NCJ Number
194391
Journal
The Beacon Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Dated: January 2000 Pages: 1-6
Date Published
January 2000
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article describes the planning, implementation, and assessment of exercise "Baseline," a joint counter-terrorist exercise that involved the FBI's New Haven Field Office (Connecticut) and the U.S. Naval Submarine Base in New London, Connecticut.
Abstract
In June 1996 the FBI's New Haven Field Office conducted an assessment survey that identified the U.S. Navy Submarine Base at New London as a high-value facility vulnerable to terrorist action. In cooperation with the Submarine Base, the FBI established a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Joint Operations Center (JOC) model, which is designed to provide a command, control, communications, and intelligence architecture for all participating agencies; to coordinate all crisis resolution and subsequent consequence management operations; and to unify interagency emergency management functions. As a means of training personnel in responding to a terrorist incident surrounding the Submarine Base, a realistic exercise scenario was developed over an 18-month planning period, accompanied by multiagency crisis management training. The training drew from lessons the FBI had learned from actual WMD incidents. To reinforce basic crisis management principles and to foster improved liaison during an actual WMD incident, all agencies with potential emergency management responsibilities for the area were invited. Ultimately, 16 agencies with over 100 representatives participated in the exercise scenario. To ensure the involvement of all exercise participants, the scenario required action and coordination among all agencies. The exercise involved two related events at the submarine base: the deliberate derailment of a train that included tank cars with large quantities of hazardous compounds and the seizing of a nearby fast-food restaurant by terrorists who held the occupants hostage, threatening to disseminate 3.5 gallons of rabies into the air from the roof of the restaurant if their demands were not met. A post-exercise assessment revealed the inadequacies of training and equipment and the lack of a full understanding of medical and decontamination requirements in response to a WMD incident. This exercise revealed the need for Federal funding for WMD incident training; the need for information flow among various agencies of the JOC; and the need to train participants in evidence preservation, the documentation of actions and observations, and the coordination of such information with the FBI.