Will the ‘Millennium Bug’ Have as Devastating an Effect on ‘Gore 2000’ as It Threatens to Have on the Rest of Us?

(Washington, D.C.): Yesterday’s editions of the Washington Times featured a
front-page article
by its former Editor-in-Chief, Arnaud de Borchgrave, on the catastrophe looming as a result of
the Clinton Administration’s failure adequately to contend with the so-called “Millennium Bug.”
This software and hardware syndrome, also known as the Year 2000 or Y2K problem,
threatens to cripple public and private sector activities that rely upon computer system
problems — which is to say virtually every aspect of life in America.

In the attached article, Mr. de Borchgrave — one of the
Nation’s most respected journalists
specializing in international security and technology matters — reports:

“Speaking on the condition that his name not be used, one of the top five consulting
experts advising the government on remedial measures told the Washington Times
that
less than half of the federal agencies would be ready by the deadline of one
second past midnight Dec. 31, 1999. At the present rate, this expert said, the
Department of Energy will have completed the fix in 2019 and the Defense
Department in 2012.”⁽¹⁾

Significant segments of the private sector are reliably reported to be approximately as
ill-prepared for the Year 2000 as are key agencies of the federal government. href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾

The “buck” for this deplorable state of affairs clearly stops with the Clinton Administration —
and
most especially its nominal point-man on technology issues, in general, and computer issues, in
particular: Vice President Al Gore. As Howard Rubin, a professor at the City
University of New
York and leading government consultant on the Y2K problem, put it to Mr. de Borchgrave:
“The
government doesn’t have a clue. I have told Vice President Gore that the 2000 election will
turn on whatever disasters the [Year 2000] crisis brings. To appear passive now is a recipe
for defeat.‘”

The Bottom Line

If for no other reason but simple self-interest, it behooves Vice President Gore to
devote some
of the personal energy and political capital he is currently devoting to global warming —
a
problem that is, at the very least, a very long-term one and, in all likelihood, no
problem at all —
and apply them towards meeting an impending and genuine catastrophe. It
will be a
measure of the man and his fitness for the highest office in the land if he continues to be AWOL
on the Millennium Bug. More to the point, as Dr. Rubin observes, he may not even be a viable
candidate for the Presidency if, eleven months before the election, his palpable failure of
leadership becomes a nightmare for virtually every American.

– 30 –

1. This analysis tracks with assessments publicized by Frank J.
Gaffney, Jr., director of the Center
for Security Policy, in a 30 March speech before an international conference entitled “Protecting
the Force.” For excerpts of Mr. Gaffney’s remarks before this ComDef ’98 Symposium, see the
Casey Institute’s Press Release entitled Will Clinton-Gore
Prevent the ‘Millennium Bug’
From Driving us Off the Bridge to the 21^st Century? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-R_55″>No. 98-R 55, 30 March 1998).

2. See the Casey Institute’s Perspective entitled
Bridge to Nowhere: Inattention to the
‘Millennium Bug’ Threatens the Nation’s Security, Economy in the 21^st
Century (No. 98-C
24, 6 February 1998).