Security summit has high-tech flair
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer
It's billed as an international gathering of top-level defense experts, but at times yesterday the exhibit area of the Asia-Pacific Homeland Security Summit in Waikiki looked more like a giant PlayStation 2 convention.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
Huge plasma screen displays flashed interactive graphics of overseas military operations or civilians dying in American cities. Global positioning system displays zoomed out of Baghdad and zoomed back in on Honolulu. And a mannequin so lifelike that it had a heartbeat and bleeding leg, lay on a table dying, only to be revived by a would-be medic.
Jack Norfleet of the Army's Research Development & Engineering Command shows off a mannequin designed to be a first-aid instructional tool. The dummy bleeds, breathes, moves and has a pulse.
Through it all crowds of people, some in uniform and others in aloha wear, moved up and down, selling or looking for the next tool to give them a technological edge in fighting the world's war on terrorism.
"We're trying to show how some of the technology being created today can be harnessed and used to keep the country safe," said Jack Norfleet, the principal investigator for medical simulation technologies in the Army's Research Development and Engineering Command, which helped developed the computerized mannequin.
More than 500 military, government and business experts from Hawai'i, the Mainland and Asia-Pacific nations will spend the next two days sharing information about deadly and serious security topics, including hearing today from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey.
Yesterday's opening of an exhibit space and following reception hosted by Gov. Linda Lingle, however, had a rather festive feel as delegates saw some of the latest eye-popping developments in the field.
One company air-shipped in a million-dollar coastal surveillance vehicle, complete with radar, thermal imaging and video cameras. Another Mainland exhibitor offered a complete "training in a box" system capable of simulating chemical clouds or an urban terror attack.
Navatek Ltd., best known locally for its sunset cruise vessel, spent $10,000 to be a summit sponsor and show off its latest hull designs, which could be perfect for small, high-speed security boats, said company vice president Michael Schmicker.
"Mostly we're not here for the business opportunities but more to help the state," which put together the conference in part to showcase Hawai'i as a potential development and training area for the booming international security business, Schmicker said.
"We go to one of these conferences almost every month," said Steven Preston, engineering manager for the Cubic Defense Application Group, which was demonstrating its new I-HITS (Initial Homestation Instrumentation Training System), which can be adapted to both military and civilian uses.
The hit of the show was the Army's 8-by-10-foot 3-D video screen showing simulated scenes of a cordoned-off Philadelphia neighborhood that had been hit by a chemical attack.
Trainees can use the video, which also can be projected in surrounding screens or on a helmet visor, to help evaluate possible threats and learn to respond, then turn to hands-on medical training on the mannequin.
"It can be a real life-changing event," Norfleet said. "It can feel so real that people will start to sweat or feel their heart racing as they're working on the mannequin. They don't want to see him die."
James Grosse, also with the Army's research development and engineering command, admitted that the military is sometimes taking its clues from the computer gaming world.
"We're probably a generation behind the commercial sector," Grosse said. "Sometimes we take what they're using in an Xbox and we just leverage their technology."
It wasn't all gee-whiz stuff.
Down at one end of the room, John Nichols, the Honolulu representative of Henkels & McCoy was selling something far more down-to-earth: locking "no access" manhole covers.
"People have to worry about the practical nuts and bolts kinds of things like this, too," Nichols said. "It would only take one grenade down the right manhole to wipe out business for days."
Not everyone is pleased that Hawai'i is hosting the security summit. Several groups that promote peace spoke Tuesday against it, accused the state of "militarizing of the Pacific," specifically Hawai'i.
The groups opposed to the summit include the Hawai'i Coalition for the Bill of Rights, American Friends Service Committee, Not In Our Name-Hawai'i, Not In Our Name-University of Hawai'i Chapter, DMZ-Aloha 'Aina, Refuse & Resist, and University Peace Initiative.
Carolyn Hadfield, organizer with Not In Our Name-Hawai'i, said the state is promoting a conference that is aimed at limiting the freedom of people under the guise of security.
"What's being promoted at this summit is the business of U.S. empire," Hadfield said. "The real question is what kind of world do we want? A world of militarization and repression, or a world that values freedom and seeks free association between human beings?"
Today's sessions at the Hilton Hawaiian Village hotel include a speech by Woolsey on "The Long War of the 21st century," a video conference address by Ridge and sessions on security for transportation, threat assessment and lessons learned from homeland security exercises.
Advertiser staff writer Curtis Lum contributed to this report. Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.
