In the early-morning hours of July 27, an exploding pipe bomb shattered the jubilation of the large, boisterous crowd attending an open-air concert in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park. Within minutes of the explosion, the park was swarming with hundreds of firefighters and law enforcement and medical personnel.
A few hours after the blast, two special Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents crawled around the site, collecting samples from or near the bomb crater. One agent then carried the samples to an analytical laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) where they were screened for chemical and biological warfare agents.
Within five hours of receiving the samples, the laboratory could confidently say that no biological or chemical warfare agents were present in the soil, shrapnel, or textile samples tested. This probably marked the first time a domestic bomb had ever been screened for these agents of mass destruction.
Though largely unknown to the public, the laboratory - called the Science & Technology (SciTech) Center - was part of the massive security arrangements for the summer Olympic games (C&EN, July 15, page 11). It was specifically - and swiftly - created to fill a void, a weakness in the initial plans for a response to a chemical or biological terrorism event: rapid and accurate agent identification.
That the analytical lab could be put together and, by all accounts, function successfully was, like many things, serendipitous: All of the key players knew each other from their earlier involvement in investigating the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway system.
The SciTech Center, together with the so-called Chem/Bio Response Team, formed a broad multiagency partnership, an FBI-led federal response capability to counter chemical or biological terrorism at the Olympic games. About 400 professionals were involved at a cost of several million dollars, estimates Randall S. Murch, chief of the scientific analysis section of the FBI's Laboratory Division.
This multiagency partnership also serves as a prototype for combating future chemical and biological terrorist acts. "It really has become the model upon which we are building a national response" to nuclear, biological, or chemical terrorism, explains Murch.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of state-sponsored and independent terrorist groups, the expanding global communications network, and the ease with which raw materials and the data on how to use them in weapons can be acquired, countering domestic terrorism - not deterring warfare against the U.S. - has become the top national security priority.
Although nuclear weapons would cause more damage, the intelligence, defense, and scientific communities recognize that terrorists are more likely to use chemical or biological warfare agents. As Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) says: "The threat over the next decade may come by missile, but it is more likely to arrive by suitcase."
So the response model, with its strong analytical component, fills a national need. And as Murch explains, the" package of capabilities will be drawn together and deployed quickly" when required. In fact, a slightly different and smaller mix of agencies than those assembled in Atlanta was deployed to the national political conventions in San Diego and Chicago in August.
The nascent model is in the throes of being refined, formalized and, maybe eventually, codified. In the meantime, Presidential Decision Directive 39 (PDD 39) signed by President Clinton on June 21, 1995, lays out in general terms U.S. policy on counterterrorism. Although it doesn't directly address the model, it does give the FBI lead responsibility for managing the crisis posed by a credible threat of deployment of a weapon of mass destruction, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) the lead in managing the consequences of actual use.
PDD 39 is short on particulars, lacking details on precise missions for the approximately 40 federal agencies with some responsibility to respond to a terrorist threat. The directive also fails to lay out a mechanism for coordination among agencies and especially between the FBI and FEMA. For example, when during a terrorist event is the baton to pass from the FBI to FEMA? The National Security Council, charged as the oversight and coordinating body, is now addressing these details.
The presidential directive also is silent on the types of future events that will trigger the deployment of capabilities similar to those fielded at the Olympics. Drew C. Richardson, acting chief of the hazardous materials response unit in the FBI's scientific analysis section and one of the agents who collected the bombing samples, says major "political and sporting events" are likely to be candidates. But it's not a decision to be made by a scientist like himself, he says. "It's a political decision, a threat assessment decision, an intelligence decision." And within the FBI, the National Security Division will give the scientific analysis section its marching orders.
PDD 39 was, in part, issued to enable the U.S. to respond to an event like the nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway system. And it was, in part, a response to salient deficiencies in the nation's ability to manage a similar event in the U.S.
Nunn, an acknowledged Senate expert on defense issues, is a leading proponent of enhancing the nation's ability to counter a terrorist incident. He is especially concerned about the lack of coordination among federal, state, and local governments. And he frets about the absence of training and equipment for such local first responders as police and firefighters. During several hearings of the Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Nunn, its ranking minority member, has cited full-scale field and tabletop exercises that have revealed how disjointed responses translate to woefully inadequate defenses to a random terrorist act.
But for discrete events - like the Olympics, political conventions, visits of foreign dignitaries - the nation has shown it is able to marshal its vast resources and, through cooperation and coordination, take necessary precautions to adequately defend against terrorism.
Nunn was given a tour of the SciTech Center and, according to those present, was pleased by what he saw. A Senate staffer familiar with the center but who asks not to be identified says, "The FBI seems to have done a pretty good job of coordinating the various federal assets. Turf battles were resolved before [the games]." And he commends the effort as" a very good prototype for special events."
Security planning for the Olympics was an effort of several years. But only three months before the games were to begin did planners realize that, without agent identification, nothing that followed the use of a chemical or biological warfare agent - not the medical response, hazardous materials cleanup, a law enforcement investigation, or evidence collection - would be meaningful.
That realization set in motion a cascade of events that led to the formation of the SciTech Center - the brainchild of Murch and Richardson. During the Olympics, Richardson served as the center's coordinator and supervised, at any one time, from 50 to 75 chemists and biologists from various federal agencies. Richardson reported to Murch, who acted as science adviser to the FBI Command Center.
The SciTech Center brought together under one roof the best chemical and biological warfare agent analytical capability to be found within the federal government. The Army contributed its Army Materiel Command Treaty Laboratory for chemical warfare agent identification; the Navy provided its Biological Defense Research Program for biological warfare agent verification.
Counterterrorism is not the principal function of either lab. The Army's lab is set up to verify compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention. The Navy lab, part of the Naval Medical Research Institute, conducts biological research.
This was a point Richardson emphasized to all visiting VIPs, including Nunn." What was pulled together for the Olympics were groups of people who, although they have a common interest and some experience in these sorts of things, largely have other jobs, other functions, other missions. What this country needs is a dedicated group of people with a specific mission to provide a counterterrorism function - and specific funding to do it," he argued.
Both the Army and Navy labs are portable, designed to travel quickly to and set up in any spot on the globe. In Atlanta, however, they had the luxury of setting up in a full-service chemistry laboratory on CDC's Chamblee campus, so they brought more equipment than they normally would carry. But, because they are fleet of foot and self-contained, the Navy and Army labs could have been moved to the crime scene - the bomb site - if it had been necessary, says Richardson.
The host laboratory, headed by John A. Liddle, assistant director of the Division of Environmental Health Laboratory Sciences within CDC's Center for Environmental Health, was literally commandeered for the SciTech Center. CDC administrators were concerned about contamination of long-running projects, but Liddle, according to Richardson, argued strenuously and successfully for the use of his laboratory." John Liddle made it happen," Richardson says.
In addition to vacating one of his laboratories and some office space in a wing of a one-story building that was originally part of a World War II Army hospital, Liddle acted as the communications link between the center and CDC. As host, he says, he "ran in additional telephone lines and other communication links, and brought in emergency generators to support the lab." He got CDC to purchase two explosion-proof refrigerator/freezers, one each for the Army and Navy labs, which are now being used in Liddle's research.
The Navy and Army labs set up their equipment at opposite ends of the CDC lab, separated by a six-foot-high partition. But when they tested the samples collected from the bomb site, they collaborated. "It was probably the first time these two labs - or any biological and chemical warfare agent identification labs - had worked as closely together... and they had to take one another's analytical needs into consideration," Richardson explains.
This cooperation was necessary. Senior scientists manning the SciTech Center at the time of the bombing incident had decided that the same samples should be used, and the headspace screen for chemical warfare agents should precede the testing for biological warfare agents.
If, instead of a bombing, there had been an actual chemical or biological terrorist incident, the strong analytical capabilities of the Navy and Army labs would have been backed up by those of Liddle's lab. Using state-of-the art equipment, Liddle's lab normally analyzes biological and environmental samples.
Among the backup lab's capabilities are gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS), MS/MS, high-resolution MS, liquid-chromatography MS, and electrospray MS. The laboratory also has three chemical hoods and a laminar-flow safety hood, making it ideal for working with the bomb samples, which could have been tainted with chemical and biological warfare agents.
Although his lab was not called on for backup or confirmatory analyses, Liddle tells C&EN that he did offer "technical review and consultation" to SciTech Center scientists. And he did get to "screen some of the samples from the bombing incident."
CDC's Center for Infectious Diseases, located on CDC's main Atlanta campus, and the Army's Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Md., were on call to perform confirmatory analyses for biological warfare agents.
Scott R. Lillibridge, associate director of CDC's National Center for Environmental Health, was also on standby at the SciTech Center in case a medical emergency occurred. His expertise in public health and disaster relief suited his role as senior adviser to J. Jarrett Clinton, regional health administrator for the Public Health Service and the person responsible for treating casualties of a terrorism incident at the games.
The Olympic experience has convinced Lillibridge that there is no need to devise new response strategies to terrorist acts. Rather, "we need to focus on what we normally do, but do it better to coordinate with a larger number of agencies in a more rapid fashion."
Environmental Protection Agency officials present at the games agree with Lillibridge's assessment. In fact, the agency's National Enforcement Investigations Center (NEIC) in Denver is taking steps to ensure better coordination in the future.
EPA - mainly through its Region IV (Atlanta) office and NEIC - contributed hazardous materials identification know-how to the SciTech Center. For example, Region IV stationed an emergency response mobile command unit at CDC and the region's emergency response and removal branch contributed nine specially trained on-scene coordinators who were immediately available to respond to a terrorist incident or a hazardous materials accident.
Assisting EPA's regional office at the SciTech Center were Coast Guard Strike Teams and environmental response team members from agency headquarters and from Region II. Agency contractors, who normally assist EPA in emergency response and Superfund cleanups, were ready with bulldozers, backhoes, and loaders, if they were needed.
"As part of its system of support" the agency also fielded mobile labs, says Kenneth R. Stroech, EPA's deputy emergency coordinator who was in Atlanta for the Olympics. One can drive through a plume and monitor for trace atmospheric gases, another is equipped with a suite of real-time instruments and GC/MS to monitor for and detect contaminants in air, water, and soil, including nerve and mustard agent vapors.
"It's the kind of equipment we use all the time," explains Jim Makris, EPA's emergency coordinator and head of the agency's counterterrorism unit called the National Incident Coordinating Team. "Part of the efficiency of the Olympic readiness process was to go back to the kind of folks, doing the kinds of things they are best able to do."
The terrorism response effort in Atlanta "was a very carefully constructed, very well coordinated effort," Makris says. It was efficient because "reinvention of new skills, new organizations, and new institutions wasn't necessary."
NEIC's acknowledged expertise is in environmental sampling and analysis of industrial chemicals, and in collecting forensic evidence in environmental crimes." We are the foremost experts in detecting and identifying hazardous waste in industrial accidents, spills, or intentional sabotage. We are considered one of the best forensic labs in the U.S.," boasts NEIC's director, Diana A. Love.
NEIC fielded a mobile monitoring lab and four specialists, including two chemists, to Atlanta. For the Olympics, the mobile lab was only able to detect industrial chemicals, but "it is now being upgraded to identify" them, Love explains. It also is equipped with a computer and CD-ROM capability that the specialists can use to "tap into chemical waste databases," she says.
Four NEIC specialists also were sent to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that followed the Olympics. And currently, Love explains, NEIC is training 11 of its experts "to fit into a larger effort - the multiagency task force on ecoterrorism now being organized to respond to incidents rapidly."
Richardson anticipates that NEIC's strong expertise in investigating environmental crimes will aid the FBI in solving these types of crimes in the future. NEIC's talents also will mesh well with the FBI's chemical and biological counterterrorism expertise, Murch contends.
How well did the SciTech Center function? " It's kind of hard to say because the one thing we were tested with was something we didn't expect," answers Richardson, the center's coordinator. "We didn't respond to a chemical/ biological deployment, nor did we respond to an incident in which a bomb suspected of containing a chemical material was present. As a result of not responding to those types of incidents, I don't know how some of the things that we had set up would have worked." Then he adds," What I saw in theory, I'm very happy with. What we did test, worked."
In addition to contributing its analytical expertise, the FBI saw itself as a "systems integrator" of the multiagency counterterrorism effort at the Olympics, explains Murch. But, he points out, his agency also brought its investigative and forensic skills to Atlanta to exploit fully any crime scene, even one involving chemical or biological warfare agents. Murch also served as science adviser to the field commander, David W. (Woody) Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI's Atlanta field office.
The Atlanta chem/bio counterterrorism effort - the model now undergoing refinement - came in two parts. In addition to the analytical organization - the SciTech Center - a field tactical response team stationed at Dobbins Air Force Base in Marietta, Ga., was on call around the clock.
This Chem/Bio Response Team, headed by David L. Wilson, an FBI supervisory special agent, stood ready to assess an incident; decontaminate a site; and sample, preserve, and transport - under appropriate chain of custody - evidence to the SciTech Center for analyses. These functions were never used, but had they been needed, they would have been carried out by the U.S. Army Tech Escort and by the FBI's Laboratory Division and its Evidence Response Team. The Marine Corps' Chem/Bio Incident Response Force (CBIRF) (C&EN, July 1, page 22) was also ready to contribute medical personnel.
Had there been a chemical or biological terrorist incident, the response team was set to don full protective gear and to travel by helicopter to the incident site to collect and transport samples. Instead, a bombing occurred in a crowded park, and the preplanned, elaborate scheme was scrapped.
To stave off further hysteria, Richardson says he made the decision that he and another special agent would go to the bomb site, dressed in clothing they had been wearing, to collect the samples for analysis. He thought there was a fairly low probability of the bomb being tainted with chemical or biological warfare agents. And given the presence of the world's media and the psychological aftermath of the bombing, arriving at the site in a helicopter, dressed in moon suits, would have "created incredible panic," he adds.
Instead of panic, the public knew nothing of the FBI's effort. With no fanfare, samples were collected and transported by Richardson to the SciTech Center for analyses.
The selection of Atlanta as the site for the summer Olympics was a felicitous choice from a security standpoint, especially with the government's heightened concern for possible chem/bio terrorism. For one thing, CDC is headquartered in that city. And one of its campuses, the Chamblee campus north of downtown chosen to house the SciTech Center, is close to the perimeter of the city but with excellent access to the city's highway system. The campus is also less than 3 miles from the FBI's Atlanta field office, and very close to the DeKalb-Peachtree Airport and to Dobbins Air Force Base where the Chem/Bio Response Team was headquartered. In addition, the whole infectious disease capability of CDC was available to be exploited if necessary.
"We were very fortunate to be in Atlanta and to have the CDC at our disposal," says Murch. But CDC won't always be available, and if the same model is to be used to respond to terrorist events in the future, "we may have to plug in different capabilities depending on where we are," he explains.
This became evident in the prototypes fielded to the political conventions. Because the Republican National Convention followed closely on the heels of the Olympic games, the personnel deployed to San Diego was circumscribed. "The analytical side of the model was not really an analytical response capability but an advisory capability," so no host lab was needed, explains Richardson. Instead, FBI scientists and those from EPA's Region IX office were at the convention center with NEIC scientists in Denver on call.
Richardson would not name the host lab chosen for the Democratic National Convention, only describing it as "an academic/industrial facility." Both the Army Materiel Command Treaty Lab and the Navy Biological Research Program lab set up shop in the host facility. Additionally, the Department of Energy's Forensic Science Center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory served as a standby lab.
The Chicago host lab was chosen on an ad hoc basis, but eventually Richardson expects that a small number of labs across the U.S. will be formally designated regional host facilities. To be so designated, the labs will need to have strong general analytical capabilities as well as specific skills in screening for chemical and biological warfare agents.
The tactical response side of the model was also smaller at the conventions than that deployed in Atlanta. A large Secret Service contingent was present at both conventions, as were personnel from Army Tech Escort and local police and fire departments. No tactical response FBI agents were present in San Diego, though they were deployed to Chicago.
In hearing after hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Nunn has warned of inadequacies in the nation's embryonic plan to manage the aftermath of a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack. He has especially focused on glaring deficiencies at the state and local levels. First responders - fire, police, rescue, and hospital emergency room personnel - are poorly trained, "equipment is lacking, and planning is almost nonexistent," he says.
The experience of first responders at the Olympic games makes Nunn's case - even though Atlanta and Georgia were better prepared than most local and state governments because they had to be. They knew the games were to be held, and they knew a chem/bio terrorist attack was a possibility.
Months before the games, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources brought in the military to help train first responders to meet the unique challenges of a chemical or biological terrorist event. Before and during the Olympics, first responders, including the Atlanta Fire Department, were doing drills with the Marine Corps' CBIRF, according to Donald H. Hiett Jr., assistant fire chief of the Atlanta Fire Department.
In late February, Hiett put together an FBI-sponsored symposium on what he describes as "disaster medicine for chemical and biological terrorist incidents." And in April, Hiett's department and other local first responders joined federal and state agencies in an FBI-led drill in Atlanta's subway system. Called" Olympic Charlie," the drill used surrogate chemical agents to train the participants to respond to a terrorist attack in a crowded, enclosed space.
Prior to the preparations for the Olympics, the Atlanta firefighters had been trained to respond to a hazardous materials situation, not chem/bio terrorism." Were we prepared to respond at the Olympics?" Hiett asks. "Yes. We did respond to a possible chem/bio act in the park. Did we respond appropriately? Maybe," he answers.
Atlanta firefighters were the first responders on the scene after the bombing. But before Hiett arrived at the site, he called in the Marines Corps' CBIRF. Hiett and the Marines arrived at the site simultaneously. What Hiett found was a fire department functioning as firefighters putting out a single-story fire rather than first responders following the department's incident management plan for a bombing or terrorist act. That changed with Hiett's presence.
"Knowing we had CBIRF, we felt we were prepared" for a chemical or biological incident at the Olympics, Hiett says. But, he also notes, "we were overwhelmed by the event. It was something we never had done before. We've got to start training to change the mind-set." But in order to train, the department needs money and "the money is not there."
FEMA Region IV was on call during the games and, like all agencies involved, was notified when the bomb exploded." We didn't do anything special after the bombing; there was no need to," says Don L. Cornell, FEMA emergency management program specialist. "The state and local responders did what they were supposed to do and did it very well."
Murch acknowledges that integrating first responders is necessary "to developing a true national program." And, echoing Nunn's proposal, he explains, "If through certain key federal agencies a national training program was developed and funding was made available to the most populous 120 cities, you could cover a large measure of the population with a response capability."
In the 1997 defense authorization bill, Nunn - along with Sens. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) - sponsored a bill, informally called Nunn-Lugar-Domenici II, that gave the Pentagon $144 million to assist and train federal, state, and local officials responsible for responding to nuclear, chemical, biological, or radiological emergencies. In addition, these funds were to be used to improve the U.S.'s ability to interdict these weapons of mass destruction, and to control these materials at the source of supply.
Nunn-Lugar-Domenici II eventually got incorporated into an omnibus Defense appropriations bill - and came out with less money and less definition. For fiscal 1997, the appropriations bill provides $100 million for Nunn-Lugar-Domenici II, but doesn't spell out how the Defense Department should allocate the funds. The only stipulation is that $10 million of the $100 million be earmarked for the Marine Corps' CBIRF.
More than money and technological advancements, however, are needed to fight terrorism. Education programs and surveillance strategies also need to be developed to act as sentinels or early-warning systems. Murch says global "medical surveillance, medical computerized networks for information transfer" could be put in place to alert agencies and personnel concerned with chem/bio counterterrorism. These same networks, he notes, could also forewarn the medical community charged with treating the aftereffects of such an attack.
"As I understand it, our forward observers for disease outbreaks are epidemiologists, emergency room personnel, the CDC, the World Health Organization (WHO) - things like that exist all over the world," says Murch. He suggests that WHO or CDC could take "the leadership to develop a more effective global medical surveillance network, which would be very valuable."
As Murch sees it, an effective response capability requires an effective federal tactical component to assess, detect, monitor, sample, collect, and preserve evidence dovetailed to an effective federal analytical capability. And both of these need to integrate with state and local first responders and a global medical surveillance network.
"Because of the breadth of what I'm talking about, I've begun to propose informally in briefings that a permanent, fairly high level council be formed to steer the development and implementation of a national program," explains Murch. A likely laundry list of items on the council's agenda includes research and development, training, preparation, deployment, and future requirements for nuclear, chemical, and biological counterterrorism.
In combating terrorism, there's work for the civilian sector as well. Richardson argues for the establishment of a new kind of civil defense, "a chemical/biological civil defense capability around the country." He envisions analytical scientists, specially trained to handle hazardous materials or chemical and biological warfare agents, and working with local first responders, being deployed rapidly to random chem/bio terrorist acts. And, he suggests, the membership of "national organizations of analytical power" such as the American Chemical Society could be tapped to supply these specially trained professionals.
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