan for establishing a futures market on acts of terrorism and said apologies should be made to the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. "This program could provide an incentive actually to commit acts of terrorism," Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., declared on the Senate floor. "...This is just wrong." Daschle called the proposal a "plan to trade in death" and charged it could motivate terrorists to attempt attacks on targets in the United States or against U.S. leaders. "It is perhaps the...

<p>WASHINGTON — The Pentagon (search) views it as a potentially innovative way to get clues about terrorists' plans: a public, stock market-style exchange where traders can profit by correctly predicting terror attacks or assassinations in the Middle East.</p> <p>Two Democratic senators say the program is useless, offensive and immoral. They are demanding that the program be stopped before investors start signing up Friday.</p>

In an unusual new program that emulates financial markets, the U.S. Defense Department will allow traders to bet on the probability of future terrorist attacks. "The Policy Analysis Market" – enabling traders to buy and sell "futures" based on the likelihood of a specific event – is the brainchild of the department's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, according to news reports. Bidders will profit on the occurrence of events such as a missile attack by North Korea, the overthrow of Jordan's King Hussein and the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the agency's website says. Defense officials argue...

Defense Dept. Program Taking Terror Bets Program Models 'Futures' Markets POSTED: 3:20 p.m. EDT July 28, 2003 A new Department of Defense program allows traders to bet on the likelihood of future terrorist attacks. The department's "Defense Advanced Research Project Agency" designed what it calls the "The Policy Analysis Market." The program works much like the financial markets where traders buy and sell "futures" based on the possibility of a specific event in the Middle East, 11 News reported. Some of the examples listed on the agency's Web site include the assassination of Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat and a missile...

Defense Dept. Program Taking Terror Bets Program Models 'Futures' Markets POSTED: 3:20 p.m. EDT July 28, 2003 A new Department of Defense program allows traders to bet on the likelihood of future terrorist attacks. The department's "Defense Advanced Research Project Agency" designed what it calls the "The Policy Analysis Market." The program works much like the financial markets where traders buy and sell "futures" based on the possibility of a specific event in the Middle East, 11 News reported. Some of the examples listed on the agency's Web site include the assassination of Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat and a missile...