- WASHINGTON (AFP) - A chilling
scenario of possible national collapse was presented Monday to US lawmakers
by a group of prominent security experts, who warned that a biological
terrorist attack on US soil could bring the country to the brink of disintegration.
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- The panel, which included former deputy secretary of
defense John Hamre, Oklahoma governor Frank Keating and former senator
Sam Nunn, presented their conclusions after holding a two-day exercise
code-named "Dark Winter," which featured a computer-simulated
bioterrorist attack on three US states.
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- Members of the House Subcommittee on National Security
closely listened as participants painted a picture of the world's most
powerful nation descending into chaos in a matter of several weeks.
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- The game starts with a brief television report that about
two dozen people checked into an Oklahoma City hospital with an unidentified
illness. Doctors soon find the patients have smallpox, a highly contagious
and deadly disease unseen in the United States since 1949.
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- Similar smallpox cases are reported in Pennsylvania and
Georgia. By day six, 300 Americans are dead and 2,000 others are infected.
Cases of smallpox are reported in Mexico, Canada and Britain, according
to the scenario.
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- Meanwhile the US heath system is overwhelmed, the 12
million doses of smallpox vaccine quickly disappear, schools nationwide
are forced to close, and public gatherings are limited due to fear of contagion.
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- Droves of Oklahomans anxious to flee stream toward Texas
-- but the Texas governor, eager to protect his own residents, closes the
border and deploys the state National Guard. Shots are fired.
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- As the standoff between Texans and Oklahomans deepens,
a rift opens between federal and local authorities. Members of the US National
Security Council suggest "nationalizing" the national guard,
while state governors insist on keeping the local troops under their control.
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- On day 12 of the scenario, when the death toll reaches
1,000, interstate commerce grinds to a halt and stock trading is suspended.
Demonstrations demanding more smallpox vaccines turn into riots. The United
Nations moves its headquarters from New York to Geneva, Switzerland.
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- Less than two months after the outbreak, when the number
of dead reach one million and three million more are infected, the president,
played in the exercise by Nunn, gathers his top aide to considers imposing
marshal law.
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- Dead silence reigned in the hearing room as Hamre and
Nunn presented their findings with the help of colorful "emergency
newscasts" prepared by the nation's leading television broadcasters,
who also took part in the exercise, which took place at Andrews Air Force
Base outside Washington, D.C. in June.
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- "I think we felt it would cripple the United States
if it occurred," Hamre said.
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- "We though we were really gathering together to
talk about the mechanics of government," Hamre said. "What we
ended up doing is thinking how we save democracy in America."
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- To Republican Congressman Benjamin Gilman, scenarios
like this no longer belong to the realm of science fiction.
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- "Sadly, events of the last few years, with bombings
... in New York, Oklahoma City, have transformed the bioterrorism debate
from the question of 'if' to the seeming inevitability of 'when,"
he said.
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- Nunn, who had sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee
for more than two decades, said the exercise raised more questions than
answers.
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- If there is only one dose of smallpox vaccine for every
23 Americans, whom do you vaccinate? he asked.
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- "Do you seize hotels and convert them to hospitals?
Do you close borders and block all travel? What level of force do you use
to keep someone sick with smallpox in isolation?" he asked.
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- No clear answer was offered by those present.
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