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Q: The Rand Corporation released a report today that has been done for the Pentagon on the status of preparedness for terrorism attacks in the United States. And I wanted to ask your reaction to two points they made in this report to you. One was that there is still too much ambiguity in terms of where the responsibility lies in the federal government for responding to a terrorism attack, and the other one was that too much attention has been focused by the federal government on chemical and biological attack possibilities and not enough on conventional. Ken, since the report was done for the Pentagon and was released today, can I ask your reaction to both of those?

BACON: I haven't seen a copy of the report. Have you?

Q: Ah, possibly. (Laughter.)

BACON: I'm not aware that a copy of the report has been deliveredhere. But first of all, as you know, the government has been spending more and more time on organizing to deal with terrorist attacks in theUnited States. This is not a Defense Department responsibility, primarily; it is a responsibility of federal and domestic law enforcement agencies to deal with domestic terrorism. The military only operates in support, when requested to do so. So with that caveat, I'll tell you what I understand to be thesituation. Obviously, we are working more aggressively today than we were two years ago on this, or three years ago, for several reasons. One is the passage of legislation called the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici bill, which deals with domestic threats. And that bill is the one that required first-responder training in 120 cities. That is being done. It started out with FEMA and the Defense Department taking the lead in training the police, fire, and other emergency response crews who would be first on the scene. That program is about to be taken over by the Justice Department and run by the Justice Department. I think we've made considerable progress in this program, but it's still in the early stages. Not all 120 cities have been trained yet. And of course, much of the training has revealed that more training needs to be done. So that's one point. A second point is that President Clinton has appointed Richard Clarke as sort of the supervisor or monitor of domestic disasters. He's pulling together work teams and helping everybody to get more organized and more focused on this. I think everybody would agree that we've made considerable progress in the last year or so, but we have more to go. So work continues on that. Third, we have been blessed by an absence of domestic terrorism. We have had some examples. One is the World Trade Center. Another is obviously Oklahoma City. But in general, the United States, on a per capita basis, or any basis, has far fewer acts of domestic terrorism than most European countries have and most Middle Eastern countries have. So we have had less experience with this, fortunately, than many other countries have. What we want to do is make sure that we take every step we can to prevent acts of domestic terrorism, because that's the first line of defense and, secondly, to be as prepared as possible, should theyoccur. We have put in the last few years a lot of attention on combating possible chemical or biological incidents in the United States. That's one of the areas in which Secretary Cohen has taken a lead in preparing the military. And he set up teams called RAID Teams that involve the National Guard, which of course is forward-deployed at home all the time, teams that can be available to move in quickly if there is a terrorist act involving chemical or biological agents, to do the proper analysis and to help structure the response. We are trying to look at any type of threat, whether it's chemical and biological or explosive, or whether it would involve trying to interdict a water supply or stop up mass transit. We are trying to prepare to deal with all sorts of threats should they occur. So I think that there is always more we can do. But the most important thing is that we are moving in the right direction. And more important than that, we are working very diligently with domestic law enforcement agents to provide the best possible intelligence, the best possible early warning, so that if we get wind of a possible attack we can try to interdict it. And by "we," I mean the "government," not the military because this is not a military job.Bill?

Q: Ken, Ms. Reno stated this morning that she will be on watch New Year's Eve, and she'll be in her office. And I wondered if there was any heightened state of alert for New Year's or shortly thereafter at Pentagon installations abroad and here, locally?

BACON: Well, I think you missed the 45-minute briefing  we had this morning on Y2K. At least I didn't see you here. But you should get the transcript. And there Deputy Secretary Hamre, working with a representative of the Joint Staff and a representative of our policy shop, laid out many of the steps that we're taking to be prepared; and -- one, that we have taken to be prepared for Y2K, and second, that we will take around the actual turnover time. So, yes, we will have people here working on that. There will be enhanced watch teams working on that.

Q: Where will the secretary of Defense be on New Year's Eve?

BACON: The secretary of Defense will be at a place of his own choosing. And he doesn't choose to disclose that at this time.

Q: You, as the department's chief spokesman, certainly will be here on New Year's Eve night, though, won't you?

BACON: I currently don't plan to be, but that could change. There certainly will be very capable spokespeople working on New Year's Eve.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), December 17, 1999

Answers

Sure would like to see a copy of that report...think it's online somewhere?

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), December 17, 1999.

Ken Bacon is a felon who belongs in jail.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), December 17, 1999.

Well, when the hell has anyone seen the Gov taking steps to ensure our survivability of a terrorist attack...especially chem and boi?!?!?!?
"of legislation called the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici bill, which deals with domestic threats. And that bill is the one that required first-responder training in 120 cities."
Hmmm.....didn't I read something about Bin Laden threatening attacks in 120 U.S. cities??? Hmmm....anything seem strange here?

-- Satanta (DuckAndCover@ssesInAir.com), December 17, 1999.