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| DEADLY AGENTS
February 19, 1998The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript |
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The arrest of two men for possible possession of the deadly toxin anthrax has raised questions regarding the possibility of a future biological or chemical attack. Betty Anne Bowser takes a look at government programs that are preparing the nation for such a crisis.
A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
NEWSHOUR LINKS:
February 11, 1998
Online Forum on the possibilities of a chemical or biological attack.
April 22, 1997
President Clinton wants the Senate to ratify the Chemicals Weapons Treaty, a document that that would ban some of the world's most dreaded killing agents.
November 11, 1996
Were U.S. soldiers exposed to chemical weapons during the Gulf War?
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of military.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: All over the country firefighters, paramedics, emergency medical
technicians, people known as first responders, are getting ready for a new threat. During the Gulf War military leaders thought Iraq might target American soldiers. And a sarin gas attack by terrorists in Japan in 1995 showed civilians were capable of getting and using chemical weapons. John Hamre is the second highest ranking official at the Pentagon.
Getting ready for a new threat.
JOHN HAMRE: It was a wake-up call, frankly, to us and to the entire developing world, or developed world, that people in the future are going to use these rather terrible weapons in ways that will--that could potentially just bring an entire city to its knees.
SPOKESMAN: What kind of rescue could we do? Walking wounded, we can talk ‘em out, put ‘em in the isolated area.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: In addition to heightened intelligence, the Defense Department is spending more than $100 million over a three-year period to teach first responders what to do in the
event of a chemical or biological attack. The program will be taken to the nation's 120 largest cities. So far, 14 have completed the course. In Indianapolis, 350 people recently received four days of instruction. These highly-trained professional men and women have responded to all kinds of disasters. They've had years of training to deal with fires, chemical spills, even bombings. Now they're learning new scenarios for responding to chemical or biological terrorism. In this practice triage drill there has been a sarin gas attack on a city subway. These paramedics have mere minutes to figure out how to react. A gunshot wound to the head, a seizure caused by a chemical agent.
SPOKESMAN: So what's his decon priority? One? You need to get him immediate--
BETTY ANN BOWSER: They are also taught the difficult fundamentals of getting exposed people into decontamination showers.
SPOKESMAN: Get them out of their clothes. Put ‘em in bags. Find out how we're going to track those bags. What am I going to do with watches and rings and eyeglasses and all those valuable kinds of things? The problem we face is all the walking wounded have already fled by the time we get there. Getting these people corralled and headed toward a decon corridor is the most difficult task.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Peter Beering is in charge of the program for the city of Indianapolis.
PETER BEERING, Public Safety Specialist: In its simplest terms what we're teaching them and what's being delivered here is the recognition of the various types of agents, the symptomology that a victim might show, some of the things that they can detect so that they themselves don't become victims and also then what to do to decontaminate those people who have been exposed to something.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: For career firefighters like 30 years veteran Charles Miller the program has not only raised his awareness of chemical and biological agents, it has also shown him how much more cities need to do to adequately respond.
Mr. Miller: "The resources we commonly use and the resources we have are probably not enough."
CHARLES MILLER, Firefighter: The resources we commonly use and the resources we have are probably not enough. That we need the whole emergency response system needs to be brought to another level to deal with this.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar co-sponsored a bill that started the program, which he sees as just a beginning.
SEN. RICHARD LUGAR, (R) Indiana: This is not an antidote to the disasters that could befall America. It could be an antidote to total panic and to chaos and to anarchy that could occur with a lot of people dying and people having no idea how to respond. That is the kind of horror that I think we can mitigate substantially by thinking this through in a calm way now, not at a time of panic.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Garry Briese, executive director of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, thinks the program isn't enough to deal with a terrorist attack, and he says it was poorly conceived.
GARRY BRIESE: Initially, the training that was developed in draft for our review was done by outside consultants who did not even understand the chemicals that they were doing the lessons plans for and were giving advice that was, in fact, lethal advice. It was to the point that we said this is absolutely lethal to proceed ahead with this training.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: What do you mean?
GARY BRIESE: Well, they were telling law enforcement officers to drive into this contaminated zone, to sort of count the number of casualties that you see. Well, the first thing you want to tell somebody is if you think there is a hazardous chemical there, don't go in.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: James Warrington is civilian head of the program for the army's chemical, biological defense command.
JAMES WARRINGTON, Director, Domestic Preparedness Program: I can tell you substantively that we would never send anybody into an area like that where it would be lethal and instruct folks to go in there where it would be dangerous to their health and safety.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: D you think his charge is fair?
JAMES WARRINGTON: No. I believe it's unfounded. What motivated the charge, I don't know but I can tell you that we are so far beyond that now that we have developed a course that we are very, very comfortable with.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Briese also said his own independent association could have done a better job of training first responders for less money.
GARRY BRIESE: We costed out the cost it would take to deliver the training programs and we came up with a figure considerably lower than what's being spent by the Department of Defense, I mean considerably.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Like how much?
GARRY BRIESE: How much lower? Oh , $90 million lower.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Briese accused Warrington's office of cronyism by hiring retired army career officers who once worked for the chemical and biological command and paying them more money than his association would have charged. Warrington said his command hired the people who could best do the job.
JAMES WARRINGTON: I would see no problem taking advantage of expertise. The expertise was garnered as a result of their careers, and if these people have spent a lifetime dealing with these issues and problems, then I think they're the people who have the expertise and experience, and why not take advantage of that?
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Senator Lugar says he welcomes the criticism as a way to improve the program.
Improving the program.
SEN. RICHARD LUGAR: Well, I'm not concerned that charges are being made. As a matter of fact, I think these are constructive criticisms that have led to very substantial changes in training. Now the fire chiefs have made a number of other criticisms from time to time, and there have been responses to this. It's important they do speak up. But we're at a threshold here in which we've never done this before.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Lugar expects over time there will be continued improvement, and the Senator said he intends to seek re-authorization funds when current legislation expires.
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