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February 20, 2003

Pitt unlikely target for terrorism

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s director told a U.S. Senate committee last week that Al Queda terrorists are looking at universities “and other poorly defended locations” as possible targets.

University of Pittsburgh authorities on terrorism agree that American universities are soft targets — but that Pitt is a highly unlikely one.

“My theory is that, if you’re well-prepared, terrorists will go somewhere else where they can more easily achieve their political, religious or social goals. Pitt and its affiliated hospitals have taken very significant steps to prepare against both the threat of terrorist attacks and their consequences,” said Samuel J. Watson, director of the University’s Public Health and Bioterrorism Response Program. Watson also co-directs the Pitt-Carnegie Mellon University Biomedical Security Institute.

He pointed out that Pitt and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) maintain close ties to the Allegheny Health Department as well as the federally funded Metropolitan Medical Response System, which provides mutual aid and medical assistance among hospitals and increases preparedness against terrorist attacks and other disasters.

Watson also cited UPMC’s post-Sept. 11, 2001, stockpiling of anti-bioterrorism pharmaceuticals, installation of a $300,000 decontamination facility at UPMC Presbyterian, and training sessions to prepare UPMC personnel for coping with the health consequence of terrorist attacks, among other medical center initiatives.

And Watson noted that each of Pitt’s six Health Sciences schools is drafting a plan detailing how the school would deal with on-campus disasters (not exclusively terrorist attacks) and what its personnel can contribute to the larger community in the event of a disaster. “A lot of what we’re asking the schools to compile are nuts-and-bolts information on things like communication within each school,” said Jeffrey L. Masnick, Health Sciences associate vice chancellor for Administration, to whom the reports are supposed to be submitted this month. “For example, something as simple as a P.A. system — do all of our schools have one? If so, who has access to it? Who’s going to make announcements if there’s an emergency?”

There are lots of better, more inviting targets for terrorists than universities, said William W. Keller, the Wesley W. Posvar Chair in International Security Studies and director of the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies.

“If you bring down a major bridge, you can tie up a whole city. Destroy a major U.S. port and you can cripple international trade,” Keller said. “Blow up depots of petroleum and chemicals and you’ll likewise do far more damage than hitting a university, and the fact is that most of these facilities I mentioned aren’t very well-defended either.”

If terrorists did target U.S. universities, they would most likely attack three kinds, according to Keller:

• Schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that house nuclear reactors, which would cause widespread contamination if successfully sabotaged.

• Harvard and a handful of other, “super-prestigious” universities with international name recognition.

• Sprawling institutions in relatively isolated locations.

“Pitt doesn’t meet any of those criteria,” Keller said. “Also, it enjoys the advantage of close proximity to world-class hospitals where victims could be treated.”

Nonetheless, Keller said, it was irresponsible for FBI chief Robert S. Mueller III to publicly identify colleges and universities as being vulnerable to terror attacks.

“Not that it isn’t true,” said Keller. “There’s not much that universities can do to protect themselves, short of major expenditures in a time of tight budgets. But statements such as [Mueller’s] might give ideas to crazies among the American general public or to terrorists themselves, who may not have thought before of targeting higher education institutions in this country.”

The director of Pitt’s Department of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) office concurred with the assessment by Keller and Watson that Pitt is an unlikely target for terrorists.

Jay Frerotte said EHS began assessing Pitt’s vulnerability and readiness to address all chemical, biological and radiological threat “scenarios” in fall 2001.

“We have no nuclear facilities here, which might be a target. Regarding chemicals, we’ve inventoried that and we’ve queried all the faculty. We don’t have, in the kind of quantity, any chemicals typically mentioned as those used for weapons of mass destruction,” Frerotte said.

Frerotte said that his office took due note of the higher alert status from “yellow/elevated” to “orange/high” that was issued by the federal Department of Homeland Security last week. “I don’t mean to downplay it. But we haven’t created anything new [as a result of the warning upgrade]. There was no new threat. If we had had any new or specific threat, we would have reacted to that and we are prepared to react. We have reviewed our comprehensive procedures, looked at plans that are in place, and checked out all our emergency equipment,” Frerotte said.

“I also think we’re very well prepared as a University generally,” he said.

He cited the University’s Emergency Response Guidelines, revised in summer 2002, which have been distributed to all Pitt units, as an example of covering the bases.

—Bruce Steele and Peter Hart


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