An attack on the United States with biological weapons could threaten vital national security interests.government and public in the years to come." Summary of findings Īccording to UPMC's Center for Health Security, Dark Winter outlined several key findings with respect to the United States healthcare system's ability to respond to a localized bioterrorism event: Discussing the outcome of Dark Winter, Bryan Walsh noted "The timing-just a few months before the 9/11 attack-was eerily prescient, as if the organizers had foreseen how the threat of terrorism, including bioterrorism, would come to consume the U.S. Exploits would also include the many difficulties that the media would face when providing American citizens with the necessary information regarding safety procedures. The contingencies were also meant to address the widespread panic that would emerge and which would result in mass social breakdown and mob violence. health care infrastructure and its inability to handle such a threat. The disastrous contingencies that would result in the massive loss of civilian life were used to exploit the weaknesses of the U.S. By not being able to keep pace with the disease's rate of spread, a new catastrophic contingency emerges in which massive civilian casualties would overwhelm America's emergency response capabilities. This would create a contingency in which the National Security Council struggles to determine both the origin of the attack as well as deal with containing the spreading virus. The simulation was then designed to spiral out of control. The exercise was intended to establish preventive measures and response strategies by increasing governmental and public awareness of the magnitude and potential of such a threat posed by biological weapons.ĭark Winter's simulated scenario involved an initial localized smallpox attack on Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with additional smallpox attack cases in Georgia and Pennsylvania. Tara O'Toole and Tom Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies (CCBS) / Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Randy Larsen and Mark DeMier of Analytic Services were the principal designers, authors, and controllers of the Dark Winter project.ĭark Winter was focused on evaluating the inadequacies of a national emergency response during the use of a biological weapon against the American populace. It was designed to carry out a mock version of a covert and widespread smallpox attack on the United States.
#What is project winter code#
Operation Dark Winter was the code name for a senior-level bio-terrorist attack simulation conducted on June 22–23, 2001.
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