Greece splurges on electronic security

Athens is spending a small fortune on Olympic security so that its police will have the most modern equipment and technology available.

The question in Athens these days, however, is not whether Greece will have the newest security gadgets, but if security forces will have enough time to learn how to use them before the Aug. 13-29 Games.

The electronic security system for Athens has been touted as one of the most sophisticated ever assembled at a cost of more than US$312 million. It was supposed to be delivered on May 28, giving 4,000 security personnel at least two months of hands-on experience.

Like much to do with the Athens Games, things didn't go quite as planned.

"We will be ready by the end of June or beginning of July," Public Order Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis told AP.

The security contract was awarded one year ago to a consortium led by San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp, or SAIC, which had helped to secure the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

Greek worries about escalating costs had significantly delayed the contract, barely giving SAIC enough time to put the system together.

"The single biggest challenge is the time constraint," SAIC said at the time.

On June 2, SAIC vice president David Tubbs would not give an exact delivery date. He said only that the system will be ready by the Olympics.

"We and the government are working very hard to make certain that the system is completed, functional and available for use during the Olympics," Tubbs said.

The company has blamed delays on construction setbacks at sports venues such as the main Olympic stadium, which is still not ready.

The world has drastically changed since Athens was awarded the Olympics in 1997. After the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Greece went from being one of the safest countries in Europe to suddenly finding itself with a security bill that has surpassed US$1.2 billion.

"What has happened over the last number of years is that security planning and the security effort has come to the forefront. I don't think anybody wants to acknowledge that because you don't want it to take away from what the games are supposed to bring your country, but it is a fact of life," Tubbs said.

The price for security, already twice the original amount budgeted, includes the cost for 70,000 police and soldiers, new equipment -- from pistols to blimps -- and the electronic system that will bind it all together.

"Preparations for the Olympics is the most complex thing that I have ever seen, and it is not just security planning but it is all the effort that everybody puts in," Tubbs said.

Voulgarakis said Greece's high cost for security was something the world had to take into consideration with regard to the Olympics.

"The international community has to decide whether this celebration has to be kept or not. I believe it has to be kept because it is something universal, no matter the cost," Voulgarakis said.

After enduring years of construction delays and international criticism about the slow pace of preparations, Olympic organizers have now asked Athenians to at least put on a happy face for the world.

"These games should be the games of smiles and not of misery and complaint," Athens organizing committee president Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said.

After a meeting with Premier Costas Caramanlis, she said that all Greeks must "take a common course and work together in a joint effort. We must make this common effort visible because everyone outside of Greece is watching."