Posted on 08/26/2006 6:31:06 PM PDT by SandRat
The federal government has mapped out a few places that could be targets for a major terrorist attack.
NORAD, in Colorado Springs, Colo., for one. The West Wing of the White House. Or another New York City landmark.
But the director of an organization that analyzes the country's level of disaster response offers up one more — Tucson's elementary schools.
In his new book "Americans at Risk," Irwin Redlener blasts what he calls a slow emergency response by the government to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and last year's Hurricane Katrina. He lists five worst-case scenarios to further illustrate this lack of preparedness and what can be done to improve it: a tornado near Springfield, Mo.; a nuclear detonation in Chicago; an earthquake in Seattle; a flu outbreak in New York City; and an attack on two elementary schools in Tucson.
What is it about our local schools that has Redlener, the director of Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness, on alert? He points to the September 2004 terrorist takeover of an elementary school in Beslan, Russia.
"What we learned from the Beslan experience is that in this age of terrorism, there's no place that's invulnerable to the realities of modern terrorism," he said. "It's got a very long reach and looks to demoralize America as much as possible."
More specifically, he says he picked Tucson for its proximity to the Mexican border, which he says is too open, and the city's purported links to three of the conspirators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "I was just trying to make people aware of the fact this wasn't just a Northeast (United States) problem," Redlener said.
He used details, some of which have not been publicly substantiated, from Christopher Farrell of Judicial Watch, a nonprofit conservative foundation with a mission of fighting government corruption, to link the three terrorists to Arizona.
Redlener said schools are natural targets for terrorists because campus security officers rarely carry guns. He devotes 10 pages of his book to a graphic rendition of the takeover of two unnamed elementary schools.
First, "radical Islamists" enter the United States through one of three entry corridors on the U.S.-Mexican border and immerse themselves in society. The schools, "a large public elementary school with just over nine hundred students in kindergarten through grade 6 and a Catholic parochial school of more than four hundred students in pre-kindergarten through grade 8," would be taken simultaneously by terrorists with guns and grenades. Those who resist are killed execution-style and thrown out the windows, "where television crews capture the scene with long-range lenses."
The emergency response to the situation is severely hampered in this scenario, Redlener continues, by suicide bombers at the Tucson Police Department headquarters and the pediatric emergency ward at University Medical Center.
Twenty-eight hours later, the standoff ends when "commandos rush through the corridors, breaking down doors." More than 400 people, including students, have died.
Redlener, a father of two, said he's not out to incite panic and there is no government intelligence that proves Tucson is being targeted. What he hopes to do is awaken the public's consciousness that such an event could happen, and that the proper response agencies need to be making the right plans to prepare for it and the other four scenarios he mentions.
"It's simply to illustrate the kind of thinking that our intelligence community has to start having," he said.
Rural/Metro Fire Chief Les Caid said Tucson's responders include all school situations in their disaster planning.
"To say that this could never happen would be a real mistake in anyone's planning efforts," Caid said. "I'm sure the people in Columbine or the folks in Russia never thought it would happen to them."
But he said a suicide bomber could never get into police headquarters, and UMC employees are vigilant of suspicious people. Still, he said citizens should be made aware of all the possible dangers that they face.
"The challenge is not to scare everyone to death," he said.
Tucson Unified School District spokeswoman Chyrl Hill Lander said officials would rely on law enforcement in the event of such a situation. Schools would go into a "hard lockdown," she said, which means all classrooms would be locked and no one allowed to leave.
"Ever since Columbine, TUSD has been planning and preparing for any situation," Hill Lander said.
Redlener said he simply wants America to be more alert. "The only reason to do this is this is a time where we need to have our eyes open," he said. "We have to be vigilant with our planning."
* Contact reporter Jeff Commings at 573-4191 or jcommings@azstarnet.com
Frightening of America or a valid warning and worry?
It's definitely something that concerns me and I don't have kids.
"He used details, some of which have not been publicly substantiated, from Christopher Farrell of Judicial Watch, a nonprofit conservative foundation with a mission of fighting government corruption, to link the three terrorists to Arizona."
Ugh. Shame that this article was imbued with that idiotic stench. Cheapens what should be a vital argument about school safety and preventing a Beslan on US soil.
I could think up all sorts of easily carried out attacks that would cause a lot of death and destruction...but I have no interest in doing so. Hopefully, law enforcement will remain on track to catch people who are interested in carrying out such attacks and to prevent new ones from arriving from outside the country, in the case of foreign linked terrorism, because such attacks are nearly impossible to prevent once the terrorist is here. It would have been cool to have started on this after the 1993 WTC bombing....
My FRiend, with as close as we are to the Canadian boarder, especially at Lake Erie Metropark where they can damn near walk over, it's one of the reasons why I homeschool.
I dont think an attack on an American elementary school would demoralise America, If anything it would convince even the liberasl that its time to break this BS up by hitting the Middle east with attacks they can only dream of in their worst nightmares. Attacks on Islamics in this country would find a lot of dead muslims at 7-11's and motels and anywhere else they tend to launder their money at. It would probably be the single most stupid place in this country to attack.
"It's definately something that concerns me and I don't have kids."
I do and I can't tell you how many times I have thought of this possible scenario.
If the terrorists want to enfuriate an entire nation behind this war and open the gates to hell (nuclear engagement) start killing our children. Much as I like some Russians, we aren't them and we practically spoil our children with the attention that they get.
Kill them and gloves are going to come off so fast the muslim world would be terrified to see. NO ONE has seen what the USA can do fighting without restraint for the last 60 years.
It's probably a valid enough concern--but then, how can the government possibly safeguard us against every possible thing? Schools, yes, but also water supplies, power, and on and on. At some point, Americans are going to have to get serious about the WOT on their own. The government can only do so much.
I fear the low level suicide bomber attack is their next move. Think of the chaos that would ensue if 20 malls across the US were suicide bombed or shot up at the same time. It brings to mind the Sheepdog email we see from time to time. I wish teachers could use the CCW's at school. I know I use mine as often as possible. One guy with a .380 could have held those evil kids at Columbine off long enough for the SWAT to arrive. That might not be the case with the jihadis, but it beats dying while pleading for your life.
Actually you don't have to kill them all, just enough to convince the others that they will be killed if they try anything.
Yes there are stooges who will kill themselves willingly, but they need the infrastructure provided by the group and the group leaders do NOT want to die no matter how much they speak in glowing terms of martyrdom.
I've also been very worried about this happening. Any school system, or individual school would be a very pleasing target for multiple reasons. It's like a ball sitting on a tee waiting to be hit.
The lefites will lose all but their most hardened supporters and all hell will break loose. There will be demands from most of the American people to do something serious and forget this whole PC BS. If the muzzies think they are profiled and treated badly now, just wait ... it'll be very ugly.
I tend to agree with sgtbono that it would be the biggest mistake terrorists could possibly make.
I'm concerned that we have allowed mosques in this country. I was not concerned before 9/11 but by midnight on 9/12 after just a bit of reading on the internet I became convinced that islam should not exist in the US.
[Snort.] I am no longer sure what, if anything, would convince the liberals.
Hopefully, law enforcement will remain on track to catch people who are interested in carrying out such attacks and to prevent new ones from arriving from outside the country, in the case of foreign linked terrorism, because such attacks are nearly impossible to prevent once the terrorist is here.
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Closing out borders would have been so much easier, but of course, the White House and the Senate will have nothing to do with jeaporizing Mexican votes and the ONE AMERICA agenda....so just send them the clean-up bill for the next big "9/11" catastrophe....they just keep letting them in...anyone and anything.
As long as there are idiots who insist that tightening the borders and clamping down on illegal immigration from everywhere is somehow "racist" nothing will be done. PTBs are inherently lazy and addicted to the status quo--it will take a huge outcry, and I mean huge enough to make them fear for their jobs, to get them to move on this.
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