OT: FW: [globalnews] Terror Risk at Chemical Plants; French plantexplosion just after 911 was terrorism, say new investigations

[Jane Sherry]

Title: OT: FW: [globalnews] Terror Risk at Chemical Plants; French plant explosion just after 911 was terrorism, say new investigations

The Village Voice

Mondo Washington

by James Ridgeway
February 19 - 25, 2003

Without Chemicals, Life Might Be Possible

Without Chemicals, Life Might Be Possible

Deadly Plants

Among the most hellish scenarios for terrorist catastrophes in New York would involve saboteurs blowing up one of the nearby chemical plants across the river in New Jersey. Prevailing westerly winds would waft the toxins across the Hudson over a helpless Manhattan. Next to bioterrorism, reported the U.S. Surgeon General, chemical emissions would be the worst possible eventuality in a terrorist attack. There are 120 major chemical plants in the U.S., each one potentially threatening the lives of a million people. A government investigation reports that their safety precautions run from "fair to poor." "Worst case scenarios" filed with the Environmental Protection Agency reveal just how devastating this could be—one plant in New Jersey could emit enough toxic chemicals to poison 12 million people.

Even without a terrorist strike, toxic releases pose a horrendous problem in the U.S., with 600,000 accidents reported over the past decade. New York state, with over 25,000 accidents, is fourth highest.

The passage of the Homeland Security Act actually has made it harder to protect ourselves against such potentially deadly accidents. That's because the new laws prevent citizens from investigating the chemical industry's operations under the Freedom of Information Act or through government whistle-blowers who discover and report a danger. Under the new set of laws, they will lose their jobs if they blow the whistle.

Terrorists are well aware of the possibilities. Just 10 days after the planes hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, a huge explosion rocked the area near Toulouse in southern France, killing 30 people and injuring many others. At first, authorities laid the blame on faulty equipment in the plant. More recently, French publications have unearthed a classified memo from France's super-secret spook bureau, the Renseignements Généraux, an equivalent to our National Security Agency, that instead points to a network of Islamic terrorists. The plot supposedly stretches its tentacles to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the east, a hidden base in London, and a pot of money in New York, according to investigations by Le Figaro and L'Express . Whether any of this goes anywhere is hard to know, but it has created something of a sensation in Paris. So far, neither hypothesis—of an accident or of a terror attack—has been completely discounted.
--
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better
than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not
your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May
your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our
countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August
1, 1776.