Britain can cope with major terror threat: defence minister

LONDON (AFP) Mar 21, 2004
British Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon Sunday challenged the view of emergency services that Britain could not cope with the aftermath of a major terror attack, saying the country would react "properly and effectively."

Hoon was responding to a report in the newspaper Independent on Sunday quoting the leading emergency planner as saying Britain was hopelessly unprepared for a major terrorist attack like that in Madrid which claimed 202 lives.

"I simply don't accept that that is true," Hoon said on the ITV television channel: "I believe that significant efforts have been made, led by the Home Office, in order to ensure that we can react properly and effectively."

The chairman of the Emergency Planning Society was quoted in the Independent on Sunday as saying resources to deal with such an emergency had been reduced since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"We are concerned that our own emergency plans are not going to meet public expectations. It just does not make sense," Patrick Cunningham was quoted as saying.

While fire, police and ambulance services had received extra funding and equipment, local authority emergency planners could do little more than offer "a token gesture of support" following disaster, he said.

The Emergency Planning Society represents professionals involved in emergency planning and disaster management, and has a membership drawn from local government, industry, utilities and the emergency services.

Meanwhile Britain's top policeman, Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir John Stevens, said European countries must cooperate more closely to avoid a repeat of the Madrid attacks.

"There needs to be far more coordination between member states in Europe to counter this threat," Stevens said in a BBC television interview.

"I think Madrid is a big wake-up call to the fact that Europe needs to get its act in order in relation to that," said Stevens, who last week warned of the "inevitability" of a terrorist attack in Britain.

EU foreign ministers were set Monday to launch a week of Europe-wide talks aimed at forging a joint response to the Spanish bombings.

The EU's Irish presidency called an emergency meeting of interior ministers last Friday, at which the 15-member bloc threw its weight behind a range of measures to eradicate terrorism.

They agreed to create a new "Mr Terrorism" post to coordinate security strategy in the wake of Europe's worst act of terror since the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing.

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