Connections 2003

Lecture:
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Scenarios for Homeland Security

by Russ Lockwood


Presented by Lt. Roger Mason

Scenarios for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) as they apply to Homeland Security do not follow traditional war scenarios. The effects flow over considerable range of government agencies and functions, including local police, fire, and city officials, as well as state and federal government officials. Likewise, creating such disaster scenarios requires greater input from a wider range of expertise.

Three aspects make WMD scenarios unique:

  • Persistence of Threat: Columbine shooting was three hours. Riots at the World Trade Organization summit was three days. Anthrax terrorism is three years.
  • Mobility of Threat: It is difficult to contain to a hard perimeter. For example, clouds of gas drift in wind.
  • Hazard of Threat: It just plain affects more people, including regional and nation wide.

Scenarios revolve around two areas of training.

  • Skill Development: Uncovering the nuts and bolts of WMDs, and identifying the proper procedures
  • Response Development: Putting those procedures into effect.

In some ways, the better WMD scenarios are not incredibly detailed simulations. The idea is that you want to emphasize command and control over "technical facts" so that the response is more to get all these agencies to coordinate better and make sure the incident commanders and domain (technical) experts are placed in the right spot at the right time with the right tools.

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