BRITAIN IS UNPREPARED

Half of all councils in England have no evacuation plans to deal with a major terrorist attack. About 77% of authorities and 70% of police forces have no plans for dealing with people contaminated by chemical attack and only one of 28 health authorities has told the government it would be ready to tackle mass casualties.

The government carried out a survey to determine readiness for such an attack in October 2003, the first time since World War II. A report on terrorism preparedness and said the UK now had a "well-developed structure for emergency planning across the country with police, fire and ambulance services working together".

It said the NHS had received £85m to train for bio-terrorism and a further £56m had gone on decontamination equipment and training for fire services. Just over half of the local authorities, responsible for tackling emergencies, said they did not have mass evacuation plans. A quarter were working on them, but said they did not know when they would be ready.

Some 77% of authorities and 70% of police forces said they did not have plans on how to decontaminate members of the public in the event of a mass evacuation and nine out of 10 police forces, fire services and local authorities had no plans to deal with contaminated buildings.

More than half of authorities had not worked out how to dispose of contaminated debris, such as from destroyed buildings, in the event of an attack involving chemical, biological or radiological devices and four out of 10 councils admit they would not be able to cope with evacuations of more than 1,000 homes.

Only four out of 10 police forces had trained all the officers they said they needed for emergency terrorism response teams, and less than half had taken part in live drills for chemical, biological or radiological attack. Among the 28 strategic health authorities, only one said it was fully prepared for mass casualties. Of the others, 22 said they were almost ready and four said they were far less ready. One did not respond to the survey.

The prospect of a lethal attack worries the the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, who are in charge for the East Midlands. Jonathan Lofthouse, the QMC's head of emergency planning and a highly-trained silver-level commander in times of a serious attack, said, "We would not be able to cope with more than 500 to 600 people, if more than that are involved we are in trouble."

The hospital has two decontamination units and can treat about 25 patients an hour. The victims would be isolated and decontaminated in a special walk-through drench shower. But Mr Lofthouse said, "We are one of the few hospitals with lock-down system that prevents people from entering the premises, it forces patients to enter only by one route and people are decontaminated before they enter."

But he said in the case of a nuclear attack, the hospital would be seriously compromised. "We could only handle one or two injured an hour, it slows us down to a crawl because the procedure for dealing with them is so different," he said. But he insisted the hospital does have a high level of preparedness for emergencies and has practices on a regular basis, including four full-scale drills in 2004 with a multi-agency chemical spill exercise.

Nottinghamshire Police and the Government Office for the East Midlands would not comment on the exact level of preparedness for a dirty bomb attack in the region. MP Patrick Mercer, Tory shadow critic for Homeland Security, said, "The transport infrastructure, including the East Midlands Airport and the rail system, might be vulnerable as well as RAF bases in Lincolnshire. I don't think we are any better or worse protected than any other region in the country.

East Midlands Airport spokesman Ryan Martinez said his operation was prepared, "Our procedures and processes are under constant review, undergoing regular checks and evaluations. We will be performing an annual exercise at the airport which involves all sectors of the emergency services and key personnel."

Birmingham Council is providing support to Islamic terrorists. At a meeting held in the council owned Small Heath community centre, an Islamic extremist preached a message of hate against non-Muslims and praised the murderous attacks such as the 2001 Twin Towers attacks and the 2005 London bombings.

Abu Izzadeen who changed his name from Trevor Brooks is a spokesman for the Muslim group al-Ghurabaa, a successor to the notorious and now defunct al-Muhajiroun. He addressed the crowd in the council owned building with an anti-British, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian rant entitled “How Can We Prevent Another 7/7?”

During the speech, which was partly filmed, the benefit scrounger from East London can be seen making jokes about a black lady injured in the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attack on New York. He gloats about how Islamic suicide bombers murdered Spanish commuters in Madrid. He called upon Jews in the UK to condemn Israel threatening that otherwise there might be a repeat of the 7/7 attacks.

A spokeswoman for Birmingham City Council said it was concerned to hear about the allegations and it would “investigate”. So far no action has been taken by West Midlands Police to investigate the hate crimes committed by this apologist for terrorism. Birmingham City Council has denied the right of democratically elected BNP councillor Sharon Ebanks for the city's Kingstanding Ward to conduct surgeries in any council owned property. (Source: BNP, Jul/06)