Features
Conference focuses on terrorist preparedness, first response
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — With added urgency, emergency officers from across the country met with terrorism experts Tuesday to discuss ways to respond to a possible new wave of attacks, including assaults with chemical or biological weapons.
“We in law enforcement know how to take care of people with guns,” said John Skipper, a sheriff’s captain in Anderson, S.C. “We need to learn more about biohazardous stuff. Law enforcement is in the dark on a lot of this.”
“The way we are going to find it ... we are going to find five or six dead cops,” he said.
Skipper was among scores of officers from 45 states attending the first day of the National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue fall conference. The annual event took on new significance in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Anthony Wood, the institute’s chief of staff, said the program was designed for “first responders” to help them focus on how to better coordinate response and management.
“Perhaps the next time we will be a little bit more prepared,” said Roland Monette, a board member of the institute, based in Santa Barbara, Calif. He said America is “at war. The rules change in war, especially when you live in a war zone.”
Leon Schenck, a former FBI agent and anti-terrorism specialist who is now Huntsville’s deputy police chief, told the conferees that “New York was a soft target,” unlike military bases or other protected places. He said other American cities are just as vulnerable.
Schenck said that in dealing with suicide-terrorists, “any target they want to destroy, we have to make it difficult.”
“If somebody wants to kill you and they are willing to sacrifice their lives to do it, chances are they are going to be successful,” he said.
Schenck said terrorists are much more likely to use chemical or biological weapons than nuclear weapons. He said a biological attack with smallpox could be catastrophic because there is not enough vaccine to protect America’s population.
“It’s going to take years to build up enough,” he said.
