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American Morning

The Big Question: Is Government Ready For a Chemical Attack

Aired May 08, 2002 - 09:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Time now for our Big Question, is the government ready for a chemical attack? Preparing for the unthinkable. this morning at the Pentagon, the Defense Department is simulating the chemical weapons attack they hope will never come. The test was scheduled prior to 9/11, but since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there has of course been a new sense of urgency about being prepared.

CNN's Barbara Starr joins us now from inside the courtyard at the Pentagon.

Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Anderson.

Well, yes, we are in the center courtyard of the Pentagon. We're watching this chemical exercise. We want to emphasize it is an exercise, a practice session with about 300 people. Pentagon soldiers here, local emergency, fire, police responders coming here this morning. The exercise began at 9:00 this morning with smoke grenade going off. It was a simulated chemical attack here in the courtyard. Soldiers immediately who were play acting began to fall ill. Emergency responders came to the scene and began treating them.

And what they're practicing here, it is a simulated serin attack, a gas attack. What they are practicing in the event of the real thing how public emergency response personnel could quickly come here and begin to treat the injured, wounded and possible fatalities.

Now, of course, all of this is the coordinated with local hospitals, local fire departments, but this is a very sensitive situation here, of course, because on September 11th, of course, the Pentagon came under real attack.

So this exercise is being handled very sensitively with the local community. The responders all were prestaged here inside the courtyard, no sirens, no big public response out on the highway. They wanted to make very sure that they did not upset the local community, but get in a realistic practice session here.

So what we have seen, of course, are soldiers responding with the symptoms that would happen in they really did come under a serin attack. Serin is an odorless colorless, deadly nerve agent. It was used in the Tokyo subway attack many years ago. Of course it causes death by suffocation. So the most important thing in this kind of attack is to get emergency response personnel on the scene as quickly as possible, identify the agent that has been used in the attack, and begin to treat people appropriately.

One of the things we saw here was firemen come and hose down the soldiers with water hoses, trying as quickly as possibly, get the agent off them and begin to treat them medically.

This exercise will go on for the next couple of hours. They want to make it as realistic as possible, and we're going to see some additional events over the next couple of hours, more decontamination, more treatment. That sort of thing -- Anderson.

COOPER: As you pointed out, Barbara, the pictures are disturbing, even though it is just a drill. How are these people being treated? You said that they were being hosed down? What happens to them after that? Is it as simple as hosing someone down?

STARR: Well, they start by hosing them down with water to get the agent off of them. They have people coming around in HAZMAT protection suits to try and treat them.

Now, because it is an exercise, and because of the sensitivity about 9-11 and not having people being -- hundreds of people being evacuated, even in a practice session, from the Pentagon, they're not taking them by ambulance to local hospitals as they normally would. This is a very different exercise. They have communications capabilities with local hospitals in the region, and they're practicing via those communications links how they would treat them.

One of the things that's pretty interesting this morning is this place, this courtyard, on September 11th was the site of real tragedy of course. On September 11th, this courtyard was an emergency triage area. I can tell you that I remember being out here, there were rows and rows of body bags, all laid out. Some rows were empty, where they had been filled and taken away. This was the site of the most intensive emergency response treatment on September 11th.

So this courtyard is a place were there is a lot of sensitivity to how the government does respond in an attack.

Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Barbara Starr, live from the Pentagon this morning. Thanks very much.

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