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
I think we have enough evidence that terrorists will do ANYTHING. This scenario laid out by the author is one that is quite plausible. The only way to combat this is to round up all Arabs/muslims and put them through a screening process to find out who is friend or foe and secure our borders. Will this happen? Only once this the this scenario actually happens and the sheeple of this country open up their eyes to the fact that islamo fascists want us dead.
"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."
It'd be like what happened on September 11, 2001; we stay united for a while, then go right back to bickering and partisan politics.
From
The Weekly Standard
Fuss and Feathers
Pandemic panic over the avian flu.
by Michael Fumento
11/21/2005, Volume 011, Issue 10
"But the winner in this grim game of one-upmanship is Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, who claimed on ABC News's Primetime on September 15, "We could have a billion people dying worldwide."
"When I later questioned him on this figure, he rather sheepishly admitted he meant to say "one billion ill." Quite a faux pas."
From
http://www.weeklystandard.com
One can be an alarmist like Redlener who said we could have a billion die from avian flu (see above) and he could still describe a horrendous situation at a school, but I see it as a possibility, not as much as a probability.
I think that if an American school becomes a terrorist target, muslims will be rounded up by large segments of the American population ... but not for screening. The leftists, ACLU, CAIR, etc can scream all they want, no one will listen to them. There will be a lot of smoking ruins that used to be mosques.
Disclaimer: I am not saying this is something that I WANT to happen, but I think it WILL happen.
Why don't they take over ACLU headquarters and an ABA convention.
That would solve everyones problems.
I remember who the EU and the UN reacted to the Beslan massacre. "We're sorry about your children and we urge restraint".
who = how
Spell check still doesn't catch stupid.
If our children are specific terrorist targets, would you care what the ACLU and others say? They could start all the lawsuits, petitions, meetings (or whatever) they want, it won't help.
It would be mass chaos. I would not want to be a muslim during this period, that's for sure. Actually, I don't want to be a muslim during any period of time. =)
"If anything it would convince even the liberasl that its time to break this BS up..."
I sincerely doubt it. They would blame it on the war and the President and foreign policy and conservatives. Liberals don't think logically, but emotionally; with fear running through their veins instead of resolve.
I think American would be enraged beyond what we can comprehend.
Amoung other things, I'd hate to be a RAT following an attack on our schools.
I'm with you, buddy!!!!!
And they would be talking to a pretty small audience. All but the most delusional far-left liberals will turn ... at least I hope so.
If your child's life was in danger would you let some screaming libbie stand in your way of protecting them? I wouldn't, and I think most parents would feel the same way. I'm sure more than a few would kill to protect their children.
You got that right. I think most people would not sit still and wait for another attack. There are a lot of people in this country who would totally snap if this happened.
Amoung other things, I'd hate to be a RAT following an attack on our schools.
Or anyone standing in the way and preaching appeasement/tolerance once all hell breaks loose.
All they have to do is to ban firearms and this threat will go away.
Not to pick but is this author not aware that Springfield MO has experienced several severe tornados in recent years and the locals didn't wait on the government to respond. We took care of our own.
Of course, our schools are SO WELL PROTECTED. We have made them "gun free". Wheee!
With "no guns" in our "gun free" schools, how can anything bad ever happen? After all, "guns" are the root of all evil and without them, all is groovy.
"Gun free"--and hopelessly defenseless.
school security officers don't carry guns? bwahaha! WHAT school security officers????
Scary, ain't it?
I really hope nothing like this ever happens.
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