Operation Dark Winter

Operation Dark Winter was the code name for a senior-level bio-terrorist attack simulation conducted on June 22 - 23, 2001. It was designed to carry out a mock version of a covert and widespread smallpox attack on the United States. Tara O'Toole and Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies (CCBS) / Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Randy Larsen and Mark DeMier of ANSER were the principal designers, authors, and controllers of the Dark Winter project.

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Dark Winter was focused on evaluating the inadequacies of a national emergency response during the use of a biological weapon against the American populace. The exercise was solely intended to establish preventive measures and response strategies by increasing governmental and public awareness on the magnitude and potential of such a threat posed by biological weapons.

Dark Winter's simulated scenario involved a localized smallpox attack on Oklahoma City. The simulation was then designed to spiral out of control. This would create a contingency in which the National Security Council struggles to determine both the origin of the attack as well as deal with containing the spreading virus. By not being able to keep pace with the disease's rate of spread, a new catastrophic contingency emerges in which massive civilian casualties would overwhelm America's emergency response capabilities.

The disastrous contingencies that would result in the massive loss of civilian life were used to exploit the weaknesses of the U.S. health care infrastructure and its inability to handle such a threat. The contingencies were also meant to address the widespread panic that would emerge and of which would result in mass social breakdown and mob violence. Exploits would also include the many difficulties that the media would face when providing American citizens with the necessary information regarding safety procedures.

Key Participants

9/11 Coincidence

Dark Winter participants viewed five simulated news broadcasts which provided news of the smallpox outbreak as it unfolded. In one of the simulated news broadcasts, the TV anchorperson reported that no group had claimed responsibility for the attack just like no group had claimed responsibility to the September 11th attacks at first, then implicates Iraq and a terrorist group based in Afghanistan as being involved in the simulated smallpox attack which rumors heavily persisted at first that Iraq was involved with the September 11th attacks and Al-Qaeda, a terrorist group who is based in Afghanistan, was eventually blamed for the attacks. Adding to the coincidence, former CIA Director James Woolsey, who played the CIA Director in Operation Dark Winter, was one of the main voices that suggested Iraq was somehow involved with the 9/11 attacks.