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Illinois will Play Role of Terrorist Target in Disaster Exercise

Thursday, April 24, 2003
(6:12 PM CT)
By Phillip O'Connor
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Most of the activity in Illinois during TopOff 2 will take place in the Chicago area and Springfield. Many of the details of the drill are being kept secret to enhance the realism.

ILLINOIS -- SLP-D
Talk about a bad week. Over five days next month, Illinois will be the target of a bio-terror attack, the site of an airplane crash and revealed as the lair of several al-Qaida sleeper cells.

The incidents are part of a massive national disaster exercise designed to test the preparedness of local, state and federal officials to deal with a worst-case scenario involving weapons of mass destruction. The drill also will include the explosion of a radiological dispersion device, or "dirty bomb," in Seattle.

The exercise, ordered by Congress, is dubbed TopOff 2 - short for top officials - and will run for five days beginning May 12.

"It gives us a chance to stress our systems and see where they fail, and then go back and fix them in a situation where nobody dies," said Michael Chamness, who heads Illinois' terrorism task force. "It's really going to be a great chance for us to learn some lessons in Illinois and also for the rest of the country to take advantage of Chicago and Seattle being guinea pigs. I fully expect us to find some weaknesses and gaps in our plan."

TopOff 1 took place in 2000 and involved a radiological attack on Washington, a chemical attack on Portsmouth, N.H., and a biological attack in Denver.
(More: STLToday.com)
2003 © The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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