Global Security Newswire

Federal law enforcement agencies operating around Washington, D.C. must increase their coordination to ensure they can adequately respond to a WMD incident, according to a U.S. Justice Department audit released this week (see GSN, June 2).

The "National Capital Region" -- the District of Columbia and nearby jurisdictions in Virginia and Maryland -- is a "potential target for terrorists who may attempt to use WMD in an attack," according to a 73-page report from the department's Inspector General Office.

With the exception of preparing for special events, including presidential inaugurations or visits by heads of state, response planning depends almost exclusively on FBI resources and capabilities, leaving other agencies unsure about their role and what resources are available during a potentially cataclysmic event, according to the report.

The review faulted the overall readiness of the Justice Department and a number of its component offices to safeguard the public in the wake of a biological, chemical or nuclear strike. It commended the FBI for fulfilling preparation mandates but found that other agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Marshals Service had not met their requirements.

The inspector general took a close look at the Washington area, finding that the FBI's local office is the only department agency in the region that has a written guide and checklist for dealing with a WMD event. The office is also alone in regularly conducting response drills to such an incident -- 29 field and tabletop exercises between fiscal 2005 and 2009, in collaboration with other federal departments and state and local law enforcement agencies.

"Other DOJ component field offices did not participate in the 29 FBI exercises and, other than scheduled special events, did not participate in any other WMD response activities with the FBI," the report says. "Our interviews with other components' NCR field office managers confirmed that they do not participate in WMD exercises or any other WMD response activities with the FBI except for special events."

In its plan, the FBI addresses how it would collaborate with agencies outside the Justice Department but fails to include any particular responsibilities for other DOJ law enforcement agencies.

A majority of the agencies' branch offices have carried out "little or no planning" and have no clear-cut task in the FBI's response plans, according to the report. Preparing for major events does not adequately ready an agency to deal with a WMD incident, the inspector general said.

"During special events roles and responsibilities are predetermined and resources are on standby, which would not be the case for incidents that occur at other times," the report says.

Many top officials from the department's other law enforcement branches operating in the Washington area said they thought the FBI would be the head DOJ responder in such an event, the audit states.

Further investigation found that only the U.S. Attorney's Office knew of the FBI's plan, while other officials said they had not requested to review the WMD blueprint to determine if their offices would be involved.

No other DOJ law enforcement office had asked to look over the bureau's preparations, according to the top agent at the FBI's Washington Field Office Counterterrorism Division. He "did not see why it would be a problem" for such an assessment to occur, the inspector general's report states.

The audit also determined that a number of DOJ law enforcement managers in the capital region were not aware that the Justice Department had designated the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as the lead agency for assuring public safety and security if the so-called "ESF-13" protocol was made operational in the aftermath of WMD strike.

Those activities can include providing law enforcement assistance like routine patrols and making arrests, issuing identification badges to emergency responders, and protecting workers in a "high threat environment."

"This lack of awareness on the part of field office managers ... is problematic," the report states. Supervisors "should be familiar with how their components would participate in a coordinated national response to a WMD incident."

Even thought requests for support would most likely travel from headquarters to the agency offices, coordination between federal, state, and local responders would be "critical," according to the report.

That dearth of knowledge could possibly hamstring a WMD response and waste valuable time in providing needed resources to the public, as was seen during the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2006, the document concludes.