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by Daryl Khan, Dan Janison and Pete Bowles
Saying the city is as prepared as it can be for any disasters, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly Wednesday tended to downplay warnings from federal officials of possible terrorist attacks in the U.S. this summer.
Bloomberg and Kelly, at separate news briefings, noted that the city has been on a high state of alert since the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001, and said the warnings detailed by Attorney General Johbn Ashcroft are not related to any specific threats against New York City.
"We're at a higher state of readiness than the rest of the country; we're doing a variety of things and we're going to continue to do those," Kelly said. "You'll see some different variations of different tactics we're using. But in essence we're using the same resources that we have in the past."
His comments came after Ashcroft said federal officials have "credible intelligence from multiple sources" that al-Quaida is determined to launch an attack in the United States in the next few months that could be linked to the political conventions in New York and Boston.
"At the moment there does not seem to be any threat to any particular city, any new evidence that terrorists from overseas are here in the United States," Bloomberg said. "It tends to be the general non-specific chatter."
The mayor said the general public should leave the worrying "to the professionals."
"In the meantime I think what all of us should do is go about our business and enjoy the greatest city, and not walk away and lock ourselves up," he said. "That's what the terrorists want you to do, and we're not going to do it." Bloomberg was asked if there might be a danger that the public would ignore the warnings because of his use of the word "chatter."
"I suppose there is a danger," he said. "But unless all of you want to change what you're doing, I don't know that I can do anything about it."
In a related development, two fire union officials Wednesday criticized the city's protocols for dealing with disaster scenes as "misguided" and said they fail to meet federal requirements.
The guidelines recently adopted by the Bloomberg administration call for the Police Department to take charge at a biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear hazardous-material incident while the Fire Department "will be responsible for life safety operations and mass decontamination."
"It is impossible to be responsible for life safety and not be in command of the emergency from the outset," Stephen Cassidy and Peter Gorman, presidents respectively of the Uniformed Firefighters Association and the Uniformed Fire Officer's Association, said in a letter to Thomas Ridge, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The officials asked for a meeting with Ridge and his staff to discuss the guidelines. The agency did not immediately respond to inquiries from Newsday.
Staff writer William Murphy contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc
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