Speech Presented GenCon Seminar
at the National Press Club, Washington, DC
October 24, 2001
By C. L. Staten
CEO and Sr. National Security Analyst,
Emergency Response & Research Institute
"Terrorism experts warned for years that federal, state and local governments were ill-prepared to handle a biological attack, and elaborate drills found glaring gaps in coordination, communication and command. This month, real life looked frighteningly like the practice runs." - Source: "Bioterror Drills Warned of Gaps in Preparedness," by TODD S. PURDUM and ALISON MITCHELL,The New York Times, Saturday 20 October, 2001
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Given consideration of recent events in New York City, Washington DC, in Boca Raton, Florida, and elsewhere in the world, it is our belief that serious consideration must be given at this time in regard to the actual capabilities of our nation's Fire, Police, EMS, Disaster and Medical services, as they relate to their ability to respond to terrorist acts.
Just as American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines, are on the front line in Afghanistan -- as we saw in New York City -- America's Fire, Police, EMS, Disaster and Medical responders are on the front lines in the battle against terrorism within the United States. The very nature of Asymmetric or 4th generation warfare makes it incumbent that all necessary measures be implemented to enable a necessary consequence and crisis management solution to the very real problems that now face our nation.
Therefore, and given the short time that we have to make this presentation, we feel it necessary to address just three essential issues. These basic concerns involve training, equipment, and inter-agency cooperation among governmental/emergency agencies:
Training
It should rightfully be noted that our country has begun our efforts to better protect our country. Many responders in a selected 120 cities have received at least rudimentary course work in regard to chemical, biological, and nuclear terrorist events and that is certainly an important preliminary contribution to our nation's defense. This report is not intended as a criticism of these efforts...the time for that is past. But, it should be noted that any number of emergency responders, who have received these training courses, tell us that they do not feel comfortable with their current level of preparedness concerning terrorism topics and that many do not feel ready to engage in an actual tactical response to a terrorist event.
Perhaps, more important than any criticism concerning the effectiveness or focus of past training efforts, is the fact that outside of those hundred and twenty previously selected cities, a conservative estimate would suggest that in excess of 50 percent of America's first responders have received little or no training in regard to basic terrorist response issues. In our view, this is a major deficiency in our country's overall homeland defense efforts.
A thoughtful review of current events should prompt careful consideration of continuing threats and the possibility for both future domestic and international terrorist events. In light of these circumstances, we must recommend at this juncture that all responders in the country must receive at least basic training concerning response to terrorist incidents and that this training must be completed as soon as possible. We also believe that a secondary group of emergency personnel must receive an even more advanced level of education concerning these topics, so that they might teach and mentor others in the future.
A second important training issue involves the fact that, so far, the basic curriculums for firefighters, police officers and EMT's or paramedics have not been changed to include instructional modules or relevant reference materials in regard to terrorism. It should be noted that if entry level training is not quickly modified to include basic materials concerning terrorist response, and specifically designed for all of the disciplines involved, that newly emerging firefighters, police officers, EMTs & Paramedics, nurses and doctors will be no more prepared that their present contemporaries.
A third matter involves the fact that appropriate continuing education is not being conducted for presently serving first response personnel. For some unknown reason, a number of emergency response agencies, and those planning seminars and conferences, would appear to be maintaining their long term schedules of continuing education topics, many of which may be redundant or even repetitive in nature...and virtually none of which address the issue of responding to terrorist events. It would be our view that priority must be given to including relevant terrorism topics in various future educational offerings held throughout the country and that the federal government provide financial and logistical support for such efforts.
Information recently received by ERRI would suggest that at least one well-known national organization, that traditionally has helped plan, certify, and carry out essential educational plans for medical first responders and practitioners, have begun the process of developing a terrorism course for their constituency. A current review of these plans, however, would also suggest that alleged bureaucratic hurdles and institutional procedures may delay the actual implementation of these necessary courses for as long as two years. It should now be realized that given the tactical and strategic situation in the United States, that our country may not have two years in order to prepare for the next terrorist attack
In addition to classroom instruction and reference materials, it is probably even more important that all of the country's emergency service agencies engage in realistic drills and practice sessions, which will challenge their capabilities and enable them to ascertain possible deficiencies in their plans and training. These drills and planning sessions must include decision makers from all of the agencies who would conceivably respond or be responsible for involvement in an actual terrorist attack. And, it is respectfully suggested that these exercises be monitored and evaluated by outside (and expert) personnel, who have no vested interest in the outcome of the drills.
Equipment
At the present time, one of the greatest deficiencies in most response agencies is a lack of appropriate equipment to test for, and quickly identify toxic substances. A review of any number of recent suspected releases of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) would indicate that the greatest difficulty encountered by Hazardous Materials teams, is the identification of the products/agents involved. This problem can only be compounded if or when the "bad guys" decide to use multiple biological or chemical agents in the same incident... and great caution is urged about potentially developing complacency prompted by an excessive numbers of "hoax" incidents.
Secondarily, a preliminary review of recent incidents allegedly involving anthrax would suggest that great difficulties exist in resolving our ability to rapidly identify a potentially toxic agent which may -- or may not - - be present. What is really needed by first responders at this time is a small handheld device that will quickly identify both chemical and biological agents, and do so with the smallest possible margin of error. Resources should be shifted to the production of such units at the earliest opportunity.
Another vitally important problem involves the fact that any number of emergency service agencies still do not have the appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment (PPE) necessary to respond to a potential chem/bio/nuclear terrorist incident. This issue would appear particularly pertinent to both law enforcement and EMS personnel, many of whom do not presently have protective equipment. While fire departments may have the appropriate protective clothing and equipment to enable them to enter a potentially toxic environment, they most probably do not have the necessary number of trained personnel to carry out other essential duties at the scene of a WMD terrorism event.
Interagency Cooperation
The largest problem that America's emergency service and military agencies must presently confront, is the fact that it would appear that the "bad guys" have so far shown themselves able to disrupt or anticipate our governmental "decision-making OODA (Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action) loops." It is believed that only by engaging in greater and faster communication, coordination, and cooperation, will our official agencies be able to understand the true tactical and strategic situation and then be able to rapidly respond to the terrorist actions. Bureaucratic or "cubbyhole" (Toffler et al) mentalities will only impede our ability to counter or interdict terrorist action. Continued involvement in a "not invented here" syndromes, imagined jurisdictional issues, "turf wars" and/or other "empire building" behavior will not serve our country well in its future "War on Terrorism."
In our opinion, America's emergency response and medical agencies must quickly develop a mindset that is similar in practice (not necessarily in content) to that used by the U.S. military. The concept involves the use of communications, command, control, (computers) and intelligence (C3-4I) techniques that could facilitate the organization and hasten the decision-making loop of integrated forces, while they attempt to manage one or more significant incidents. A fairly typical, simple, and yet important suggestion to meet future needs might include the upgrading of emergency and military radio systems so that they have at least one interchangeable frequency upon which everyone can communicate at the onset of a significant incident.
It is also believed that a number of the methods and technologies, currently utilized by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies are transferable to the emergency response community and could fairly quickly be implemented. Additionally and as we have stated in any number of previous public statements, a review of past events, and a realistic assessment of future events would suggest a probable necessity for even greater cooperation between military (particularly National Guard) and emergency service forces.
Further, greater communication and information sharing between investigatory and response agencies would also only seem prudent at this juncture. Given the evolving nature of ongoing events and in an attempt to prevent future terrorist acts, the rapid dissemination and analysis of information has become mandatory in our current threat environment. In addition, some alternative must be found to allow current dissemination of classified or law enforcement sensitive materials to all agencies involved in a terrorist incident. The information flow between Washington and local communities must be in two directions, if we are to hope to be most effective. On-going and "real-time" interdisciplinary exchanges of information and analysis must become mandatory if we are to hope to "out-think" and "out-perform" our adversaries.
Some Observations and Recommendations:
It is certainly not just the intent of this presentation to point out the problems that currently exist. But, rather, we would hope to offer some alternatives that might be of assistance in future training and planning efforts:
1. It is our belief that additional training must be extended immediately, by the use of any means available. We need to leverage technology, to include distribution of CD-ROM training courses, online web courses, reference materials on-line, and satellite telecom training programs can and should also be conducted as soon as possible. Efforts should also be dramatically increased the use of effective train-the-trainer type programs. Bottom line. we believe that it is necessary at this time to quickly increase the number of emergency responders who have received at least basic training in regard to terrorist response.
3. The training of both military and police/security personnel must be updated to enable them to mentally assimilate a rapidly changing or deteriorating tactical situation, and then enable them to quickly adapt to the new environment. It should be noted that a failure to rapidly and appropriately adapt to changing tactical and strategic circumstances can lead to the unnecessary deaths or injuries of friendly forces.
2. We feel it necessary, as previously noted, to encourage and facilitate the development of a "lessons learned database" in order to better understand the mistakes that have been made in both training drills and terrorist incidents that have actually occurred. Study of this database could prove beneficial in establishing future priorities for training, education, and further tactical development.
3. Emergency planners should be aware that the release of any CW/BW agent is likely to induce a psychological reaction on the part of a largely unprotected civilian population. Our recent experience with anthrax incidents, both real and imagined, should point out the importance of this point. The primary counter to these effects must involve extensive participation by public information/affairs officers from all involved agencies and cooperation with the media. Extensive attempts must be made to prevent a "panic reaction" among those that might potentially be exposed to a warfare agent. It is anticipated that early interventions and authoritative statements by both technical experts and political leaders can help to defuse public feelings of confusion and fear...and thus lead citizens to appropriate behaviors. It is our belief that the psychogenic component of possible chemical/biological/nuclear terrorist attacks has not been given the proper attention.
4. Fourth, We also believe it necessary to develop a system of trusted "reach-back" experts, who can be consulted by local emergency personnel, in order to better empower leaders of local emergency response agencies to better understand the implications and implementation of both anti- and counter-terrorism measures.
5. Finally, prime consideration must be given to getting more 'bang for our counter-terrorism buck,' and avoiding duplication and overlap among agencies, to include all levels of government...all the way down to our local communities. Most of all, we need to find innovative ways to better communicate, cooperate, and coordinate between government agencies at all levels...our defensive efforts must move faster and be better implemented than those of the 'bad guys' if we are to avoid a major disaster.
In closing, I will be happy to address any questions, comments, or suggestions concerning these topics at the appropriate time...
Presented as Part II (of III) of a series of Homeland Defense Review articles, which are designed to promote thought, discussion, and encourage action in regard to better preparing America to defend itself against all terrorist enemies, foreign and domestic.
God Bless America!
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