WASHINGTON, DC, March 17, 2005 -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security today announced that the United States, United Kingdom and Canada will cooperate in conduct of TOPOFF 3, a Congressionally-mandated counter-terrorism exercise for top officials. DHS will conduct the TOPOFF 3 full scale exercise in April 2005, with terrorist attack scenarios staged in Connecticut and New Jersey. Additional activities will occur in related exercises within the United Kingdom (Atlantic Blue) and Canada (TRIPLE PLAY). "The TOPOFF exercises are a key piece of the United States homeland security national preparedness efforts. By responding realistically to simulated attacks, we are able to identify our strengths and weaknesses and make our national response system stronger," said Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. "Our partnerships with the U.K. and Canada will further enhance our ability to deal with terrorism on an international level." "Our participation is another example of our ongoing commitment to working closely with the United States and international allies such as the U.K. to strengthen our ability to deal with international terrorism and its consequences - key objectives of Canada's National Security Policy and the Smart Border Declaration," said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness the Honourable Anne McLellan. "The threat from international terrorism remains real and serious, and is a worldwide concern. It is vital we make every effort to enhance and develop our resilience to this threat by working closely with our international colleagues. Exercise Atlantic Blue provides an excellent opportunity to do just this, through sharing best practice on emergency planning and response procedures," said Hazel Blears, U.K. Minister with responsibility for Counter Terrorism and Resilience. The U.S. TOPOFF 3 exercise is the third of the congressionally directed, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) national exercise series. The first was conducted in May 2000, and TOPOFF 2 was hosted in May 2003 with simulated attacks in Seattle and Chicago. Previous TOPOFF exercises have allowed the Federal government to test new response plans with State, local, and international partners. TOPOFF 2 was the first exercise of the newly formed DHS, the first exercise of the Principal Federal Official (this concept was subsequently incorporated into the National Response Plan), and the first test of an elevation of the National Threat Condition to RED. The lessons from previous TOPOFF exercises have also helped shape the national preparedness strategy, which calls for development of an integrated Federal-state-local capability of prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery for extreme events, including terrorism. To meet the shared international objectives, the TOPOFF 3 full-scale exercise focuses on four critical areas: Incident management: To test the full range of existing procedures for domestic incident management of a terrorist event and improve, through practice, top officials' capabilities in affected countries to respond in partnership Intelligence/investigation: To test the handling and flow of operational and time-critical intelligence Public information: To practice strategic coordination of media relations and public information following a linked incident Evaluation: To identify lessons learned and promote best practices TOPOFF 3: Exercising National Preparedness Top Officials 3 (TOPOFF 3) is the most comprehensive terrorism response exercise ever conducted in the United States. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness (SLGCP), TOPOFF 3 is the third exercise in the TOPOFF Exercise Series, a congressionally mandated exercise program. The exercise is designed to strengthen the nation's capacity to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Joining DHS and other federal agencies in this important effort are the states of Connecticut and New Jersey, as well as two international partners, the United Kingdom and Canada. These countries will conduct simultaneous, related exercises. A Weeklong Full-Scale Exercise The TOPOFF 3 Full-Scale Exercise (T3 FSE), which will take place from April 4-8, 2005, is the culmination of a two-year cycle of seminars, planning events, and exercises. The exercise will involve more than 10,000 participants representing more than 200 federal, state, local, tribal, private sector, and international agencies and organizations, as well as volunteer groups. In the United States, participants will respond to attacks in Connecticut and New Jersey. Simulated terrorist incidents will originate in New London, Connecticut (chemical incident) and Union and Middlesex Counties in New Jersey (biological incident). Real weapons will not be used, yet the response will be mounted as if they had been. Numerous federal departments and agencies will actively participate, providing a first opportunity to validate the recently released National Response Plan, and to exercise protocols of the National Incident Management System. As the full international dimensions of the simulated crisis are revealed, related exercises will take place in the United Kingdom (Atlantic Blue) and Canada (TRIPLE PLAY). Planners from all three countries have collaborated in the exercise design to achieve shared objectives. Meeting Crucial Preparedness Objectives To meet these shared objectives, the T3 FSE focuses on four critical areas: Incident management: To test the full range of existing procedures for domestic incident management of a terrorist event and improve, through practice, top officials' capabilities in affected countries to respond in partnership. Intelligence/investigation: To test the handling and flow of operational and time-critical intelligence. Public information: To practice strategic coordination of media relations and public information issues in response to linked terrorist incidents. Evaluation: To identify lessons learned and promote best practices. Challenging the Entire Homeland Security System Exercises such as TOPOFF are an important component of national preparedness, helping to build an integrated federal, state, local, tribal, and private sector capability to prevent terrorist attacks on the homeland, and rapidly and effectively respond to and recover from any terrorist attack or major disaster that does occur. The full-scale exercise offers agencies and jurisdictions a way to test their plans and skills in a real-time, realistic environment and to gain the in-depth knowledge that only experience can provide. Participants will also exercise intelligence gathering, which is critical to preventing terrorist attacks. Lessons learned from the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning for securing the nation against terrorist events. T3: Building From Past TOPOFF Exercises and the Events of September 11, 2001 The TOPOFF 3 Full-Scale Exercise extends the learning derived from earlier TOPOFF exercises and 9-11 in several ways: Increases international and private sector participation in prevention and investigation. Emphasizes terrorism prevention - an opportunity to piece together an intelligence puzzle and "capture" the enemy before the attack occurs. Emphasizes risk communication and public information - participants will explore approaches to public communications in times of high public anxiety and confusion. Focuses on long-term recovery and remediation issues. The Scenario T3 FSE begins as terrorists, planning attacks in the New York and Boston metropolitan areas, suspect their plans are compromised. They react by accelerating their original schedule, deploying a vehicle-based biological agent dispersal device in New Jersey. Seriously ill patients begin to overwhelm local hospitals. As the scenario unfolds, every county in New Jersey will need a Point of Dispensing (POD) for antibiotics. Meanwhile, the chemical weapon attack originally planned for Boston is also accelerated and executed in New London, Connecticut, augmented with a vehicle-based improvised explosive device. Issues to be addressed include public health and safety, contamination, criminal investigation, and patient care. As the events continue, federal agencies implement the National Response Plan, and international aspects of play emerge. TOPOFF 3: Exercising International Preparedness Global terrorism knows no boundaries. To prevent terrorism, and to respond effectively if an incident does occur, international cooperation is essential. Recognizing this important need, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada are participating in interrelated exercises that develop an internationally streamlined and coordinated response to a series of simulated terrorist incidents. The three interrelated exercises will all take place during the first week of April: TOPOFF 3 in the United States, Atlantic Blue in the United Kingdom, and TRIPLE PLAY in Canada. Together, the exercises offer a realistic test of the three nations' framework for collaboration and communication. Working Toward Shared Objectives The United States, Canada, and the U.K. have worked together throughout a two-year planning process to achieve shared objectives in four key areas: Incident management: To test the full range of existing procedures for domestic incident management of a terrorist event and improve, through practice, top officials' capabilities in affected countries to respond in partnership. Intelligence/investigation: To test the handling and flow of operational and time-critical intelligence. Public information: To practice strategic coordination of media relations and public information issues in response to linked terrorist incidents. Evaluation: To identify lessons learned and promote best practices. UK Participation: Atlantic Blue The U.K. will be involved in TOPOFF 3 through exercise 'Atlantic Blue', which will be played at command post exercise (CPX) level only. This will allow the U.K. to focus specifically on communication across international borders at a strategic level and test simultaneous responses to linked terrorist incidents in the U.K., U.S., and Canada. The Metropolitan Police Service is the host force for the U.K. working closely with the Home Office and other government departments and London agencies on planning and delivery. Atlantic Blue provides the U.K. an invaluable opportunity to enhance their well-established domestic exercise program by working with their U.S. and Canadian counterparts to test their capability to respond to the specific challenges of an international terrorist incident. Training exercises are a vital part of counterterrorism, as they ensure preparedness for response to any kind of terrorist attack and confirm counterterrorism arrangements are tried and tested. As with all exercises, the lessons learned from Atlantic Blue will be incorporated into future contingency planning. It is important to emphasize that this exercise has been planned and designed to enhance international emergency preparedness and in no way reflects a specific threat to any of the participating nations. Canada Participation: TRIPLE PLAY Canada will be involved with TOPOFF 3 through TRIPLE PLAY, which will exercise, test, and validate protocols and procedures that support and are used by select Federal and Provincial top officials in response to a terrorist event. Spanning a timetable of several months, TRIPLE PLAY involves a series of training sessions, seminars and tabletop exercises of increasing complexity to build and gauge participants' growing knowledge and experience. It begins with the command post exercise that will assess Canada's ability to put the National Emergency Response System into effect to act quickly and decisively in the event of a terrorist attack or other emergency. Following the exercise in April, Canada will conclude the TRIPLE PLAY exercise with Canada's first Large Scale Game to review response actions and their relationship to after- action initiatives and recovery policy development. The Government of Canada is committed to working closely with other countries to strengthen their ability to deal with any form of terrorism and its consequences. Canada's National Security Policy identifies the development of an exercise program as a priority, committing the government to "regular national and international exercises involving civilian and military resources to assess the adequacy of the national system against various emergency scenarios." In addition, Canada has made commitments under the 1999 Canada- U.S. Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Guidelines and Smart Border Accord to engage with the U.S. in joint counter terrorism training activities, including exercises. In keeping with its mandate to demonstrate leadership in national security and emergency preparedness, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada is leading the planning for TRIPLE PLAY. This effort is being supported by a working group with representatives from 19 federal departments and agencies. BACKGROUNDER TRIPLE PLAY The Government of Canada is committed to working closely with other countries to strengthen our ability to deal with any form of terrorism and its consequences. In keeping with this commitment, 19 federal departments and agencies and the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick will participate in a joint Canada-U.S.-U.K. counter terrorism exercise in April 2005. This weeklong international exercise will provide unique opportunities to test our response plans and further enhance our joint response capabilities. TRIPLE PLAY is the name of the Canadian part of this exercise. The American component is called TOPOFF 3. In the U.K., it is Atlantic Blue. TRIPLE PLAY, which spans a timetable of several months, involves a series of training sessions, seminars and tabletop exercises of increasing complexity to build and gauge participants' growing knowledge and experience. The culmination of TRIPLE PLAY is a "command post" exercise spanning several days that will assess Canada's ability to put the National Emergency Response System into effect to act quickly and decisively in the event of a terrorist attack or other emergency. The exercise in April will involve responding to the consequences of a major attack in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. The objectives of the international effort will be: To give senior decision makers in each country the opportunity to exercise their responsibilities in the context of a wide-spread terrorist incident; To practice coordination of strategic public communications at an international level; and To evaluate and test timely information exchange of classified intelligence and operational information between Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. The Canadian component, TRIPLE PLAY, will be a "command post exercise", which means that instead of deploying emergency services, movement of resources will be simulated. Canada will exercise, test and validate protocols and procedures that support and are used by top officials in response to a terrorist event. The exercise will engage officials at all levels of the federal government and senior officials from the governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The TRIPLE PLAY scenario is written by a team experienced in exercise design and is purely fictional. The scenario is plausible and is designed to test both domestic and international responses to terrorist incidents. In keeping with its mandate to demonstrate leadership in national security and emergency preparedness, PSEPC is leading the planning for TRIPLE PLAY. The TOPOFF series of exercises: The TOPOFF exercise series is mandated by U.S. congress. TOPOFF 3 is the third of the congressionally directed, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) national exercise series. TOPOFF has become an international activity, however the first TOPOFF was a U.S. domestic exercise held in May 2000. The exercise involved federal, state, and local authorities and responders in full-scale simulations of chemical, biological, and radiological attacks. In TOPOFF 2, Canada participated in both the lead-up seminars and the full-scale exercise in May 2003. TOPOFF 3 has seen the international component grow to include the U.K.'s Atlantic Blue exercise and Canada's TRIPLE PLAY exercise. BACKGROUNDER CANADIAN NATIONAL EXERCISE PROGRAM Today's increasingly complex threat environment, which includes natural hazards, health threats and potential terrorist attacks utilizing weapons of mass destruction, demands an exercise program that addresses both crisis and consequence management in order to reflect the "all-hazards" approach. Any Canadian response to an incident depends upon the capabilities and skill-sets of many different organizations and, to an extraordinary degree, on interagency and intergovernmental coordination and cooperation. The requirement to work interdepartmentally and cross-jurisdictionally is clearly recognized by practitioners, and regardless of the level of government originating any exercise initiative, exercises are becoming more complex with larger numbers of participants representing key stakeholders. The development of an exercise program is identified in Canada's National Security Policy as a priority, committing the Government of Canada to stage "regular national and international exercises involving civilian and military resources to assess the adequacy of the national system against various emergency scenarios." To support this commitment, the 2005 federal budget allocated $4 million to the exercise program over the next two years. In addition, Canada has made commitments under the 1999 Canada-U.S. Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Guidelines and Point 30 of the Smart Border Declaration to engage with the U.S. in joint counter- terrorism training activities, including exercises. Canada's continued participation in the TOPOFF series of American exercises demonstrates our fulfilment of these commitments. The National Exercise Division has been established within the Preparedness and Recovery Directorate of the Emergency Management and National Security Branch of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada and is developing a National Exercise Program (NEP). The Division is working with domestic partners in the development, implementation and delivery of the NEP; leading and coordinating participation in multi-jurisdictional domestic and international exercises; and establishing an "exercise business cycle" that ensures best practices and lessons learned are accessible to partners and are subsequently used to inform the improvement of emergency response processes, procedures and policy. The development of the NEP will require unprecedented cooperation on trans-Canada and trans-national levels to ensure that national objectives are met, resources are used effectively, and response capabilities are advanced as a result of lessons learned. Early in 2005, the National Exercises Division will be seeking provincial and territorial input towards a phased development of key dimensions of the NEP, including the preferred method of consultation, timing of same and key products to support the program. - 30 - For further information: Alex Swann Director of Communications Office of the Honourable Anne McLellan Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (613) 991-2863 Media Relations Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada (613) 991-0657 Department of Homeland Security Public affairs (202) 282-8010 United Kingdom Home Office Newsdesk, +44207 035 4381
