Holden names adviser on homeland security

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Gov. Bob Holden has named a retired Army colonel to serve as a special adviser on homeland security -- a Cabinet-level position mirroring one created recently by President Bush.

Timothy Daniel, a former strategist at the Pentagon and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was hired Wednesday to review Missouri's emergency response plans in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Holden said Missouri is one of the first states to create such a position. He said Daniel would serve as a liaison to Tom Ridge, the newly named national director of homeland security.

"If and when another crisis hits, Missourians can have every confidence that all resources will be in place to protect their lives and property," Holden said during a review of state emergency preparedness with Cabinet officials and state military leaders.

Daniel, 51, of Columbia, said he will start work immediately, focusing first on Missouri's crisis response plans and then on deterrence and prevention. He will earn $100,000 and remain on the job up to a year.

Daniel's appointment came as state emergency officials outlined their anti-terrorist efforts to about 75 upper-level government and military leaders at the State Emergency Management Agency's command center near Jefferson City.

Since 1998, the state has led 326 emergency training classes and cities and counties have conducted 45 emergency exercises, said SEMA Director Jerry Uhlmann.

Response unit formed

The Health Department created a bioterrorism and emergency response unit two years ago and recently began thrice weekly calls to 1,000 sites statewide to detect any early health symptoms of biological or chemical agents, said department director Maureen Dempsey.

When terrorists crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Holden headed immediately to the SEMA command center. Within two hours of the initial attack, the state emergency management system was up and running, the governor said.

Law officers and military personal were put on alert, security was stepped up at government buildings and nuclear plants and the Health Department and American Red Cross prepared a response. Members of Missouri's urban search and rescue team were called to New York to aid in the recovery efforts at the World Trade Center.

Rapid assessment

Daniel said Missouri's emergency plans appear to be in good shape, but he pledged a rapid assessment with recommended improvements for Holden.

"To do our job in this war against terrorism, we must be vigilant and seek to deter," he told state emergency officials and the media. "We must be prepared to prevent attempted acts of terrorism, and we must be poised to minimize the consequences of any attack."

Daniel said his priorities include responses to and safeguards against attacks using chemicals, nuclear weapons and enhanced conventional weapons. Biological warfare, while also considered in state precautions, seems a less likely terrorist tactic due to its difficult logistics and less-than-immediate effects, he said.

Daniel has 28 years of military experience. He retired in August as the strategic planner and adviser to the chief of engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

From 1997 through 2000, Daniel was the garrison commander at Fort Leonard Wood. And from 1995 to 1997, he was a long-range strategic planner at the Pentagon, where he initiated the "Army After Next" program that seeks to transform the Army for future types of war.

He also has served through the military in Israel, France and Turkey.

Holden pledged that Daniel's office would not become a new bureaucracy within state government.