Simulated attack at Pentagon tests government response capabilities

The government's ability to respond to another domestic terrorist attack was put to the test Wednesday when a simulated radiological "dirty bomb" went off at the Pentagon.

The exercise, called Gallant Fox II, was staged to test the Pentagon Force Protection Agency's emergency response units in a real-world scenario.

Meanwhile, in New York City, the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at the Pentagon and World Trade Center ended two days of hearings on emergency response Wednesday by concluding that agencies were plagued by poor communication and coordination. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge testified Wednesday before the commission.

"Poor communications across agencies harmed situational awareness," the commission announced in a written statement following Wednesday's hearing. "Commanders had difficulty communicating with their units, and could not account comprehensively for units once they arrived at the World Trade Center. The response at the Pentagon, generally successful, was plagued with similar problems of self-dispatching and poor communications."

PFPA Chief John Jester said Wednesday's drill at the Pentagon showed that agencies could effectively handle another domestic attack.

"Here in the Pentagon, we think we're well prepared," he said. "I think overall the government is preparing and having exercises throughout the country. Everyone's working just like we are in trying to teach their personnel how to respond to various situations."

The simulation consisted of a terrorist parking a car with a radiological bomb at a Pentagon parking lot. Sensors near the Pentagon alerted officials that a radiological device was in the area. The terrorist then approached a group of soldiers in training and blew himself up with a conventional bomb, killing some soldiers and injuring many others. The suicide attack was a diversionary tactic to prevent officials from reaching the car and defusing the bomb.

Pentagon police and fire crews from Arlington, Va., arrived on the scene and began to tend to the bomb victims while a PFPA hazardous materials crew began searching for the bomb. The crew found the explosive but was unable to defuse it before it went off, sending a plume of radiological smoke into the air heading for a nearby Arlington community. The rest of the exercise consisted of simulated responses, including tending to victims, evacuations and closing of roadways.

Jester said PFPA was created in May 2002 to replace the Defense Protective Services and provide the capability to respond to any emergency. The agency has 800 employees and is still hiring, he added.

"After 9/11, it was decided that we needed to beef up that organization with more resources but also to have an organization that can deal with any kind of threat," he said. "The term 'force protection' within [Defense] is meant to have measures for all kinds of emergencies."

Since then, PFPA has developed a public address and electronic messaging system to inform personnel at the Pentagon what to do during an emergency. The Pentagon was not evacuated Wednesday, but personnel were notified about the drill.

"We're constantly training, constantly looking at our procedures, revising those procedures and trying to stay on top of what intelligence is around so that we're ready for any event that might occur," Jester said.

"What we're trying to do is make people in [the Pentagon] more aware of what they should do," he added. "We have a system in the Pentagon to communicate to the employees … We have a public address system which is very clear now throughout the entire building so we can get on one microphone and talk to the entire building, all 17 miles of hallway. At the same time, we have a computer emergency network system where we can put a message on our computer and then send it and it will hit all 20,000 computers in the building within a minute or so."

Other federal, state and local agencies participated in the event, including the Environmental Protection Agency, FBI, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Energy, and Homeland Security departments, U.S. Park Police, the American Red Cross, Washington, D.C., police and several fire and police departments from Virginia.

Jester said a formal review of the drill would begin on Thursday to determine what lessons were learned.