TOPOFF exercise includes chemicals, airborne plague
TOPOFF exercise includes chemicals, airborne plague
$16 million exercise involved 10,000 participants
"TOPOFF3" — the largest counter-terrorism exercises in U.S. history — is now in the post-mortem analysis stage after simulated attacks that included a car bomb that dispersed a toxic chemical in Connecticut and airborne pneumonic plague in New Jersey.
The exercise involved approximately 10,000 participants from more than 275 government and private sector organizations at a cost of approximately $16 million. The attacks began April 4, 2005, after months of warnings and threats were gathered and analyzed during the operation’s new "intelligence" component.
"We want to find out where weaknesses are, in not just prevention, but also our response," says Marc Short, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). "This year there was an intelligence component added to the exercise that added a whole prevention element in addition to the response time."
Based on realistic threats
While simultaneous attacks may seem less likely to occur than a single incident, the scenarios were based on realistic threats, he explains. "At the same time, though, the purpose of the exercise is to test the system really to the breaking point," Short notes.
The idea was to create a lot of causalities, flood hospitals with incoming patients, and trigger response from a host of federal and state agencies. DHS officials still are analyzing the results, "but certainly a large component of the exercise was looking at the surge capacity in the hospitals," he says.
"We had to create a scenario that infected enough people and created enough causalities that would trigger multiple federal agencies to respond. The scenario that was created was intentionally catastrophic," Short continues.
The chemical dispersion via car bomb caused burn victims. The mock plague attack resulted in numerous infections after a vehicle equipped with a spraying device dispersed the bacteria into the air.
That scenario was similar to a warning given last year regarding airborne anthrax.
"We now realize that using only conventional microbiological techniques and commercially available spraying equipment, terrorists could distribute Bacillus anthracis spores over an area of several square miles. If those several square miles correspond to a densely populated area, we would have a public health crisis unlike any we ever have faced," says William Raub, PhD, principal deputy assistant secretary of public health emergency preparedness at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
That raises the question of whether it is now believed that airborne pneumonic plague could be spread in much the same fashion.
A government report on the TOPOFF exercise stated that, "although the government views both of these types of threat as credible, the weapons were not chosen on the basis of intelligence regarding specific terrorist plans. Though the scenario is plausible, it does contain artificialities to ensure conformance with the specific training objectives of the participating federal, state, and local agencies and the first responders at the exercise venues."
Short adds, "We put the exercise together based on what we believe is credible threat information. Having said that, this year we did conduct the exercise not only with national partners but international partners, and so there was much larger collaboration put into this. Multiple sources had input into the type of exercise that was conducted."
Canada and the United Kingdom were international partners, with participants trying to determine if mock attacks and terrorist activity in their countries were related to the U.S. attacks.
In addition, the exercise featured an internal Virtual News Network (VNN) and news web site that provided real-time reporting of the story like an actual TV network.
The media players kept the other participants up-to-date on unfolding events, enabling decision makers to face the challenge of dealing with the real-world media.
The U.S. TOPOFF3 exercise is the third of the congressionally directed, weapons of mass destruction national exercise series. The first was conducted in May 2000, and TOPOFF2 was hosted in May 2003 with simulated attacks in Seattle and Chicago.
Previous TOPOFF exercises have allowed the federal government to test new response plans with state, local, and international partners.
Four focus areas
To meet the shared international objectives, the TOPOFF3 exercise focused on four critical areas:
1. Incident management: To test the full range of existing procedures for domestic incident management of a terrorist event and improve, through practice, top officials’ capabilities in affected countries to respond in partnership.
2. Intelligence/investigation: To test the handling and flow of operational and time-critical intelligence.
3. Public information: To practice strategic coordination of media relations and public information following a linked incident.
4. Evaluation: To identify lessons learned and promote best practices.
TOPOFF3 the largest counter-terrorism exercises in U.S. history is now in the post-mortem analysis stage after simulated attacks that included a car bomb that dispersed a toxic chemical in Connecticut and airborne pneumonic plague in New Jersey.
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