WASHINGTON, June 22 (UPI) -- More than 4,000 officials and senior managers from 85 separate organizations completed a three-day counterterrorism exercise Thursday.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the exercise was designed to analyze, in real time, the abilities of federal, state, local, and tribal officials in the face of a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction. Some emergency response centers were incorporated, though relatively few personnel from these centers entered the field.
Commencing on June 19, the TOPOFF 4 Command Post Exercise, known as T4CPX, is mandated by Congress for top officials at all levels of government.
The table-top exercise was conducted with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Forward Challenge 2006 exercise and the FBI's Marble Challenge 06-02 exercise involving the role of law-enforcement in a disaster setting.
Among the areas of study in this first phase of the two exercises were determining the authorities, responsibilities, and capabilities of Federal assets necessary to respond to a terrorist WMD incident, evaluating mass care capability, and coordinating media and public communications strategy.
Each exercise involves a two-year planning, seminars, and exercises cycle, with a CPX-type exercise in the first year and a Full-Scale Exercise in the second.
