Bioterrorism conference stresses need for preparedness

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published Wednesday, April 10, 2002

SEATTLE -- Facing acts of terrorism with minimal panic takes a simple, flexible plan that everyone can understand, says retired Army Col. Danny McKnight, who commanded Army Rangers in Somalia in 1993.

"Whether it's in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or the Westin Hotel, we have to have a plan -- whether it's for someone walking in with a bomb or someone walking in with anthrax," said McKnight, speaking Tuesday at a BioDefense Mobilization Conference at the Westin.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, "our life has changed, and we all know that because we fly in airplanes," he said. "We have to accept it, and we have to commit to making a plan to help people if that happens."

McKnight, whose topic was "How Panic Kills and Preparedness Preserves," knows how things can go wrong. He was the commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment, sent to Mogadishu, Somalia, in August 1993 to help restore order to relief efforts and disarm bandits.

U.S. soldiers were well trained for the Somalia mission and well prepared, he said.

Still, an Army Ranger assault on a stronghold of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid turned into a blood bath in October 1993, with 300 Somalis and 18 Americans killed. The United States withdrew its soldiers from the U.N. mission to Somalia five months later.

The battle is dramatized in the movie "Black Hawk Down."

McKnight used a recent stay at a Washington, D.C., hotel as an example of a place without a plan.

He arrived too early to check in, but a woman allowed him to leave his bags in a room without searching them or even asking him what was inside. The room was not even in his name. McKnight said he didn't see any signs of security at the hotel, which he refused to identify.

Lots of money spent, lots of lives saved

McKnight acknowledged that preparedness plans are expensive but said that shouldn't be a factor.

"It costs a lot of money, but it will save a lot of lives," McKnight said.

"If we get complacent again, it will happen again. We never know where we will be when it happens. We never know where our loved ones will be when it happens."

More than 350 people were signed up for the conference, which runs through Thursday.

The gathering was organized and primarily sponsored by Redmond-based Genelex Corp., which was among more than a dozen companies scrambling to produce an anthrax-detection device after last fall's anthrax scare.

Many, like Genelex, are now marketing such products. Some helped sponsor the conference and will be making presentations there, but Genelex CEO Howard Coleman dismissed criticism that the gathering is a disguised trade show.

"I think the program speaks for itself," he told a Seattle newspaper, noting that the University of Washington School of Public Health and the National Association of County and City Health Officials are also sponsors.

Murray Cohen, president of Consultants in Disease and Injury Control in Atlanta, agrees with McKnight's call for planning.

"We have to assume and prepare as if this was just the tip of the iceberg," Cohen said. "This is legitimately scary stuff, enough to get us to invest a little bit in biopreparedness."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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