Pine Bluff Commercial
November 21, 2002

ARSENAL PREPARED FOR WAR ON TERROR

By Wesley Brown/Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK -- Just one day after Congress approved a bill creating the Homeland Security Department, the commander at the Pine Bluff Arsenal said the war on terrorism will be fought on two fronts.

Col. Mark Henscheid, who took command of the Pine Bluff Arsenal one month before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks on Wednesday called President Bush's mission to wipe out international terrorism a major undertaking that will take all of the nation's resources.

"It is an ugly threat and an ugly foe," Henscheid said of terrorism.

He said the new Homeland Security Department will take the lead role in the war on terrorism with the nation's military taking on a supporting role.

"We are in the second year of this war on terrorism," Henscheid said. "The front line troops are now the nation's (civilian) first responders."

Henscheid gave a 90-minute presentation during the three-day International Neurotoxicological Conference at the Peabody Little Rock, sponsored by the Arsenal, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the National Center for Toxicological Research.

Henscheid told the group of more than 100 conference attendees that it will take three to five years before the new department will be effective, but added that the Pine Bluff Arsenal will be a crucial part of the agency.

"From my foxhole, the Arsenal will play an important role in the success of where we want to go in the initiative on homeland security," Henscheid said. "Our role will be vital to that success."

After Henscheid's presentation, Larry Wright, the civilian executive assistant at the Arsenal, said the Pine Bluff facility is already involved in a number of activities related to homeland defense, especially those related to chemical and biological warfare.

"Our primary value to national defense ... is that we provide 85 percent of the chemical and biological munitions and weapons" for the U.S. military, Wright said.
He also said well before the 9-11 attacks, the Arsenal participated in training more than 20,000 first responders through the Department of Justice and American Red Cross programs involved in the areas of "weapons of mass destruction" awareness.

James Bacon, head of a governor's task force aimed at landing a government-owned vaccine production facility, said he believes the process to select a site by the federal government will speed up with the passage of the homeland security bill.

"I believe a decision on where this facility will be located is imminent," Bacon said. The facility is expected to cost $1.5 billion and support a work force of nearly 200 jobs with an average annual salary of $31,000 a year.

"And I believe the Arsenal meets all the qualifications that (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld is looking for," he said.

Just last week, a defense contractor announced that it had booked $320 million over the next two years, part of which will hasten the cleanup of the chemical warfare stockpile at the Pine Bluff Arsenal.

The Arsenal is one of eight sites in the U.S. that houses the Department of Defense's chemical weapon inventory. The Army is overseeing construction of an incinerator to burn the weapons at the Arsenal, which stores about 12 percent of the country's stockpile.