Bird flu war game!?

What is going on?

First nuke- drill,and now 48 hours, drill and simulation of how Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would coordinate with other government branches for POSSIBLE PANDEMIC - an outbreak of avian flu on American soil.

'the next stage of the exercise to be held over the summer will start with the assumption that the bird flu outbreak has become a full blown pandemic.'


Are they telling us something!?

ATLANTA, April 27 (Reuters) - A leading U.S. health agency staged a war game this week to test its response to one of the worst health emergencies it could imagine -- an outbreak of avian flu on American soil.

"If we were at the beginning of a pandemic this is exactly what it would look like," said CDC Director Julie Gerberding at a news conference early in the 48-hour drill, which involved hundreds of officials.

If things turn out wrong it could lead to a "catastrophe beyond our planning," she said.

In the script, a student infected with a new strain of H5N1 virus returns from Indonesia where a bird flu outbreak is under way. He dies but not before infecting others including members of a swimming team.

reuters



[edit on 28-4-2007 by blue bird]

One of the functions of government agenncies is to plan for things that may never happen. One way to test the plans is to use wargames or simulations. If you think it seems outlandish to test a response to a possible outbreak of avian flu, take a look back in history and check out the Rainbow war plans...as late as 1940 (and possibly later, but I don't think so), the War Department was drawing up (and wargaming) plans for a naval war with the U.K. as well as Japan.

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
.as late as 1940 (and possibly later, but I don't think so), the War Department was drawing up (and wargaming) plans for a naval war with the U.K. as well as Japan.

See - and than what happened...War!?

Your paranoid imo.

Would you rather your country had no drills and were ill prepared?

Am I?
I am just sceptic about scare tactics....or about stockpiling useless and potentially dangerous vaccine and drugs for a “bird flu pandemic“....

I can see you belive everything they told you - well, goody for you.

'They' have told me nothing.

If there were no drills and war games, when something bad did occur then no one would be prepared.

I don't get scared that the government is going to burn me alive whenever there is a fire drill.

Methinks you miss the point of the Rainbow plans.

Frankly, a war between the US and Japan sometime between the 1920's and the 1940's was pretty much a given. Both nations were intent on laying claim to areas of the South Pacific that the other considered 'vital to their national interest'. Sooner or later, somebody was going to cross the line between 'diplomatic incident' and 'casus belli'. The fact that the US Navy had practiced for the event doesn't represent a conspiracy to start a war, just a desire to be ready for one if and when it happened.

Incidentally, if you think that having a plan / wargame / drill means that we're actually pushing to start a war with someone, you might take a look at the list of color-code warplans that are known to have existed:

War Plan Black: US v Germany
War Plan Brown: Philippine Uprising
War Plan Citron: US v Brazil
War Plan Red: US v UK
War Plan Crimson / Ruby / Scarlet / Garnet: Sub-plans of War Plan Red for operations against Canada / India / Australia / New Zealand
War Plan Emerald: US v Ireland (Another sub-plan of Plan Red)
War Plan Gray: Carribean counterinsurgency
War Plan Green: US v Mexico
War Plan Gold: US v France
War Plan Indigo: US vs Iceland
War Plan Lemon: US v Portugal
War Plan Olive: US v Spain
War Plan Orange: US v Japan
War Plan Purple: US v Russia
War Plan Silver: US v Italy
War Plan Tan: US v Cuba
War Plan Yellow: US v China

Of those, the only ones that 'resulted' in a war were WP Black, WP Silver, and WP Orange (operations against the Axis powers). In short, just because we draw up plans (and even wargames) doesn't mean that we're trying to start a war...they're just what the label says...plans and practice, just in case.

Nice...but really it is just a coincidence that before 9/11 // 'During the terror attacks of September 11, the U.S. military ran over 15 drills and war games. This was the highest concentration of military drills ever in one day'// there was a drill....and 7/7 London bombing: drill just before...

And than again, I can see that drills are having impact : how would it Katrina look if responsible government sectors were not prepared lol?

"During the terror attacks of September 11, the U.S. military ran over 15 drills and wargames..." In what period of time? Obviously not while the attacks were taking place, which would be the literal interpretation of that comment. I'm not disputing the accuracy of the statement (yet), but I would ask that you cite a source for it, and place it in some sort of context.

As for Katrina and the aftermath, one of the problems that became *very* obvious, very fast, was that there had NOT been enough 'drills' or 'practice runs'...had there been, we would still have had a royal mess, but we might have been spared the type of screwups that drills tend to iron out...things like not having common communications protocols set up in advance, or having evacuation routes and alternates already mapped out.

[edit on 29-4-2007 by Brother Stormhammer]

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
but I would ask that you cite a source for it, and place it in some sort of context.

As for Katrina and the aftermath, one of the problems that became *very* obvious, very fast, was that there had NOT been enough 'drills' or 'practice runs'...had there been, we would still have had a royal mess, but we might have been spared the type of screwups that drills tend to iron out...things like not having common communications protocols set up in advance, or having evacuation routes and alternates already mapped out.

[edit on 29-4-2007 by Brother Stormhammer]

During the terror attacks of September 11, the U.S. military ran over 15 drills and war games. This was the highest concentration of military drills ever in one day. These included:
Vigilant Guardian, Northern Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, Northern Vigilance, Amalgam Warrior, Global Guardian, Crown Vigilance, Apollo Guardian, the NRO plane-crash drill, and AWACS drill over Florida and Washington DC, FEMA’s TRIPOD II and Timely Alert II drills in NYC, and the Fort Meyer, VA fireman drills near the Pentagon.
The hijacking drills successfully confused the FAA and NORAD into thinking that as many as 29 jets were hijacked on the morning of September 11. With so many radar blips going across the screen and simulated hijackings running, many low level NORAD and FAA employees did not know that the attacks were real. Then, upon discovering they were real, they had to take precious time to separate the fake radar blips from the real ones.

source

*global guardian


* aha...Katrina was just because of there was not enough drills
sure....