Senate Committee Warns of Overseas Y2K Disruptions
A special Senate panel warned Tuesday that possible computer crashes expected Jan. 1 could spawn disruptions leading to civil unrest in some countries, with an outside risk that they also could prompt terrorist attacks amid the resulting confusion.
While rating the probability of increased terrorism as “low to medium,” panel members told senators in a closed-door briefing that the lag in Year 2000 preparations around the globe poses a serious threat and urged stepped-up efforts to deal with it.
At the same time, the panel issued a detailed report which suggested that disruptions in the United States are likely to be far less widespread than in most other countries and are unlikely to last longer than a few days at most.
The 163-page document outlined serious concerns about the readiness of some U.S. industries, such as medical service providers, to deal with the computer problem. But it said that many key sectors, from financial services and utilities to telecommunications, are in good shape.
The report marked the first comprehensive survey by Congress of international readiness for the Y2K problem. It is part of a major effort by lawmakers to prod businesses and individuals around the world to do more to prepare.
Lawmakers in both houses are pushing through legislation designed to deal with Y2K issues, from providing low-cost government loans to help businesses alter their computer software to new laws designed to ward off nuisance litigation.
The Y2K problem stems from the programming practice of using two-digit numerals in most record-keeping--”99” instead of 1999, for example. As a result, without special adjustments, computers will read “00” as 1900 instead of 2000, potentially causing some systems to crash.
The report, portions of which were made public earlier, cited the medical industry as furthest behind in the United States in preparing for the problem, saying that smaller hospitals and physicians’ offices have “particularly high Y2K risk exposure.”
It also cited medium- and small-sized businesses as lagging behind in their preparations, citing one survey which showed that 40% of about 14 million small businesses do not plan to take any action at all to deal with the problem.
Nevertheless, Sens. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) and Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), the chairman and vice chairman of the special panel, brushed aside doomsday predictions that the glitches might spark a global economic recession or leave Americans without cash or food.
“This is a moving target,” Bennett told reporters later, noting that industries are improving their readiness all the time. He said that overall assessments suggest that disruptions in the United States, if there are any, likely would not last more than three days.
“In this country, we will have a bump in the road but we will not be crippled and it will not last a very long time,” he added.
The committee’s assessment drew a mixed reaction from industry experts. Kazim Isfahani, an analyst with Giga Information Services in Cambridge, Mass., said that the panel had done “a good job of pulling everything together” but had not broken new ground.
Isfahani termed senators’ warnings that disruptions abroad could lead to civil unrest in some countries--or that they might even prompt terrorist attacks--”fear-mongering.” While some countries may be unprepared, he said, “that doesn’t necessarily translate into civil unrest.”
The developments came as the Senate passed special legislation that would provide for low-cost government loan guarantees for small businesses to help them adjust their own computers to deal with prospective Y2K problems. The vote was 99 to 0.
Meanwhile, spokesmen for the food industry gave the panel assurances in testimony Feb. 24 that the nation would have adequate food supplies on Jan. 1.
Michael Heschel, spokesman for the Kroger Co. supermarket chain, said that his firm usually has about 36 days’ inventory in its stores and predicted that “unless there is widespread hoarding or excessive stockpiling, Jan. 1, 2000, will be a routine shopping day.”
Bennett cited the possibility of a terrorist attack--or even an accidental missile launch--as modest. He said that he fears a missile launch because Russia’s military is in such disarray.
Bennett conceded in his press conference that he had “no information that any terrorist group is planning . . . an attack” on the United States. He said that the panel is concerned because experience shows that terrorists often seek to exploit chaotic situations.
Even so, after the closed-door briefing, two lawmakers--Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), called on President Clinton to order a Pentagon review to avoid any accidental detonation of any U.S. or Russian nuclear weapons because of the computer problem.
“Monitoring the problem is not enough--the problem needs to be fixed in the U.S. and Russia,” Harkin said in statement accompanying a letter he sent to Clinton. “It is not clear that the Pentagon has adequately addressed this critical problem.”
Neither Bennett nor the report publicly identified specific countries that the committee fears could experience civil unrest as a result of computer disruptions. But he pointed to heavy economic impact in parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The report included an assessment by the Gartner Group, a private consulting firm, that predicted a 33% chance of major computer crashes in countries such as Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, France and Hungary.
It cited a 66% prospect of systemic failures in countries such as China, Russia, Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Countries such as the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and the Netherlands were given a 15% chance of a major breakdown.
“The committee is greatly concerned about the international Y2K picture,” the panel’s report said.
The document estimated that 90% of U.S. physicians, 64% of hospitals--primarily rural or located in inner cities--and hundreds of equipment manufacturers and medical suppliers “may be unprepared” for Y2K, many of them unaware that they even are at risk.
At the same time, the report gave high marks to preparations made by the nation’s utilities and to the telecommunications and financial sectors. But it said that the transportation sector has scored mixed results so far, with many of the nation’s airports having started too late.
Such omissions are important because, with computer transmissions linked globally, a glitch in one system could easily affect several others, widening the impact of a problem exponentially in just a few minutes.
The series of developments was part of a daylong effort by the Senate to promote greater efforts by Americans to prepare for dealing with the problem.
