Individual Agencies Exercises

DOD is not a lead federal agency for response to terrorist incidents, but it provides significant and unique capabilities to support other agencies in conducting their responsibilities. DOD works with the State Department to support its international crisis management role. DOD also supports the domestic lead agencies, FBI and FEMA, and other agencies for domestic crisis and consequence management. This support includes not only tactical units but also logistics and technical units trained to deal with all types of WMD. Examples of response units include the Army's Technical Escort Unit and the Marine Corps' Chemical and Biological Incident Response Force.

During this period, DOD participated in a wide variety of counterterrorist exercises and sponsored major exercises with interagency participation. DOD participated in the most exercises with a total of 143, and it led 97 (68 percent) of these exercises. Of the DOD-led exercises,

53 (55 percent) were tabletop and 44 (45 percent) were field exercises. Most included WMD scenarios, primarily chemical weapons, and 62 (66 percent) of the DOD-led exercises included 3 or more federal agencies, many of which included State, FBI, DOE, HHS, and EPA. DOD also sponsored the four exercises that included foreign government participants, as well as three of the four no-notice exercises.

DOD sponsored a variety of major interagency tabletop exercises and field exercises. DOD sponsored the Domestic Preparedness Program exercises carried out in major U.S. cities. This program also included major federal, state, and local field exercises in Denver in 1997 and Philadelphia in 1998. DOD also established the Interagency Terrorism Response Awareness Program, which includes tabletop exercises that bring together senior agency officials within the counterterrorism community to coordinate policy issues. DOD schedules several interagency field exercises, including the Eligible Receiver series, which are sponsored by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Ellipse series, which are field exercises conducted by one of the geographic theatre commanders. These major exercises usually include participation by other federal agencies. For example, in June of 1998, DOD conducted a weeklong WMD crisis management exercise, which included FBI, State, FEMA, DOE, and HHS.

Individual Agencies Exercises

Among other responsibilities, USSS provides protection to the President and other key officials. USSS conducted exercises for its special agents related to its protective mission. These exercises generally involved continuity of operations at the White House or protecting the President and other officials. Some of these exercises practiced the USSS role in providing security at certain special events, such as national political conventions, presidential inaugurations, and state of the union addresses.

USSS generally led field exercises with conventional scenarios that had few other federal agencies participating. USSS participated in a total of 65 exercises and led 46 (71 percent) of these exercises. Forty-one (89 percent) of the exercises led by USSS were field exercises and the other 5 (11 percent) were tabletop exercises. Of the 46 exercises that USSS led, 40 (87 percent) of them had only the USSS or the USSS and 1 other agency participating and 6 (13 percent) of them had 3 or more federal agencies. Of the exercises it led, 36 (78 percent) had conventional scenarios and 10 (22 percent) had some type of WMD threat in their scenarios.

USSS-led exercises involve protecting the President and other officials from attacks and are held at a variety of locations, including the White House complex. These exercises include some other federal agencies, such as DOD (the White House Military Office), FEMA, and the U.S. Capitol Police. The exercises that practice defense against attacks on the President and other officials, such as during motorcades, are held at the USSS training center and involve some other agencies as participants or observers. Exercises have been performed with other agencies before some special events, such as the Presidential Inauguration in 1997 and the Summit of the Eight in Denver in 1997.