The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it completed a counterterrorism exercise – TOPOFF — for top officials involving a simulated terrorist attack employing large-scale weapons.
Taking place from June 19-22 the exercise was carried out along with a FEMA exercise called “Forward Challenge 2006” designed to test federal continuity of operations plans – as well as an FBI exercise, “Marble Challenge 06-02,” involving law enforcement and WMD response.
DHS said the exercise focused on senior officials’ abilities to respond to a complex and demanding scenario in accordance with the National Response Plan and National Incident Management System.
“Every TOPOFF exercise builds on real-world and exercise experiences and lessons learned to further enhance our national preparedness,” said DHS under secretary for preparedness George Foresman.
The department said over 4,000 federal, state, local and tribal officials and managers from 85 organizations participated in its exercise, and described it as “a real-time, functional assessment of communications, planning, and decision-making capabilities in a time of crisis” – short of deploying actual numbers of personnel to the field.