first 100 or more of these responders were theoretically killed by the gas, since they were totally unprepared and ill-equipped.

Senator NUNN. Were these mainly police and fire and emergency people, and medical people?

Mr. EDELMAN. These were the fire people, the emergency services and the police, the people who, in any incident of this nature, would most likely be the first ones on the scene.

Although the Los Angeles and New York exercises revealed glaring deficiencies, both municipalities and their officials should be commended for their efforts to detect and address these concerns. Many Federal officials told the staff that to adequately prepare our Nation's first responders would simply be too expensive. However, most of the State and local officials we spoke to were seeking support that appeared to be relatively modest. The vast majority were simply asking for information on the type of threat they would most likely be facing and technical questions concerning equipment and responses.

As evidenced by the scenarios used by the New York and Los Angeles authorities, the greatest concern of local responders is the possibility of a chemical or biological attack. Yet, currently there is not a chemical or biological emergency response team comparable to the Department of Energy's NEST program on the nuclear side. What we have now, rather, is an ad hoc assemblage of resources designed and used for other purposes that can be called out to help assist local and Federal agencies. This makes little sense, given the lesson learned in Tokyo from the Aum Shinrikyo attack.

Virtually all Government and private expert witnesses appearing before this Subcommittee have agreed that while the nuclear threat is by far the most destructive, the chemical or biological threat is probably the most likely to occur. The Department of Defense has a number of chemical and biological defense organizations. However, the primary mission for these organizations is to respond to a military threat on the battlefield, not a civilian terrorist attack. We have been told by CBW experts that there is a dramatic difference between the two.

Within these organizations are a number of entities currently being used on an ad hoc basis to support Federal law enforcement and State and local consequence management agencies to respond to a chemical or biological incident. However, they are not budgeted for this mission. As one senior Defense Department official told the staff, "We are eating all of this out of our hide every time we support an exercise." What is needed, in the view of some officials, is a new mission concerning support to civilian entities to help them prepare for and respond to a chemical or biological attack. Such a role would be similar to the mission given to DOD in 1988 to support counter-narcotics efforts of civilian law enforcement agencies. The main complaint heard in the course of our review was the paucity of realistic training and exercises. In particular, State and local officials argued that this is one area where the Federal Government can immediately help them. Numerous professionals in this field indicated that the most glaring problem was the infrequency of our Federal Government's full field exercises that are used to test response capabilities. There have been no interagency full field exercises dealing with the chemical or biological threat.

On the nuclear side, we would point out that there was an 8-year interval between the two most recent full field exercises.

One complaint reiterated by numerous participants was the failure of many exercises to include the local first responders. During our Nation's last full field exercise, the Mirage Gold exercise, the local New Orleans police and fire department were not part of the exercise. This eliminates from the exercise a realistic assessment of the interoperability of our Federal components with their State and local counterparts. Furthermore, it eliminates an opportunity to create more local officials who are trained in WMD response.

In conclusion, the staff believes that despite recent improvements, our Nation is still not adequately prepared to respond to an incident involving a weapon of mass destruction. As you have said, Senator, preparing for the unthinkable is a difficult task. Often, our Government only directs attention and resources in the wake of an actual event. Tragedies such as Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center have inspired additional interest in terrorism issues. Unfortunately, with regard to crisis and consequence management for weapons of mass destruction, not enough has been done.

The changing nature of domestic terrorism has created scenarios that pose monumental challenges. To face these tests, our Government must be both versatile and committed. We offer the following recommendations for your consideration. We have a complete list, but I will only highlight a few at this point.

The Federal Government should devote more resources to assisting State and local first responders and include, wherever practicable, State and local responders in federally-sponsored field exercises and training efforts. A single point of contact should be established and advertised so that State and local responders have a contact for WMD terrorist events and questions.

Congress should also consider additional funding to create the 18 urban WMD response teams originally proposed by the Public Health Service. Congress should also consider assigning a mission and authority to Department of Defense to conduct programs of assistance to Federal, State and local emergency preparedness personnel in the defense against possible terrorist use of chemical or biological agents.

Finally, Congress and the administration should conduct a thorough review of the Government's capability to respond to both crisis and consequence management in a terrorist incident. This review should take the form of an independent report, much like the recently published Brown-Rudman report.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes our formal statement. At this time we would be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Senator NUNN. Thank you, Mr. Edelman and Mr. Sopko. Since the last full field exercise that you have referred to, called Mirage Gold, what strides have been made in identifying and basically implementing changes to deal with the problems that came out there? Mr. SOPKO. Well, Senator, that was in October of 1994. It is our understanding that there have been some exercises since then with increased attention to the problems identified in Mirage Gold by the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. The FBI, I believe, has created a new unit to handle this type of inci

dent. I am certain they will discuss that. I don't believe that unit has actually been tested yet. My understanding is that new FBI unit has not been tested in coordination with the Department of Energy or the Department of Defense. Unfortunately there has not been another full field exercise since October of 1994. There have been a number of what we call tabletop exercises or command post exercises, but no full field exercise.

The problem has been really a funding problem, as explained to us by the FBI and other agencies. They don't have money budgeted for this type of training and exercises. Although they would like to do more I think all of them would like to do more and they would like to include the States and locals. It is very expensive and that has been one of the stumbling blocks.

I think Mirage Gold got everyone's attention that you have to include or consider consequence management in your exercises. I mean, it is pretty clear from talking to everyone that it got their attention, you know, what happened in Mirage Gold. But, have they actually come up with a coordinated plan and exercised this larger consequence management issue that hasn't happened yet. Senator NUNN. You mentioned that some of the same problems that came up in this most recent 1994 exercise were also those same problems existed 8 years ago in the previous exercise. Could you identify a few of those problems that we have known about a long time, but still have not been adequately dealt with?

Mr. SOPKO. Coordination issues were identified. Conflicts in various statutes, statutory authority, was identified.

Senator NUNN. Between who?

Mr. SOPKO. The various Federal agencies, Senator. The exercise you are referring to most of that has been classified, so I am going to have to sort of dance around on that.

Senator NUNN. Which one, the most

Mr. SOPKO. Not Mirage Gold; the 1988 exercise, which I believe

was

Senator NUNN. Mighty Derringer? Was that it?

Mr. SOPKO. That is correct, Senator, Mighty Derringer. But I can say the coordination and the hand-off issues were identified as problems. Communications problems of interoperability of communications were also identified. Similar problems as seen in Mirage Gold were identified in Mighty Derringer in 1988.

Senator NUNN. Well, out of that 1988 exercise where problems were identified, were there also specific remedies proposed?

Mr. SOPKO. I think we found some of the agencies made recommendations, but there was no centralized authority in the Government that would bring all of the after action reports together and all of the players together and say, OK, Department of Energy, you have these 10 recommendations, what have you done? DOD, have you seen the Department of Energy's recommendations? Do you agree with them? What have you done to better coordinate, etc.? That is the problem-no follow-up mechanism in 1988 or

1996.

Senator NUNN. Is there no interagency council on this subject in the National Security Council?

Mr. SOPKO. Well, there is staffing in the National Security Council on this, but I don't believe we have been told there has been

no one sitting down, taking these after action reports and saying, this is what has to be done; have you done it. Actually, Senator, I believe this hearing is the first time that all of these after action reports have been brought together and somebody has tried to analyze them in or out of the Government.

Senator NUNN. Senator Lugar?

Senator LUGAR. Mr. Chairman, let me just hark back to an experience I had when I was mayor of Indianapolis. In those days, we weren't concerned with nuclear or chemical or biological difficulties, but there were potential civil emergencies in the late 1960's and early 1970's and it was my experience that in local government there are so many jurisdictions, leaving aside the Federal and the State response, and almost all of the things you have itemized today really pertain to that.

When it finally comes down to it, isn't it incumbent upon somebody to take charge, even if all the communications and the recommendations do not jibe together? In other words, in a commonsense way, has the Subcommittee or has anybody tried to identify in a large urban area who might be responsible the mayor, the governor of the State? In this crisis that would be ensuing, somebody says, I am in charge and we have got to pull this thing together.

Now, I had to do that on one occasion. There really wasn't any jurisdictional authority for telling the sheriff, the State police, the Federal people, or whoever, but we had a situation of dire peril, really, in which several hundred people might have perished if we had not taken action. I am just wondering, in addition to getting the niceties of this thing together, if there is not some value in trying to explore other perils the country has had from time to time and whether there are some parallels in terms of response.

Mr. SOPKO. Senator, our government has learned from other perils and other disasters, to some extent. The Federal response plan that I referred to, the Federal response plan to consequence management for nuclear, bio and chemical, lays out to some degree how we have learned from the prior experience. For example, the PDD does say the FBI or the Department of Justice is the lead agency, let's say, in response to the crisis management situation. And, for consequence management, FEMA is the lead agency. So they have laid that out.

What we are really looking at is, to use the phrase "where the rubber meets the road," what does that actually mean in reality, do people understand that FEMA is in charge when it gets to the consequence management stage. That means that the FBI has to pass the baton, and it may be even before their investigation is done. The FBI may have to have FEMA starting to take charge for certain areas, starting to maybe plan to bring in medical treatment, to bring in hospitals, to alert the people early on. That is the dilemma. That is the tension we have, and it is a real tension we are always going to face. I believe everyone is trying to deal with that, but what we are saying is there needs to be more effort expended in this area, trying to deal with that natural tension you are going to have between the investigative side versus the con

Mr. EDELMAN. Also, Senator, as your question_points out, most of that has dealt with who is in charge at the Federal level and has not to a large degree addressed how you integrate the State and local officials into that entire effort. Obviously, those officials have great concern for the safety of their citizens and they have a big responsibility to their citizens to ensure their safety. Many of these exercises have failed to integrate that aspect of it into their planning and I think that is a big gap that we have now. How do you manage a crisis situation and bring in the local law enforcement people or the local fire or emergency or the hospitals? Those are the things that we need to pay more attention to.

Mr. SOPKO. Senator, just along that line, it reminds me—I remember we had a very lengthy briefing with somebody from a Federal agency and after it was all done he said, well, you know, what we just did was totally irrelevant because we are not going to be there when it goes off; it is going to be a local policeman or fire

man.

Senator LUGAR. Well, that is my point. My guess is probably this word needs to get to the National League of Cities, the Conference of Mayors, the governors associations, so that people who now hold those positions have some understanding that they may be responsible and may have to take action. Many people who come into these positions and I was typical of this. I was manufacturing machinery on the west side of Indianapolis, but suddenly in 1968 I am confronted with civil disorder and potential disaster. Now, the preparation just in state of mind that somebody has got to be in charge is profound here, if something is going to occur and occur constructively.

Part of our problem, I think, in the hearings is that many mayors and governors may not even take this problem seriously. The American people may not even take it seriously.

Mr. SOPKO. That is correct.

Senator LUGAR. What we have to say is whether the American people have caught up with it or not, if it is your watch, that is going to be your history at that particular moment of profound difficulty.

The other thing that strikes me is there are and we heard this in one of the earlier hearings as we were going through the chemical reactions of various gases to human beings and the destruction. Just the technical procedures of how to deal with these elements, whether it be nuclear or biological or chemical, are extremely complex. You know, in the old days with first aid, we all took that and tried to decide what heat stroke and sun stroke and heat exhaustion were, whether to elevate the head or the feet, and so forth. These were very important in saving the life of a person. You always hoped somebody has done mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or somebody is around.

There are a whole set of skills, obviously, here that are required that would be common sense if you understood chemistry and nuclear reactions, and getting this information more broadly disseminated even to the Boy Scouts, to first aid classes, and so forth, seems to me to be extremely important. So whoever this mayor is, he has got a whole cadre of people out there on the street corners