--- title: "Circle of life?" description: "CBRNe World provides those tasked with defending against CBRN and IED threats with the essential practical, scientific and political information. Access the current and previous issues of the magazine by registering as a member." url: "https://cbrneworld.com/news/circle-of-life" date: "2026-08-13T23:29:09+00:00" language: "en-GB" --- # Circle of life? [Gwyn Winfield](#) Author 23 April 2026 We have it on good authority that the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD) is to be dissolved, rolled back into Counter Terrorism (CT), and the positions of assistant director (AD) and deputy assistant director abolished. There is currently no confirmation on the website, and a request to the FBI press office drew the following response: “*The FBI is continuing our work to protect the US from threats involving weapons of mass destruction. The FBI still has weapons of mass destruction coordinators in field offices; and our scientific experts, bomb technicians, agents, and analysts work closely with FBI field office personnel, other law enforcement agencies, and a wide array of US and international partners. Additionally, we provide training to law enforcement partners related to the threats posed by WMD. The FBI will continue to engage in this vital mission to protect the American homeland.”* Now for those who haven't been around for quite as long as your venerable editor, the WMDD was supposed to turn 20 this year. It emerged from the findings of various commissions after the Amerithrax letters, where the FBI was criticised for a wide variety of CBRN failings. The FBI had some of the assets it has today, but what it lacked was a coalescing authority, able to provide oversight, spot gaps and (hopefully) fill them. Previously the WMD mission was under CT, where it is now returning. So let’s take a hot minute to work out what this means. The WMD coordinators, who are the face of FBI expertise in the field, will remain, presumably other tripwires that havebeen set up will also remain… however all this will be seen through the prism of counterterrorism, rather than a specialist CBRN/WMD one. Again, many of the individuals perpetrating, or attempting, CBRN attacks are terrorists, so what’s the problem? The answer is that the reasons why the WMDD was removed from CT in the first place, remain. For those particularly interested in history, I’d recommend the interviews I did with the first AD, Dr Vahid Majdi, back in spring 2007 and summer 2010. In brief, the WMDD was to provide an integrated approach to deny access to WMD materials, to grow a workforce skilled enough to recognise the various nexus of knowledge and engineering needed to build a device, and the cohesion necessary to successfully integrate countermeasures and operational activities. Of the terms in the sentence above, I would emphasis ‘integrate’ and ‘cohesion’. The FBI ‘failed’ during Amerithrax because cohesion was lacking, the WMD mission was not loved by its own directorate it was simply a method of terrorism. This is what it might well return to; little by little the coordinators’ mission set will widen, extra tasks and priorities will be attached, not because CT doesn’t care, but because money is tight and there are other, more pressing, needs. The FBI now risks taking its eye off the ball (pun intended) at the worst possible time, when terrorism and civil unrest are peaking, and the US prepares to host the world’s largest festival of football, the FIFA World Cup. We are seeing a rise in terrorism from the right, mainly targeting individuals, and from the left, targeting infrastructure and networks. The biggest group of individuals attacking people are non-affiliated perpetrators (88%) that are notoriously difficult to detect, especially when emerging technology means they don’t need large networks. Attacks on Jewish communities are at a life time high (up 270% since the start of the Gaza conflict) and narcoterrorism is just a drone strike away[\[1\]](#_ftn1). Meanwhile the other Federal agencies tasked with oversight of CBRN issues, the DHS Counter WMD Office (CWMDO) has lost 50% of its staff, and is in the process of being broken up and split across other government departments, like the coastguard. The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is also expected to have its budget cancelled. At a time when the threat is rising, agencies whose task it is to coordinate and plan are being gutted. Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time with the main WMDD and the various coordinators in the States, and have the utmost respect for them. Often they have to keep local agencies, which might never see a CBRN incident, engaged in the subject, raise awareness and build bridges among agencies that would otherwise happily continue to despise some of their other responders. They will continue to do this mission regardless of what their organisational chart looks like. Without the single issue focus of their AD, however, the job will change, the ideas will shift and capability fall away. Would-be perpetrators that might have been picked up early will continue, plots that might have been disrupted will build, and innocent families will be impacted, negatively and unnecessarily. It takes far less time to erode capability than it does to build it. --- [\[1\]](#_ftnref1) All this and more here - and here ## Schema ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "News", "item": "https://cbrneworld.com/news" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Circle of life?", "item": "https://cbrneworld.com/news/circle-of-life" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "NewsArticle", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://cbrneworld.com/news/circle-of-life" }, "headline": "Circle of life?", "description": "We have it on good authority that the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD) is to be dissolved, rolled back into Counter Terrorism (CT), and the positions of assistant director (AD) and deputy assistant director abolished. There is currently no confirmation on the website, and a request to the FBI press office drew the following response: “The FBI is continuing our work to protect the US from threats involving weapons of mass destruction. The FBI still has weapons of mass destruction coordinators in field offices; and our scientific experts, bomb technicians, agents, and analysts work closely with FBI field office personnel, other law enforcement agencies, and a wide array of US and international partners. Additionally, we provide training to law enforcement partners related to the threats posed by WMD. The FBI will continue to engage in this vital mission to protect the American homeland.” Now for those who haven't been around for quite as long as your venerable editor, the WMDD was supposed to turn 20 this year. It emerged from the findings of various commissions after the Amerithrax letters, where the FBI was criticised for a wide variety of CBRN failings. The FBI had some of the assets it has today, but what it lacked was a coalescing authority, able to provide oversight, spot gaps and (hopefully) fill them. Previously the WMD mission was under CT, where it is now returning. So let’s take a hot minute to work out what this means. The WMD coordinators, who are the face of FBI expertise in the field, will remain, presumably other tripwires that have been set up will also remain… however all this will be seen through the prism of counterterrorism, rather than a specialist CBRN/WMD one. Again, many of the individuals perpetrating, or attempting, CBRN attacks are terrorists, so what’s the problem? The answer is that the reasons why the WMDD was removed from CT in the first place, remain. For those particularly interested in history, I’d recommend the interviews I did with the first AD, Dr Vahid Majdi, back in spring 2007 and summer 2010. In brief, the WMDD was to provide an integrated approach to deny access to WMD materials, to grow a workforce skilled enough to recognise the various nexus of knowledge and engineering needed to build a device, and the cohesion necessary to successfully integrate countermeasures and operational activities. Of the terms in the sentence above, I would emphasis ‘integrate’ and ‘cohesion’. The FBI ‘failed’ during Amerithrax because cohesion was lacking, the WMD mission was not loved by its own directorate it was simply a method of terrorism. This is what it might well return to; little by little the coordinators’ mission set will widen, extra tasks and priorities will be attached, not because CT doesn’t care, but because money is tight and there are other, more pressing, needs. The FBI now risks taking its eye off the ball (pun intended) at the worst possible time, when terrorism and civil unrest are peaking, and the US prepares to host the world’s largest festival of football, the FIFA World Cup. We are seeing a rise in terrorism from the right, mainly targeting individuals, and from the left, targeting infrastructure and networks. The biggest group of individuals attacking people are non-affiliated perpetrators (88%) that are notoriously difficult to detect, especially when emerging technology means they don’t need large networks. Attacks on Jewish communities are at a life time high (up 270% since the start of the Gaza conflict) and narcoterrorism is just a drone strike away[1]. Meanwhile the other Federal agencies tasked with oversight of CBRN issues, the DHS Counter WMD Office (CWMDO) has lost 50% of its staff, and is in the process of being broken up and split across other government departments, like the coastguard. The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is also expected to have its budget cancelled. At a time when the threat is rising, agencies whose task it is to coordinate and plan are being gutted.   Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time with the main WMDD and the various coordinators in the States, and have the utmost respect for them. Often they have to keep local agencies, which might never see a CBRN incident, engaged in the subject, raise awareness and build bridges among agencies that would otherwise happily continue to despise some of their other responders. They will continue to do this mission regardless of what their organisational chart looks like. Without the single issue focus of their AD, however, the job will change, the ideas will shift and capability fall away. Would-be perpetrators that might have been picked up early will continue, plots that might have been disrupted will build, and innocent families will be impacted, negatively and unnecessarily. It takes far less time to erode capability than it does to build it.  [1] All this and more here - https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Global-Terrorism-Index-2025.pdf and here https://www.isdglobal.org/publication/2025-annual-review-plots-attacks-across-us/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://cbrneworld.com/" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "CBRNe World Magazine", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://cbrneworld.com/images/default/Asset%201.png" } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Gwyn Winfield", "url": "https://cbrneworld.com/news/circle-of-life" }, "datePublished": "2026-04-23T09:54:25+01:00", "dateCreated": "2026-04-23T09:54:25+01:00", "dateModified": "2026-04-23T09:54:25+01:00" } ```