“We’ve gotten pretty good at the poetry of strategy,” Paul McHale Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas' Security Affairs , US Department of Defense told the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Thursday at a hearing entitled Nuclear Terrorism: Providing Medical Care and Meeting Basic Needs in the Aftermath – the Federal Response. Click here to see full testimony. 

McHale, one of four witnesses at the hearing, cited significant progress in developing a coherent high-level national framework for rapid response to a terrorist nuclear incident. 

Where before 9-11 McHale said he would have given federal responders a “two” out of 10 grade for readiness in handling radiological attack, he now believes, “Our CBRNE response capabilities are the best funded, best equipped,and best trained in the world.” “During the past 7 years,” he said, “ DoD has developed unprecedented CBRNE response capabilities and has trained to employ these capabilities in rapid support to civil authorities to help save lives.” 

A focal point of progress, McHale, said, has been the forging of strong working relationships between DOD and DHS. “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS),” he added, “ is responsible for the coordinated U.S. national effort to prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist CBRNE attacks. If terrorists were to attack an American city with a nuclear weapon, DoD, at the direction of the President or the Secretary of Defense, as appropriate and consistent with the law and the imperative to maintain the Department’s readiness, will provide critical nuclear consequence management support to civil authorities as part of the comprehensive national response to a nuclear incident.” 

Other witnesses concurred with this picture of slow but discernible progress at the federal level. 

R. David Paulison, administrator of Federal Emergency Management Agency outlined forward strides in developing an architecture of interagency collaboration on the federal level.

“As required in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 (HSPD-5), and as described in the NRF,” Paulison testified, “ the Secretary of Homeland Security has overall responsibility for domestic incident management. Should a terrorist attack us with a nuclear device, the President under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, has the authority to declare a major disaster or emergency, making Disaster Relief Funds available. The FBI has the lead responsibility for criminal investigations of terrorist acts or terrorist threats. The NRF’s Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex designates additional Federal agencies as cooperating agencies to respond to a nuclear incident. The NRF’s Catastrophic Incident Annex (CIA) and Catastrophic Incident Supplement (CIS) provide the strategy for implementing and coordinating an accelerated proactive national response to a catastrophic incident that takes advantage of multiple Federal–level teams and assets.” 

W. Craig Vanderwagen, M.D., Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response,U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said, “While there are certainly gaps remaining in our IND response plan, we have made substantial progress upon which we continue to build. 

'The basis for response and preparedness planning involves specific event scenarios," he added. "These scenarios are prepared by the Department of Homeland Security working with BARDA’s public health and medical consequence modeling group, which includes modeling efforts from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the Agency for Healthcare. Research and Quality (AHRQ). Models are refined continuously from the open desert models of a nuclear detonation to current models that take into account more accurately, though still not entirely, an urban setting.” 

For all the good news at the national level, however, translating what McHale called the poetry of high strategy into the “prose” of seamless tactical coordination and execution remains fraught with challenges. 

“The Federal Government can have the best, most detailed plan for responding to the 15 National Planning Scenarios,” warned McHale, “ but that only gives us a Federal response, one that may not effectively support -- or, worse yet, may conflict with -- the regional and/or State responses (which also may not be mutually supportive). Federal, regional, State, and local plans must be integrated and synchronized to give us a truly national response to a future catastrophic incident."

McHale’s concerns were given practical illustration by Chief James H. Schwartz, Arlington, VA. Fire dept. who said, “The fundamental cornerstone of every emergency event is that local government agencies are charged with leading the response,” said Schwartz, “and any event involving a nuclear or radiological attack would quickly overwhelm local and state capabilities and require federal support under the National Response Framework.” 

Schwartz explained that despite its proximity to the nation’s capital and the national significance of such an event, Arlington County must still be prepared to operate under the assumption that most federal support would not arrive for 48-72 hours. 

During that all important window Schwartz identified several capacity gaps that would hamper local effectiveness. 

“ Our department,” he said, “ equipped with alpha, beta, and gamma radiation detectors, as well as pocket detectors for measuring radioactivity. We also have established standard operating procedures for response to potential CRNE incidents that are built on guidelines prepared and adopted by the NCR partners. These procedures include radiation dose exposure limits designed to protect first responders. Such tools and procedures will be critical in identifying radiation at the scene. However, far more sophisticated technical assistance will be needed to conduct accurate assessments of the amount of radioactive material involved, plume modeling, and downwind projections. In a nuclear event, this information will be critical to making lifesaving decisions regarding which areas to evacuate.”

“In a nuclear or radiological event,” he added, “ rapid plume modeling and analysis will be the federal government resource most urgently needed. In Arlington County, our hazmat team has rudimentary plume modeling capabilities, and our close working relationship with the Pentagon Force Protection Agency enables us to access more sophisticated plume analysis within minutes of an incident. Our training and procedures also anticipate the early arrival of a Department of Energy Radiological Assistance Program (RAP) Team, with whom we have also trained. Analysis from the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) will also be needed. This assistance must rapidly be integrated into the incident command system.” 

Although information sharing has improved in recent years, the Department of Homeland Security and others in the intelligence community, according to Schwartz, must continue to work toward sharing meaningful threat information with those state and local officials who are best prepared to act on it. Such information is vital to effectively targeting resources. 

“First responders must continuously practice risk management, carefully prioritizing the greatest risks, in order to maximize limited resources,” he said. “It is therefore imperative that the federal government provide state and local officials with accurate information regarding threats. Currently, the majority of the threat information received from the federal government has led first responders to focus terrorism preparedness on conventional explosives, including IEDs, or some type of crude “dirty bomb” with small amounts of radiological material. On any given day, the average metropolitan fire chief might face threats as diverse as large structural fire, a plane crash, a major wildland fire, a tornado or earthquake, a pandemic flu outbreak, an anthrax attack, or even a nuclear bomb. However, he or she has a limited number of resources – even with the addition of valuable homeland security and first responder grants, such as UASI and MMRS – with which to address these threats. The federal government plays a crucial role in providing information, intelligence, and clear guidance about how to prioritize these threats.” 

Schwartz also said that although the Department of Homeland Security has improved its attempts to reach out to state and local officials and responders it needs to devote greater focus to achieving a truly collaborative approach to addressing vital preparedness and response issues. One venue for this, Schwartz suggested, might be symposia for shared learning with local practitioners and experts to explore a variety of threat scenarios and develop response guidelines and best practices. 

An equally pressing gap, according to Schwartz is medical surge capacity, which is still lacking in communities across the nation. “The federal government,” he said, “ should provide leadership in marshaling expertise to develop best practices and creative solutions for communities to address a host of issues related to incidents which may involve mass casualties, as well as the need for medical surge capacity, especially for hospitals. This guidance must be developed in full partnership with local practitioners, and should address the needs of communities of all sizes.” 

In perhaps the most promising evidence that these gaps not only were understood but being addressed on the federal level, McHale outlined the Task Force for Emergency Readiness (or “TFER”) initiative. 

“The TFER,” he said, “ is under the direct leadership of the Governor’s state emergency management structure and teams State civilian planners, National Guard planners, DHS Federal Preparedness Coordinators, and DoD Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officers to. The charge of the initiative, he said, was to produce state plans tailored to the unique strengths and vulnerabilities of each individual state, as well as facilitate the integration and synchronization of local, state, regional, federal, and private sector incident planning. As McHale explained, “The TFER initiative will enable merging bottom-up local/State planning with the Federal top-down approach to integrate the Federal-State planning process, thereby implementing the coordination envisioned by the IPS and achieving a unity of effort that mirrors our nation’s principles of self reliance and the federal model of government. In short, each state’s TFER will provide a focal point for catastrophic response planning, integrating all relevant capabilities – military and civilian – found within the public and private sectors.”