Clean bill of health

Transcription

1 Clean bill of health Major General Jonathan Treacy - Commander, Joint Task Force Civil Support - talks to Gwyn Winfield about the importance of integrating forces, working with the Homeland Response Forces and dealing with what life hands you When we last spoke to General Treacy (CBRNe World Autumn 2010) the acronym world had shifted. The CCMRFs are now a thing of the past, replaced now by the larger and faster Defense CBRN Response Force (DCRF). By the direction of the Secretary of Defense, the National Guard has also introduced the new Homeland Response Forces (HRFs). HRFs increase the focus of DoD CBRNE Consequence Management Response forces to life-saving objectives and increase operational flexibility, while recognizing the primary role that the governors play in controlling the response to CBRNE incidents that occur in their states. The integration of these roles is going to be polished and exercised over the next few years, of which more later. Now the HRFs are a tangible fact, with over two-thirds of them certified, and a veritable expansion in the capability of the Joint Task Force Civil Support (JTF-CS) underway. The ten FEMA regions HRFs have joined the 50 or so Civil Support Teams (CSTs), the 17 CBRNe Enhanced Response Force Packages (CERF-Ps), the Defense CBRN Response Force (DCRF) and two Command and Control CBRN Response Elements (C2CRE), and these will be the capstone capabilities rounding out other initiatives, such as the Domestic All Hazards Response Teams (Dart), Emergency Management Assistance Compacts (EMAC) and the National Special Security Event (NSSE) response. What these various components are doing is feeding off themselves to create a larger no-notice, complex catastrophe capability and as the amount of lifesaving and life-sustaining capability grows, so the whole force becomes more applicable to disasters whether natural or man-made. As with all these items, while they might look good on paper (and nothing fills Staff Officers with more pride than a nice, neat organogram!) they have to be able to do the task that they were created for and in this case that means that they need to be certified. At the time of writing, six of the HRFs had been certified, and the other four needed to be done by the end of the 2012 fiscal year, which did not leave a large amount of time for mistakes. Major General (MG) Treacy felt that the process had been, and would continue to be, smooth: The development, training and follow on certification and validation of the HRFs has gone as expected and planned. At this point there are about six HRFs validated and ready to go with four remaining that should be done by the end of the fiscal year.. In addition to working on Dual Status Commanders, he contined NORTHCOM leaders have worked well with the OSD, the Adjutant General, and the Governors. I am happy to say that all U.S. States and Territories now have dual status commanders; the training of those commanders is comprehensive and was successful during Hurricane Irene. It wasn t a CBRNE event that really got us appreciating that approach: when a major hurricane went up the 8 CBRNe WORLD April

2

3 Clean bill of health coast and affected the Mid-Atlantic states and the NE region, it brought to life the fact that the dual status command can be very beneficial for all aspects of homeland security, not just homeland defence and CBRNE operations. While civilian first responders might have been made aware of the power of the CSTs and JTF-CS, via organograms and briefings, it is only once they roll out for a full incident such as a hurricane that they really understand. Not all regions were involved in Irene however, and for those the certification process has been the trigger that brought local responders into the orbit of the HRFs, and for many of them it has been an eye-opening experience. The majority of first-responders contact with the military or National Guard capabilities are via the CSTs, which as 22-man teams are not going to provide a shock and awe -type scale. The HRFs, through sheer manpower alone, never mind capability, have a quality all their own. Now that some of these civilian forces have seen the federal military response capability they are interested in learning more about it and especially in how they can integrate with it. Operations such as Hurricane Irene therefore provide another opportunity for civil first-responders to engage and understand these assets. This is an area that we will gain a lot from, said Major General Treacy, if we are successful at getting more exercises, or even operations, where we can integrate and showcase the capabilities of available forces. We are in a state of improvement right now. Bringing on and validating the HRFs has been a Life support and life sustaining operations are becoming more of a role for JTF-CS JTF-CS 10 CBRNe WORLD April

4 ELITE Series - Disposable trace explosives detection: Simple, rugged, reliable Use on all surfaces Screening, analysis, post-blast, HUMINT, etc. Detect: nitro-aromatics, aliphatics, nitrates, chlorates, perchlorates, TATP, HMTD, MEKP FIELD FORENSICS EOD & IEDD EQUIPMENT - EXPLOSIVES & HME PRECURSOR DETECTION IDEX Series - Disposable HME and precursor identifiers: One-step, simple Robust, long storage life in extremes Includes forensics label and container nitro-aromatics, ammonium, urea nitrate, chlorate, perchlorate, nitrates, phosphates, acetic anhydride, peroxides. EXPLOSIVES DETECTION NIC HOOK & LINE Holdfast Series III EOD/Bomb Suit: Certified to NATO standards Protection against detonation pressure, acid burns Comfortable and flexible Field repairable Spine protection Includes backpack Rapid emergency doffing Cooling suit option or Phase-change option EOD/Bomb & Search Suits METAL DETECTION AIGIS Blast Protection Tabre energy absorption Single & multi- detonator transport Flare transport Munitions transport boxes ANT Water-Jet Cutters Water/abrasive suspension jet cutters Safe, remote operation Fully-automated cutters Robot-deployable NIC EOD/IEDD Hook & Line H&L kits and components Custom & standard kits Dismounted H&L ops Light MOD EOD Backpack Search kits H&L training EBINGER Metal Detectors Full-range of metal detection Underwater Mine clearance Command wire locators UXO locators WATER-JET CUTTERS BLAST PROTECTION 7887 Bryan Dairy Road, Suite 510 Largo, Florida 33777, USA T.: F: info@fieldforensics.com

5 Clean bill of health major focal area from late last year until this fiscal year, and the next logical step is taking those HRFs and working on the integration piece as we move forward. We need to move further down the road of understanding that integrated operations are the way to go and we will get more exercises to support that requirement. One of the reasons why there is less visibility for many local responders of JTF-CS full capability can be attributed to the scale of the operation that HRFs and the DCRF are aimed at. While city or provincial responders might be exercising at the local level dealing with tactical scale releases of chemical or biological agents the most serious tactical level threat that JTF-CS will respond to a catastrophic nuclear incident, such as a nuclear power plant disaster or terrorist attack. If an incident is not likely to swamp the usual State assets including CSTs then there is no need for the DCRF or HRFs to get involved, and as such their exercises are often played at a level where local responders have either been incapacitated or overwhelmed and both scenarios mean there is less of a requirement for interoperability. In our previous interview we queried the prevalence of 10kiloton nuclear detonation exercises, and MG Treacy stated that they were only part of the response. Yet most of the certification exercises have involved some form of nuclear detonation, either deliberate or accidental due to the damage of a nuclear plant. The question remains whether this is due to a re-focusing of the force to deal with those overwhelming disasters, or simply a training issue: that you want to be certified against the worst threat. MG Treacy stressed the importance of being able to certify the whole force: We do tend to stack the exercises towards the nuclear side of the house, but principally that is to ensure that we engage all the response forces and capabilities that are assembled not just in the DCRF but also the CBRN response enterprise. It is about scale and magnitude rather than the nature of the incident that we are responding to. The nature of a chemical or biological based exercise is something that changes the immediacy and the scale of the response required and those are valuable elements to any exercise. When you start off with a new unit and go through the build-up of the individual unit and collective level and then move to validation we tend to want the scale and magnitude of the incident to provide a very difficult test. That often drives us towards nuclear, and as we discussed last time we have other exercises throughout the year where we go to those other chem or bio incidents - so we do test ourselves in those areas as well. Operations such as Hurricane Irene show that JTF-CS is far more than a pure CBRN force, and when it combines with elements such as Dart and EMAC it will move towards more of an allhazards capability. MG Treacy warned about linking Dart too much with the HRFs as they are not part of the CBRN enterprise, and still in the planning phase, but agreed that all-hazards was a consideration. Dart is best asked of the National Guard, but I will suggest a couple of thoughts; the National Guard s responsibility for major incidents response, regardless of the nature of those incidents, is a core competency. The U.S. Secretary of Defence, in his latest push towards incorporating complex catastrophes, has gone out to all those organisations that would be instrumental in a response operation and said that he was looking for recommendations regarding positioning the DoD appropriately to be ready for complex catastrophes. For example, there is a major earthquake scenario centred on the Mississippi region, where there is a major fault zone, which if we were to have a significant earthquake along those zones it would affect numerous states from Arkansas to Indiana: that is not a point source problem! A region that size would have a national response, and a significant one. We would need a national effort to respond appropriately and quickly. Using that backdrop, Darts are organizations that would come together to respond to the aid of a natural catastrophe or a major incident. Is that something that fits into the C2CREs? Well, if you look at a complex regional catastrophe then you can look at what happened in Fukushima, what happened post-tsunami, and see where you would have an all-hazards response in coordination and simultaneous with a CBRNE response, as you could have an awful lot of potential for companies that had chemical storage. There would be all manner of CBRNE consequences within that major earthquake that might happen, and that would require a simultaneous unity of effort to deal with that level of devastation. JTF-CS did send people out to Japan to assist United States Forces-Japan and the Government of Japan with planning efforts to evacuate civilians from the Fukushima area due to the radiation release at the nuclear power plant, as MG Treacy explained: We went over in an advisory capacity and the lessons that we brought back were quite illuminating on the challenges of rapid and effective integration. The degree of coordination required and the development of process to speed our integration is an area we are delving into right now. We are working with the state of Florida, and other states, to develop how we would go forward and provide an integrated response and support. The important thing is that we create positive mission effects as rapidly as possible: life saving, search and extraction, medical decon, all of those things need to be done as quickly as possible and make things that we do additive not repetitive. One of the other elements that Major General Treacy alerted us to when we spoke last was the development of the DCRF, and the synergistic accretion of capability that was likely to occur. He stated that had in fact happened, and that greater improvements had occurred than previously expected. That did happen, he recalled, We shifted to the DCRF construct and the accelerated response timelines at the beginning of this fiscal year. Our exercise last fall was designed for a couple of things, not only to bring on new forces and to ensure that they were validated and ready to go, but to prove at the tactical level that the DCRF was a reality and not just a construct. We 12 CBRNe WORLD April

6 CBRNe Security Systems & Technologies by OWR Agile Solutions. Fast and reliable decontamination saves lives and by reducing incident reaction times, drastically minimises the impact on mankind and the environment. OWR decontamination systems are designed for all levels and types of decontamination and disinfection. Their systems are based on robust and easy to operate applications, guaranteeing effective mission achievement. By using water-free and non-corrosive decontamination solutions, OWR systems can be fully utilised while assuring compliance with the demands of the protection of the environment and technology. OWR GmbH. Oberschefflenzer Str Elztal-Rittersbach. Germany phone: +49 (0) fax: +49 (0)

7 Clean bill of health focused the exercise on the efficacy of an accelerated response timeline and how we could bring significant lifesaving and life-sustaining forces into the area and get them operating quickly. In the initial CCMRF our initial life-sustaining operations were based solely on CBIRF, and their response posture was along the order of getting out the door in a couple of days, with the rest of the CCMRF being out of the door by day four (post incident). We have not only moved the life-saving and sustaining forces forward in the timeline we have also accelerated that timeline by a factor of four days. We have significant medical, aviation and immediate response forces put at the front end of the response posture. We put our money where our mouth was. We said we were focused on getting critical mission effects as early as we possibly can. We designed the exercise to test our ability to get those lifesaving forces into the field quickly and not wait until we had everybody there and say, okay, we are ready to go. We The CSTs, together with the HRFs are focussing on life saving in all environments Bill Phelan tested our ability to push them right into the breach off the bat, rather than spend a couple of days building their base of operations. The life saving and sustaining element of the force has clearly become more important in the past two years. MG Treacy is keen to point out that this capability is not just CBRN relevant, but also has applicability in many catastrophic incidents. In a major earthquake, for example, this capability would incur not just life saving but also the provision of electrical power, water and food. This raises the obvious question of what the force will look like in the next two years. We have seen a new force become certified and increase its speed of response by a factor of four, so is this it? Now that certification has been reached is there a period of consolidation? Major General Treacy suggested that there was still work to do in terms of integrating effectively, establishing vital training programs, ensuring that the goals are reasonable and achievable, being able to respond to complex catastrophes, understanding strategic and tactical requirements, and establishing effective TTPs for the most effective, life-sustaining support. In the short term, he said, we are going down the right path, though we have some work to do. We need to establish our exercise programs to ensure that those roles we assume, in respect to integration, are actually achievable in the real world. In addition, the constructs of dual status command, and our ability to respond and integrate effectively in a complex catastrophe, such as the one we discussed, is another big milestone. We need to understand that not only from a conceptual standpoint, but also to go through the deliberate actions of working at the tactical level on the TTPs and processes to enable us to go from a standing start, where an incident has just occurred, to within hours integrating our support and supporting relationship into the most effective life-saving and sustaining support that we can. 14 CBRNe WORLD April