WASHINGTON, DC — The Pentagon is setting up a commodity-style market to use real investors - putting down real money - to help its generals predict terrorist attacks, coups d'etat and other turmoil in the Middle East.

     Under the program, revealed Monday by two of its critics in the Senate, investors with knowledge of the Middle East would be lured - by the prospect of making money of course - into using their expertise to buy and sell futures contracts on world events.

     And the Pentagon would be able to study the collective wisdom of the free market on such weighty questions as the impact of U.S. involvement in Iraq and the stability of the monarchy in Jordan.

     The Policy Analysis Market initiative is described by the Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, as "initially a small research program" to use economic market forces to help predict future events in the Middle East.

     It would be overseen by DARPA's Information Awareness Office, whose director is retired Adm. John M. Poindexter, the former Iran-Contra figure, according to DARPA's Web site.