Pentagon plans response for domestic terror

The US military has devised its first war plans for responding to terrorist attacks in the US that envision 15 potential crisis scenarios, including simultaneous strikes nationwide, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

Citing who drafted the plans, the newspaper said the plans developed by the military's Northern Command assign as many as 3,000 ground troops to handle each attack, a number that could easily grow depending on the extent of the damage.

The possible scenarios range from relatively modest crowd-control missions to full-scale disaster management after catastrophic attacks such as the release of a deadly biological agent or the explosion of a radiological device, the report said. Some of the worst-case scenarios involve three simultaneous attacks, according to the Post.

The paper said the war plans represent a historic shift for the Pentagon, which has been reluctant to get involved in domestic operations and is legally restricted from engaging in law enforcement.

Defense officials continue to stress that the troops will play largely a supporting role in homeland emergencies, bolstering police, firefighters and other civilian response groups, the report said.

But several senior officers acknowledged the likelihood that the military will have to take charge in some situations, especially when dealing with mass-casualty attacks that could quickly overwhelm civilian resources, the Post said.

"In my estimation ... the Department of Defense is best positioned -- of the various eight federal agencies that would be involved -- to take the lead," the Post quotes Admiral Timothy Keating, head of Northcom, as saying.

The plans come at a time when the Pentagon is engaged in a year-long review of force levels and weapons systems, trying to balance the requirements of homeland defense against the demands of overseas deployments, the Post said.

Keating he was existing military assets are enough to meet homeland-security needs.