National Level Exercise 2009 – NLE 09 Terror Exercise
Posted: 18 Jul 2009 12:50 AM PDT
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27
through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted
by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism
prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and
recovery.
NLE 09 is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise. Tier
I exercises (formerly known as the Top Officials exercise series or
TOPOFF) are conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise
Program (NEP), which serves as the nation’s overarching exercise program
for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national level
exercises. The NEP was established to provide the U.S. government, at all
levels, exercise opportunities to prepare for catastrophic crises ranging
from terrorism to natural disasters.
NLE 09 is a White House directed, Congressionally- mandated
exercise that includes the participation of all appropriate federal
department and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key
operational elements. In addition, broad regional participation of state,
tribal, local, and private sector is anticipated. This year the United
States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the
United Kingdom in NLE 09.
EXERCISE FOCUS
NLE 09 will focus on intelligence and information sharing among
intelligence and law enforcement communities, and between international,
federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector
participants.
The NLE 09 scenario will begin in the aftermath of a notional
terrorist event outside of the United States, and exercise play will
center on preventing subsequent efforts by the terrorists to enter the
United States and carry out additional attacks. This scenario enables
participating senior officials to focus on issues related to preventing
terrorist events domestically and protecting U.S. critical
infrastructure.
NLE 09 will allow terrorism prevention efforts to proceed to a
logical end (successful or not), with no requirement for response or
recovery activities.
NLE 09 will be an operations-based exercise to include:
activities taking place at command posts, emergency operation centers,
intelligence centers and potential field locations to include federal
headquarters facilities in the Washington D.C. area, and in federal,
regional, state, tribal, local and private sector facilities in FEMA
Region VI, which includes the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico,
Oklahoma and Texas.
EXERCISE OBJECTIVES
Through a comprehensive evaluation process, the exercise will
assess prevention and protection capabilities both nationally and
regionally. Although NLE 09 is still in the planning stages, the exercise
is currently designed to validate the following capabilities:
- Intelligence/Information Sharing and Dissemination
- Counter-Terrorism Investigation and Law Enforcement
- Air, Border and Maritime Security
- Critical Infrastructure Protection
- Public and Private Sector Alert/Notification and Security Advisories
- International Coordination
VALIDATING THE HOMELAND SECURITY SYSTEM
Exercises such as NLE 09 are an important component of
national preparedness, helping to build an integrated federal, state,
tribal, local and private sector capability to prevent terrorist attacks,
and rapidly and effectively respond to, and recover from, any terrorist
attack or major disaster that occurs.
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 exercise prevention and information sharing functions
that are critical to preventing terrorist attacks. Lessons learned from
the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning for
securing the nation against terrorist attacks, disasters, and other
emergencies.
For more information about NLE 09, contact the FEMA News
Desk: 202-646-4600.
FEMA leads and supports the nation in a risk-based,
comprehensive emergency management system of preparedness, protection,
response, recovery, and mitigation, to reduce the loss of life and
property and protect the nation from all hazards including natural
disasters, acts of terrorism and other man-made disasters.
This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National
Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information.
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