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This session presented information on, and raised issues about, new federal programs on counter-terrorism which were labeled with multiple titles including "Weapons of Mass Destruction;" "Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense (or NBC);" and "Domestic Preparedness." Speakers led the audience through a multiplicity of organizational charts or "wiring diagrams" that illustrated a complex set of inter- and intra-organizational arrangements to implement these congressionally mandated and presidentially endorsed efforts. These programs are implemented through the U.S. Army Director for Military Support in conjunction with a multi-agency task force. The program has dual elements: preparedness and response.
The major preparedness activities are training and exercising response personnel in 120 selected cities across the country by the end of 2002. Distance learning programs, self study guides, and Department of Justice Training Centers will supplement the 120 cities program which will train 68,000 of the estimated 5 million emergency response personnel in the country. The response element involves providing local fire fighters with detection equipment and personal protective equipment to enable their immediate response to an incident, and federal support in an emergency. The latter includes a large number of resources in 16 functional areas carried out by the Army's regional Response Task Forces and the National Guard's RAID teams stationed in one state in each of FEMA's 10 regions. A plethora of federal resources would start to converge on the site of a terrorist act approximately six hours after notification is made.
Federal response would be implemented under the Federal Response Plan used to coordinate federal actions for all disasters with federal involvement. A special annex on terrorism will be added to the plan, The key difference for terrorism is the automatic presence of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) who will be in command of "Crisis Management" -- gathering evidence and prosecuting perpetrators of the terrorist act. FEMA will be in charge of "Consequence Management" -- alleviating losses, providing relief, and assisting in recovery. The Public Health Service will lead federal efforts to deliver nine medical response functions.
Several central issues emerged from this session. The first concerned the military versus civilian perspective on the program. The Army view was that some new elements called the "NBC delta" would be `layered' on top of existing local emergency programs. The civilian view was that counter-terrorism needed to be integrated into a multi-hazard program in order to succeed. The second major issue concerned the feasibility of building a federal, state, and local partnership and maintaining it and coordinating it over time. Most agreed that local government was better off with the program because of the training elements. Skeptics were concerned about whether or not the risks of terrorism warranted the cost of these resource-rich programs. The audience also raised issues of differences in civilian and military emergency response paradigms, Emergency Operations Centers crowded with unused equipment, lack of local or regional stockpiles of pharmaceuticals, and potential threats to civil liberties.
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