right away, or continuity of government when it was robust during the Reagan years, which has withered away to nothing.

I'm somewhat surprised that FEMA is not here today, because I'd like to see what their comments are on some of these issues, since at one point they did have a very robust capability. I agree with Mr. Nesbitt that they would be the ideal place for this to sit; yet, I don't think that their current mission priorities have looked into that area. It's leveraging what's out there, but it's making sure they get to that table.

Mr. BARRETT. Very quickly, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Nesbitt?

Mr. NESBITT. I know that you said funds are limited, and we realize that. We want to make sure that the limited funds are spent well, but when I hear someone like in Virginia say, well, we can't train all fire departments and all firefighters in terrorism response, and we realize that there are different levels of response. I'm only saying that if I'm a firefighter on an engine and we get a call to respond and we roll in and there's a terrorist incident there and I'm not trained and I'm not equipped, what am I suppose to do? Am I supposed to say to citizens, "Well, good luck. Somebody else will be around later to take care of this incident"? You're talking about 4 minutes, 6 minutes, 8 minutes, 10 minutes.

These so-called teams, how many? I know they're within 30 miles, but when's the arrival? Like in Oklahoma City, would you have wanted to tell the citizens-well, at 9:02, when the explosion occurred, the fire department was there at 9:05, and there were casualties and the people needed to be evacuated, but you say, "Well, we're not trained; we'll have to wait for someone else to arrive. We'll just pull back and just kind of do nothing"? Or you place our people in jeopardy where they're going to die.

So, it's a question that Congress is really going to have to grapple with. What is our response? How do we respond? How do we maximize the use of these limited resources?

Mr. SOUDER. I want to do one more round of questioning because there's a fundamental question that you've all raised that we've discussed and that helps set up what we're going to do in the next panel, and that is kind of the command-and-control function. We've talked about the proliferation of first responder training, about the difficult questions of command and control, and who's in charge of what? We also see this moving from Department of Defense to DOJ. There's a difference between international incidents and domestic incidents; that we have certain constitutional questions that we have to address.

Could you each, and I'll start with Mr. Davis, comment on, what do you think about the move of this from DÓD to DOJ? Where would you concentrate this structure? For example, Mr. Cilluffo raised the question of a CINC, that would be inside Defense.

Mr. CILLUFFO. And their interface beyond

Mr. SOUDER. And beyond. I'd like to hear your comments related to that.

Would you separate the response from the training for trying to spot-are there different functions here that require multiple places? Just kind of address this fundamental question of-we have, by the way, have an anti-terrorism czar in the White House with no authority. In the drug area, we wound up-through this

committee, we fund the drug czar's office. He has some control, but even that, it's hard for a "czar" reporting to the President to be able to really move a Defense Department, for example, yet alone other agencies. Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Sure. As you know, they're talking about moving the program from the Department of Defense to some other place, and some people say it might be within the Department of Justice. We haven't seen the details of that plan, but from our perspective, we would hope to see that there would be a process, in which we consider all of the alternatives. In fact, we heard a couple of people this morning talk about FEMA. I think that you can make a very good case for sending it to FEMA because they have the statutory and otherwise lead responsibility for consequence management. Also, they're tied into the fire academies and the structures that exist in the State and local jurisdictions.

I think that, in considering all the alternatives, you might even be able to make a case for EPA, because EPA has responsibility for the hazardous material incidence responses. WMD could be just another evolution of that or an extension of that response capability. I think that you could also make an argument for transferring the program to the Department of Justice, because there are some parts of the Department of Justice that deal with training programs, have equipment components to their programs, and there would be some advantages to consolidating some of them.

I think the important thing from our perspective is that we consider all the different options, and the pros and cons laid on the table, and reasonable decisions be made.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. I think that not all of the functions need to be consolidated into one place, but there does need to be a solid lead agency concept working. It's worked fairly effectively overseas because, in events where we have the Ambassador in charge and there's a handoff to a military on-the-scene commander, it's a very stylized kabuki dance that, if they get into a disagreement, they go up their chains of command, so that the President ultimately does resolve this. That kind of structure is not in place domestically.

Because the FBI is the lead agency for handling terrorism, in my view, it ought to be genuinely the lead agency over all of this, which includes consequence management, crisis management, domestic preparedness. But that is not saying that the FBI should have all of those functions, because the fact of the matter is FEMA does the domestic preparedness better than the FBI. The real danger with the FBI heading it is in the past they haven't always worked and played well with others; they didn't get the good marks that you did in kindergarten. They tend to ignore other agencies. The really good news here is that the U.S. Government has a vast, wonderful resource of personnel, talent, and capability. When you look at the array that's there through EPA, through FEMA, through Health and Human Services, through Department of Defense, I think it would be a mistake to take the response for chembio incidents out of DOD because Department of Defense has that expertise. So, what I am advocating is let FBI be lead agency, but let's let each agency that has those unique capabilities use those in a way that's most efficient.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Cilluffo.

Mr. CILLUFFO. I agree. PDD 39, which clearly assigned roles and missions, and reaffirmed roles and missions, did give the FBI the lead Federal agency for all terrorism occurring in the United States or on U.S. soil, and FEMA, the consequence management phase. However, as most real-world events would prove, there is no passing off the baton from the crisis management phase to consequence management phase. They're running side-by-side simultaneously.

I think that was a misjudgment on this Presidential decision directive. You're going to be doing the investigations while you're saving lives. Saving lives is priority No. 1 for any agency, regardless of the case. You also have to maintain the evidence to identify the perpetrators.

But when you're dealing with WMD-the reason I mentioned DOD to remain as the executive agent is they have the expertise; they have the experience; they have the capabilities and the assets that can be brought to bear that others do not. I'm not saying to give them lead Federal agency on anything CONUS, but what I am saying is that (a) you're building upon something and that you don't have to start from scratch; (b) if you're dealing with a major event or campaign of events, CONUS, within the United States, I don't think too many people will be questioning as to who suddenly is responsible to deal with how we handle it. Clearly, the Department of Defense would be the agency that has the assets that can be brought to bear and to respond to the crisis.

I think that one of the challenges is to identify when do you hand off, pass the baton within the United States. If it's a major event, the assets just can't be brought to bear outside of the Department of Defense.

Mr. NESBITT. First of all, we've seen some of the DOD training; we've seen some other training, and while they've got some good elements, they're certainly inadequate for what we think the criteria ought to be. I think you also need to keep in mind that when you've got a terrorist incident-as I said, the fire department and the law enforcement are the first ones to respond-the commander of the fire service, the fire chief, or whoever the commander is, remains the incident commander of that whole incident. He is in charge of that particular incident.

We're concerned with operational response, initially to respond to that particular emergency. Then comes the question of law enforcement and crime, and has there been a crime, and has it turned into a criminal investigation?

We go back to our testimony again, and we think the lead agency, from our point of view, in terms of response at the local level and as far as training and who's in charge and who can best coordinate it, we believe it should be FEMA.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Barrett.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you. I want to just spend a couple of minutes on the loan equipment program and make sure I understand. Then I've got the three fundamental questions.

Mr. DAVIS. Sure. OK.

Mr. BARRETT. It's $300,000 worth of training equipment for each participating city? Is that the way the program

Mr. DAVIS. That's right. It's roughly $300,000.

Mr. BARRETT. There are 120 cities?

Mr. DAVIS. 120 cities.

Mr. BARRETT. Has each of these cities taken advantage of the program?

Mr. DAVIS. Well, by December this year, one-third of the cities will have received their training. The equipment is following the training. I'm sure there's only a handful of cities that have the actual equipment. They're beginning to get it in, but they don't have all the equipment today.

Mr. BARRETT. Am I correct in assuming that all 120 cities will take advantage of it?

Mr. DAVIS. Absolutely. In fact, the response that we're getting, for example, to our draft report that's out to the agencies for comments, which we also sent to the cities that we dealt with, came back favorably. They're supportive of the positions that we've taken and they're supportive of building on existing State and local structures. At the same time, they're saying we sure want that equipment, though; don't take that equipment from us.

Mr. BARRETT. Knowing my local officials, I'd be surprised if they didn't say that.

Mr. DAVIS. Right. [Laughter.]

Mr. BARRETT. I know Mr. Souder asked a couple of questions, so I apologize if these are redundant. There's a corresponding, if you will, program, Health and Human Services program. Can you tell me about that program?

Mr. DAVIS. Well, there's a program with Health and Human Services that's lead by the Public Health Service, that is also providing what they call Metropolitan Medical Strike Teams. They also want to be able to provide equipment to 120 local jurisdictions. Mr. BARRETT. The same 120 that's there for the use of

Mr. DAVIS. Right. And right now they provide a certain number of them; I don't know the exact amount. I think they're following the DOD in terms of the first 27 cities; then they're trying to build it up to 120 cities. First, they follow DOD with the first 27; then they want to get up to 120.

Some of the equipment components are overlapping. We talked about that earlier. But some of it is very different. The issues that we're dealing with at the State and local level are that they find that cumbersome in terms of having to deal with different agency people and to look at more lists. There's not, as they refer to it, one-stop shopping. They'd like to be able to have one-stop shopping. Mr. BARRETT. In the Department of Health and Human Services program, what's the amount that a city is eligible for?

Mr. DAVIS. Well, it's averaging about $350,000 a city. It's somewhat of a sliding scale, but it's an average.

Mr. BARRETT. And is that a program where each city is eligible to get the money, or will some cities not get it? In other words, will all 120 cities take advantage of that program?

Mr. DAVIS. Right, if it is expanded. It's a contract grant, unlike the DOD program which is basically a loan program.

Mr. BARRETT. OK.

Mr. DAVIS. One of the real issues that we're hearing from the locals and they used the term "unfunded mandate”—is that the legislation allows DOD to loan equipment to the cities for training

the-trainer; but now, the cities are responsible for maintaining, repairing, and replacing the equipment. Some of this equipment is going to wear out. As you use it, it's going to wear out-the protective suits, et cetera.

Mr. BARRETT. Do you really see the unfunded mandate with this program?

Mr. DAVIS. The people say they're not sure the loan agreement that they have with DOD right now calls for them to replace the equipment to repair, maintain, and replace it. There are no provisions right now in terms of the Federal Government providing that replacement.

Mr. BARRETT. Are they able to pay it back? In other words, rather than replace it, just say we don't want to do this program anymore? Is that something-I'm just surprised that I hear the unfunded mandate argument when this program is essentially a loan program.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, we haven't heard anybody who said they want to turn it back in DOD. They're out there with their hands out. They're willing to accept it and they want to take it. But they think that, by taking it, maybe someday later the Federal Government will come along and replace it for them. They told us they're fairly confident that training equipment is not going to get the priority to compete successfully against other demands on local budgets.

Mr. BARRETT. Anybody else want to comment on this program? Mr. Nesbitt.

Mr. NESBITT. Say the money is for training equipment. To actually equip a fire department that was properly trained to use this equipment, you're talking about a substantially larger amount of money. Some of this equipment is very expensive, and once you use it once, you can't use it again. It has to be disposed of and you have to replace it. So, it's a very expensive proposition.

To equip and train a fire department, for example, if you train them properly and you give them all the equipment for training, but then you say, OK, you're trained but now there's no equipment if you're going to respond, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to us.

Mr. BARRETT. And I understand that argument. I just don't understand how that would constitute unfunded mandate if it's a voluntary program. That was my point.

That's all I have right now, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank you for your time and your responsiveness, and if you have additional information you want to submit for the record we would like to have that.

The second panel could now come forward. The second panel consists of officials from three Federal departments. Representing the Department of Justice are Mr. Robert Blitzer, Section Chief, Domestic Terrorism/Counterterrorism Planning Section, Federal Bureau of Investigation; Mr. Michael Dalich, Chief of Staff, Office of Justice Program. Representing the Department of Defense is Mr. Charles L. Cragin, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, and Mr. James Q. Roberts, Principal Director of Policy and Missions, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. Mr. Robert