Domestic Preparedness

uring an April congressional hearing, Bruce Baughman summed up his job succinctly: "The mission and overriding objective of the Office of National Preparedness at FEMA is to help this country be prepared to respond to acts of terrorism."

The 23-year FEMA veteran knows that is no small task. As he pointed out in his testimony, emergency responders-typically the first to get to a disaster site-have long been calling for a more coordinated approach for dealing with terrorism. Several national studies concurred, saying the federal government's terrorism preparedness program is too fragmented.

"They need our assistance in developing response plans that take into account the new challenges this country is facing," he said referring to emergency responders. "They need to practice and refine those response plans with all possible partners at the local, state and federal level. These needs-articulated by our first responders and emergency managers-were brought even more into focus by our experiences in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks."

Baughman plans to focus the Office of National Preparedness, which was actually created four months before the September attacks, in three areas: improving support for first responders; providing a central coordination point for federal preparedness programs; and expanding the Citizen Corps program, which builds on existing crime prevention, natural disaster preparedness and public health response networks.

Since joining FEMA in 1979, Baughman has held several top management positions, most recently serving as director of Planning and Readiness. He also has served on a number of interagency committees. Prior to joining FEMA, he worked in the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

Baughman appears to appreciate the gravity of the task at hand. Referring to the thousands of victims of the September attacks, he told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, "Four hundred and fifty of them were first responders who rushed to the World Trade Center in New York City-firefighters, police officers and port authority officers. These events have transformed what was an ongoing dialogue about terrorism preparedness and first responder support into action. . . . The creation of our office is intended to address a long-recognized problem-the critical need that exists in this country for a central coordination point for the wide range of federal programs dealing with terrorism preparedness."

Andy Mitchell
Acting Director, Office for
Domestic Preparedness
Justice Department
(202) 305-9887

reated just four years ago, the Justice Department's Office for Domestic Preparedness may be on its way out already.

The 60-person office, which has $260 million this year in assistance to dole out to local firefighters, police and medical personnel who are the first to respond to incidents such as terrorist attacks, may be subsumed by the Office of National Preparedness at the Federal Emergency Management Agency or by the proposed Department of Homeland Security.

Until last year, the office was known as the Office of State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support. It took over training and other assistance to prepare local governments for terrorist attacks from the Defense Department in 1998. Defense still plays a big role, but Justice provides direct training, pays for equipment, coordinates strategic response plans and oversees exercises that simulate chemical, biological and radiological attacks. The office's Center for Domestic Preparedness training center at Fort McClellan, Ala., has trained thousands of emergency responders to deal with attacks with weapons of mass destruction. Justice officials, led by the Office for Domestic Preparedness' founding director, Curtis H. "Butch" Straub, have developed tight relationships with local sheriffs and other "first responders." Straub's longtime deputy, Andy Mitchell, took over the office when he retired this spring.

Mitchell's office has set up distance learning programs for first responders; paid for chemical and biological prevention, detection and protection equipment; worked on better communications systems for responders;and developed training videos about responding to attacks with weapons of mass destruction.

But critics say that moving Mitchell's office to FEMA-or combining them both in the Homeland Security Department-would eliminate duplication between the two agencies. In addition, a March 2002 Justice Department inspector general audit found that the office takes too long to issue grants to local agencies. Of the $243 million the office had in its coffers from 1998 to 2001, $141 million had not been awarded to first responders as of Jan. 15, 2002.

Despite those criticisms, Mitchell's office has the support of first responder groups such as the National Sheriffs' Association, which lobbied Congress earlier this year to keep the office at Justice.

Stephen Wiley
Special Agent in Charge
Critical Incident Response Group
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Justice Department
(703) 640-1102

he men and women who work for Stephen Wiley are America's anti-terror SWAT team. They are trained to rescue hostages, hunt down and capture terrorists and negotiate with hostage-takers. They are always on call, committed to getting to the scene of terrorist incidents anywhere in the world within a few hours. In 2000, for example, Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) personnel were in Yemen just four hours after suicide terrorists blew a hole in the USS Cole.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh formed the CIRG in 1994 in the aftermath of the Ruby Ridge and Waco standoffs, in which the FBI was criticized for failing to end the incidents without any deaths. The group brings together the bureau's talkers with the bureau's shooters-the soft speakers and the big sticks.

Rounding out the response group are crisis managers, behaviorists, profilers and rapid deployment and logistics experts.

"The tactical people and the negotiators didn't really relate well at Waco. So what they did was try to bring in a variety of components and put them all under one unified command," the organization's former chief, Roger Nisley, told law enforcement personnel at an April 2000 conference. "The negotiation strategy comes to me, the tactical strategy comes to me, the profiling strategy comes to me, or somebody in my position. We assimilate that and we take a unified battle plan up to the honchos in command. So, that's what CIRG does."

Wiley was an original 1983 member of the group's famed Hostage Rescue Team-the special agent force that stakes out hostage scenes and, when necessary, storms compounds. Wiley worked in the FBI's counterterrorism division from 1986 to 1988, then went back to the Hostage Rescue Team for four years as deputy commander. He worked in several divisions and field offices during the 1990s, before taking over the response group from Nisley in April 2001.

The Critical Incident Response Group is intense in its training, using both real-world simulations and computer simulations to prepare for the chaos of terrorist incidents. The group also runs the Rapid Start Information Management System, designed to manage the vast amounts of information that investigations into terrorist incidents generate.

John Gordon
Administrator, National Nuclear
Security Administration and
Undersecretary for Nuclear Security
Energy Department
(202) 586-5555

ust two weeks before retired Air Force Gen. John Gordon was confirmed as the first administrator of the new National Nuclear Security Administration, the Energy Department was rocked by the discovery that its Nuclear Emergency Search Team was missing computer hard drives containing information on how to disarm nuclear weapons.

It was an inauspicious beginning for both Gordon and the new agency he had been nominated to head. The National Nuclear Security Administration was born out of the Wen Ho Lee espionage case and fears that security at the nation's nuclear weapons facilities was lax. The agency has national and international responsibilities. At home, it works to ensure the safety of nuclear weapons and weapons facilities, which include the Energy Department's numerous laboratories. Abroad, it works to promote nuclear nonproliferation.

And at a time when all sites that contain either nuclear fuel or weapons grade nuclear materials are possible targets, the security administration must remain vigilant and ensure the safety of those materials.

Gordon, who has a master's degree from the Naval Postgraduate school in Monterey, Calif., spent years as a researcher at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. He also is a former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Richard Meserve
Chairman
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(301) 415-1759

ichard Meserve operates at the intersection of homeland security and energy policy-two of the Bush administration's top issues. A staggering 20 percent of the nation's energy is produced by just 103 nuclear power plants. Yet because of the destructive power contained in the fissile materials used in the plants, headlines about nuclear safety filled newspapers all over the country soon after Sept. 11. Experts feared terrorists could fly planes into nuclear plants. And even more disturbing, after U.S. forces operating in Aghanistan found blueprints of U.S. power plants, they feared terrorists could use nuclear material stolen from a plant to create a "dirty bomb."

The NRC is responsible for monitoring the operating safety and security of the nation's nuclear power plants. A private security force guards each plant. Meserve is on the record as "strenuously" opposing a Senate bill, S 1746, which proposes federalizing security workers at nuclear power plants just as airport security jobs were recently made federal positions. In January, Meserve ordered a top to bottom security review of the commission. In February, the commission ordered plant operators to abide by stricter security measures.

Meserve, who was appointed by President Clinton, is in his third year of a five-year term. He has a law degree from the Harvard Law School and a doctorate in applied physics from Stanford University. A longtime Washington lawyer, Meserve served as the legal counsel to the President's Science and Technology Adviser during the Carter administration.

Dr. Kristi Koenig
Principal Adviser on
Emergency Management
Veterans Affairs Department
(304) 264-4825

r. Kristi Koenig is an expert in emergency medical care and weapons of mass destruction. With that background, Koenig is well equipped to coordinate emergency management for the nation's largest integrated healthcare system-the $22 billion Veteran's Health Administration.

"Most people are aware of VA's primary mission-taking care of veterans-and of VA's education and resource missions. Many are not aware of our fourth mission-planning and contingency operations," said Koenig, Veteran Affairs' principal adviser on emergency management, in an interview with the Journal of Homeland Security in December. Those duties include serving as a backup for Defense Department casualties overseas, ensuring that VA's facilities are prepared and protected from attacks with weapons of mass destruction, and working with three other federal agencies (Health and Human Services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Defense) to coordinate emergency medical services in local communities in the wake of a disaster or attack. Koenig reports to VHA's second highest-ranking official, the undersecretary for Health.

Koenig oversees an office of 24 people, the Emergency Management Strategic Healthcare Group, based in Martinsburg, W.Va. The VA also has 62 emergency managers and staff members dispersed throughout the country. The group participates in more than 400 exercises annually, often with other federal agencies, to ensure coordination of emergency and disaster response plans.

The VA's primary mission in an emergency is to serve veterans. But Koenig said in the interview that using VA facilities and personnel as a backup for treating nonveteran casualties could be a cost-effective way to plan for widespread disasters.

Koenig, an honors graduate from the University of Southern California, San Diego, received her medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Prior to joining VA, Koenig served as director of pre-hospital and disaster medicine at Highland Hospital in Oakland, Calif., and was an associate professor for emergency medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She is clinical professor of emergency management at George Washington University in Washington and a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Kenneth Kasprisin
Director of Readiness, Response and
Recovery Directorate
Federal Emergency Management Agency
(202) 646-3692

enneth Kasprisin spent more than 26 years in the Army responding to disasters that included Hurricane Andrew, wildfires and flooding in the upper Midwest with the Corps of Engineers. Now, the retired Army colonel will put those skills to test as the Federal Emergency Management Agency's point man on natural disasters and emergencies.

Kasprisin, who was named director of the agency's Readiness, Response and Recovery Directorate in October, is responsible for planning and executing the federal government's response to national disasters and emergencies. He will oversee FEMA's multibillion-dollar individual and public assistance grant programs as well as training activities, including those at the agency's Emergency Management Institute in Emmittsburg, Md. He reports to FEMA chief Joe Allbaugh, a close confidant of President Bush.

Since taking the job, Kasprisin has focused on lessons from the Sept. 11 attacks so the nation can better respond to emergencies. Among the areas requiring further study and improvement, Kasprisin told Congress last fall, are medical response capabilities; information collection and dissemination; comprehensive resource packages for responding to biological attacks; improvements in communication; equipment and training for teams to operate in contaminated environments; and improved coordination of evacuation procedures.

Kasprisin cited cooperation among local, state and federal officials as a key to what he called an "extraordinary" response by emergency managers and personnel on Sept. 11. "Some of the cooperation was, of course, the result of the fact that many key players were not meeting for the first time. They had planned, trained and executed together," he said.

Previously, Kasprisin headed FEMA's Region 10, which had planned for and carried out emergency response operations in the Pacific Northwest.