dispersed. Terrorists are less likely to use chemical and biological weapons than conventional explosives, at least partly because these materials are more difficult to weaponize and the results are unpredictable. Agency officials have noted that terrorists' use of nuclear weapons is the least likely scenario, although the consequences could be disastrous. According to the FBI, the threat from chemical and biological weapons is low, but some groups and individuals of concern are beginning to show interest in such weapons. 4 Our September 1997 report stated that more than 40 federal departments, agencies, and bureaus have some role in combating terrorism and that many of these organizations have duplicative or overlapping capabilities and missions. In a December 1997 report and an April 1998 testimony, we reported that the many and increasing number of participants and programs in the terrorism area across the federal government pose a difficult management and coordination challenge to avoid program duplication, fragmentation, and gaps. We also discussed the need for threat and risk assessments to help the government make decisions about how to target investments and set priorities for combating terrorism." We recommended that the National Security Council's National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-Terrorism, review and guide the growing number of federal terrorism response elements to ensure that agencies' separate efforts leverage existing state and local emergency management systems and are coordinated, unduplicated, and focused toward achieving a clearly defined end state. In November 1997, the Deputy Secretary of Defense directed that DOD develop a plan to integrate the National Guard and Reserves into the DOD response to WMD attacks. The result was the Department of Defense Plan for Integrating National Guard and Reserve Component Support for Response to Attacks Using Weapons of Mass Destruction, issued January 1998. It outlined the capabilities the U.S. military might be called on to provide in support of civil authorities during a WMD attack, the capabilities 3Combating Terrorism: Spending on Government-wide Programs Requires Better Management and Coordination (GAO/NSIAD-98-39, Dec. 1, 1997). *Combating Terrorism: Observations on Crosscutting Issues (GAO/T-NSIAD-98-164, Apr. 23, 1998). 5A threat and risk assessment would begin by identifying and evaluating each threat on the basis of various factors, such as its capability and intent to attack an asset, the likelihood of a successful attack, and its lethality. This information would be part of a deliberate process of understanding the risk, or likelihood, that a threat will harm an asset with some severity of consequences. that existed in the military, and the gaps in DOD's capability to respond. The plan led to the creation of the RAID teams. According to Army National Guard officials, the RAID team concept is a Secretary of Defense initiative. The Army Guard is responsible for implementing the concept and has developed the plans for organizing, staffing, training, and equipping the teams for their mission. Since this is a new concept, the plans and their implementation continue to evolve. Funding for the teams will be through the Army Guard and includes personnel costs for the full-time positions, as well as training, equipment, and maintenance costs. DOD allocated about $19.9 million from the fiscal year 1999 Defense Appropriations Act for the first year of the program, which covered the startup costs for the first 10 teams. An omnibus supplemental appropriation followed, from which DOD allocated an additional $19.2 million for RAID team equipment and $13 million to establish RAID (Light) teams in states that do not have a full RAID team. The DOD budget request for fiscal year 2000 includes about $37.2 million to support the 10 existing RAID teams and create 5 more. It also includes about $0.5 million to support the RAID (Light) teams. According to Army officials, the Secretary of Defense plans that the RAID teams will be dedicated forces for domestic incidents. The initial 10 teams are located in Washington, California, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Missouri, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts. Each of these states is within a defined FEMA region and was selected based on demographics of the state, proximity to Air National Guard units that could provide airlift, presence of other federal/military assets, transportation networks, and other criteria. (See app. I for a map showing the FEMA regions and the RAID team locations.) Consideration was also given to the level of congressional interest in the locations of the teams. State National Guard organizations receiving the teams have started hiring and training personnel in their individual skills. The 10 RAID teams are scheduled to be operational in January 2000. Currently, the team is an asset of the state in which it is located, but can be deployed as a regional asset to other states. The DOD plan suggested that there eventually should be a RAID team in each state, territory, and the District of Columbia, for a total of 54 teams. Until this occurs, the Army Guard is establishing RAID (Light) teams in the other 44 locations to provide limited chemical/biological response capabilities. Officials Have Differing There are differing views on the role and use of the National Guard RAID Views on the Role and teams and how they will fit into plans to respond to incidents involving WMD. Army officials believe the teams can be a valuable asset to federal authorities, if needed, as part of the Federal Response Plan. They also see the teams as a critical part of the local and state response to such incidents. Federal officials most involved in managing the Federal Response Plan during a WMD incident did not see a role for the National Guard RAID teams. Local and state officials also have differing views. Local officials with robust HAZMAT capabilities saw the RAID teams benefiting those jurisdictions with lesser HAZMAT capabilities. Officials from states without a RAID team do not see the use of the team in their WMD response efforts because of the time it takes the RAID team to respond. One state official does see the team bringing some useful expertise. Officials from Pennsylvania, one of the states to receive a RAID team, plan to fully integrate their team into the state's response plan. Army Officials See the RAID The DOD team that worked on the January 1998 plan reviewed the Federal Response Plan to determine the emergency support functions and vital tasks that DOD would likely be asked to support. The team requested the military services to assess their capabilities to perform these tasks and consolidated the responses to identify existing gaps in the DOD capability to respond to a WMD event. The team also reviewed other DOD-sanctioned studies on terrorism and command response plans. In designing the RAID teams, Army officials stated they tried to create a capability that would fill the greatest shortfall identified in the study—the ability to detect and identify WMD. This capability is critical to any effective response effort and, according to these officials, was missing from most local and state response units. The RAID team focus will be WMD and, as such, the team would be subject matter experts, instead of HAZMAT experts with an awareness of WMD. According to these officials, having the RAID team in the National Guard gives the state governor an asset that can be rapidly deployed to provide this initial WMD detection and identification support, as well as technical advice on handling WMD incidents, to the local incident commander. Also, according to these officials, it is less expensive to have one state asset trained and equipped to deploy with this capability than to train and equip every HAZMAT team in the state. According to Army officials, the RAID teams will also provide advantages that are not presently available at the local, state, or federal levels. For example, the teams will serve as a model for state and local WMD response organizations and will provide both DOD and industry a place to identify requirements and test new concepts and equipment in WMD detection and identification. The teams will also provide a liaison between the local and state responders and the manufacturers of equipment to ensure that the responders have knowledge of state-of-the-art equipment to manage WMD incidents. According to the officials, the RAID teams will also fill a very important force protection role for the National Guard. Once other Guard units are deployed to the incident, they will need to know which areas are not contaminated so they can carry out their duties safely. The RAID team will be able to communicate this information to other Guard units, as well as provide advice to the Guard commander regarding operating in a WMD environment. Officials Question Role of Officials from the FBI and FEMA are concerned about the RAID team concept and how the teams would fit into any federal WMD response. They question the need for the RAID teams because of the federal structure already available to respond to WMD incidents. The FBI officials are concerned about a conflict between the RAID teams and their own Hazardous Materials Response Unit or other federal assets, if all arrive with the same capabilities and try to give advice to the incident commander. FEMA officials are also concerned about the duplication of capabilities between the RAID teams and the local and state HAZMAT teams. They can see the RAID teams perhaps disrupting the relationship that already exists between the local, state, and federal responders. Federal, state, and local officials generally agree that a WMD incident involving chemical agents would look like a major HAZMAT emergency. In such scenarios, the local HAZMAT team would be the first to respond and the local fire chief would usually be the incident commander. If the local responders are unable to manage the situation or are overwhelmed, the protocol is for the incident commander to contact nearby communities and the state emergency management office for assistance. The RAID team could be requested at that point. However, the local commander also has access to federal assets through the National Response System hotline, discussed later in this report. According to officials from the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the hotline is well publicized and known within the first responder community. If the incident commander suspects that the event is a WMD incident, a similar hotline can be used to get information or assistance. The Domestic Preparedness Program directed that the U.S. Army, as executive agent, create this Chemical and Biological Hotline to report suspected or 6 confirmed WMD incidents. The Army contracted with the Coast Guard to manage this hotline through the same center the National Response System uses, which links the caller to both the Army's Soldier and Biological Chemical Command for advice and the FBI to begin the federal response. The incident commander can also call the local office of the FBI, which would trigger the federal response. According to FBI officials, the local FBI offices try to work with local and state emergency responders to plan responses for WMD incidents. The RAID teams are not part of the Federal Response Plan and would not be notified through the National Response System. 7 The Federal Response Plan provides for a Defense Coordinating Officer, who is the single point of contact for Federal Response Plan agencies regarding military assistance in a disaster. The Officer is responsible for validating those agencies' requests for military assistance, identifying and deploying active and reserve units for the mission, and for operational control of the units that are deployed. According to the Defense Coordinating Officer we spoke with, the RAID team would duplicate the Officers' role of identifying the units that could provide military assistance in a WMD event. The request for assistance would have to be made through the Defense Coordinating Officers because they have call up and deployment authority for units (other than National Guard units in state status) and the RAID teams do not have that authority. According to Army officials, the RAID team's WMD focus would be invaluable to the Defense Coordinating Officers in their responsibilities under the Federal Response Plan, because of the team's knowledge of other military assets with a WMD response capability. The incident commander may request assistance for a particular task without knowing what military units are available to accomplish the task. According to the officials, the RAID team could translate that request into a specific type of military unit that would provide the most effective assistance to meet the incident commander's needs and provide the Defense Coordinating Officer information regarding the type and locations of that type of unit. ❝See our report Combating Terrorism: Opportunities to Improve Domestic Preparedness Program Focus and Efficiency (GAO/NSIAD-99-3, Nov. 12, 1998) for a discussion of this program. 7There are officers assigned to each state, territory, and the District of Columbia. |