Published on: Sunday, July 7, 2002

COMMENTARY
Tuning up security in the Islands

By Craig B. Whelden

Those old enough to remember can tell you exactly what they were doing 60 years ago when told of the attack on Pearl Harbor. My dad was a student at Purdue University, trying to decide whether to study or go see a movie. Events of that day eventually sent him to China, piloting C-47s in support of Gen. Claire Chenault's Flying Tigers.

I was in the seventh grade when told of the John F. Kennedy assassination. And I was working at a camp in England, staring at a small black-and-white television at 3 a.m., when Neil Armstrong uttered those famous words: "One small step for man ... one giant leap for mankind."

Where were you on Sept. 11, 2001?

I was at a conference in Crystal City, Va. — just across from the Pentagon — when told that the two World Trade Center towers had been hit. We were trying to find a television when, minutes later, a woman ran into the room to announce that an explosion had occurred at the Pentagon.

We all ran outside to witness a rising black plume above America's most recognized symbol of military power. My first instinct was to call my wife in Hawai'i, as she believed my meeting that day was in the Pentagon. I found that my cell phone couldn't connect, so I ran up to my room, where I finally got through. It was 4 a.m. in Hawai'i and 10 a.m. on the East Coast. The governor had not yet been notified, I found out later.

I then went over to the Pentagon where I found cool heads — in the midst of a chaotic scene — all trying to help. Hundreds of people were outside the building trying to organize litter teams. Medical people, firefighters, police officers, Pentagon security people and the FBI were all there, but it quickly became evident that there was no central point for coordination.

I suspected there would be a need for military support, in manpower, communications and logistics, so I approached an FBI agent and asked who was "in charge." After glancing around, he replied: "I guess I am."

Later, I learned that what he really meant was that the FBI was in charge of the crime scene. The FBI was not in charge of the overall response. That was the fire department's domain.

When I asked the FBI agent if he had communications, he pulled out a cell phone and his telling expression made clear to me that it had failed him more than a few times, just as mine did for me.

Over time, we cobbled together a coordination cell centered on the Army's Old Guard ... the 3rd Infantry Regiment from nearby Fort Myer. We placed their command vehicle in the center of the field facing the crash site and gave each of the responding agencies a radio-equipped Army liaison. We told them that if they needed something from the military to notify the liaison officer, who would then communicate this need to the command post. They would then try to source that requirement from the many installations throughout the Military District of Washington.

Over the next few hours, the Army — and many other agencies — provided food, water, fuel, generators, lights, cabling and manpower to a multi-agency effort. By nightfall, the field in front of the crash site looked like a miniature city.

Why do I tell this story?

It's because the Army in Hawai'i is the U.S. Pacific Command's executive agent for JRAC — joint rear area coordination, a task normally accomplished in a wartime theater of operation, but in this case for the state of Hawai'i.

As I learned in the days following Sept. 11, some of the same shortfalls I witnessed at the Pentagon existed in Hawai'i and — I would guess — in almost every other community in America.

Let me review what we've done — in partnership with state, local and federal authorities — in recent months:

• We have identified more than 150 "mission-essential vulnerable assets," or MEVAs, throughout Hawai'i: facilities and capabilities essential to the military and to the efficient running of the state. These assets have been thoroughly assessed and security needs addressed.

• Hawai'i used the military's Force Protection Condition rating system to establish its statewide, color-coded, alert warning system. This was done last October and was then used by Gov. Tom Ridge's Office of Homeland Security as a model for creating a national system in recent months.

• We have worked closely with state Civil Defense, the Coast Guard, the National Guard, the Honolulu Police Department, state health organizations, utility companies and federal agencies — the FBI, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Customs Service, Secret Service and Federal Aviation Administration — to identify and close "seams" in our collective efforts to secure Hawai'i's soil and the great people who live here.

• We established a Joint Intelligence Support Element and a Law Enforcement Information Fusion Cell to pull together force protection requirements, local law enforcement information and, as the law permits, selected domestic intelligence and information across a broad spectrum of sources. After analysis, we forward the results to those having a need to know on both the military and civil side. This is done through both a secure Internet connection for classified information and in a "law-enforcement sensitive" category through a password-protected site on the Asia Pacific Area Network.

• We have established a multi-agency training program and have, to date, conducted seven major training exercises with more planned: on quick response, on general security awareness and on military support to civil authorities.

• We have established Army and Marine Quick Reaction Forces, or QRFs, capable of moving on short notice by air or road to anyplace in the state.

• We have established a secure communications system capable of interface with civil authorities.

• We fielded a new command-and-control suite at key military installations, dedicated to homeland security. This three-screen, interactive system facilitates collaborative planning with write-board, voice, video and chat features. Twelve more systems are planned for use by the state to provide even closer civil-military coordination.

• We are helping to establish and staff an FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force, a charter given to field offices by the U.S. attorney general before Sept. 11 with a goal of having all task forces established by 2005.

Hawai'i's will be up and running by the end of this summer, pending receipt of top-secret security clearances for all task force members, an effort now under way.

All this has not been easy, as these agencies have not historically worked together. But I suspect what we are doing in Hawai'i is a microcosm of what Tom Ridge is facing on a national scale.

We clearly have advantages in Hawai'i: geographic, a large military presence and an 'ohana spirit that helps to transcend normal bureaucratic and cultural barriers. Because of the unique circumstances, we are, I believe, ahead of the national effort.

And, while these are all improvements over what we had before Sept. 11, there is more that can be done:

• We could use remote-controlled, closed-circuit cameras that can zoom in on suspicious activity and take film or still photography that could then be rapidly compared against a national database.

• We need "sniffers" that can detect explosive, chemical or biological materials from outside a vehicle in seconds.

• We need to review the way area networks are linked to see which — local, state, national — should be "in the loop." We need an enterprise system that allows all governmental networks to be under one umbrella to ensure we have access to a common database and the ability to efficiently move from one network to the other.

• We need systems that provide what the military calls a "common operating picture" that provides situational awareness so we are seeing the threat in the same way.

• We need simple, secure Web-based training to provide opportunities to those on the front lines — whether civil or military — to gain proficiency in the use of all these tools. We'll need to train distributively across military, interagency, state and local boundaries to ensure we're at one standard.

Most of this technology exists but, perhaps most importantly, we need to break down bureaucratic barriers and government stovepipes, realizing that the new enemy will look for seams to exploit. Achieving such goals may require legislative solutions, such as was done for the military in the mid-'80s with the Goldwater-Nichols Act.

My point is simply this: Sept. 11 changed the way we view national security, in ways we could only have imagined just 10 months ago. This war on terrorism is a long-term investment and will require the mustering of all our talents and skills in an unprecedented, seamless and permanent fusion of local, state and federal capabilities. It also will require partnering with the brightest minds in the commercial sector.

We are all anxious to see what comes out of the Office of Homeland Security. I cannot imagine that some of the things mentioned here are not on the "to do" list.

This country has a long history of rallying in times of crisis. Millions of Americans have heeded the call to service to our flag and to the nation it represents.

These principles are clearly illustrated in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan." The film depicts the story of what Tom Brokaw calls "The Greatest Generation" — one to which my father belonged — and it profiles whom Time magazine labeled as among the top 20 icons of the 20th century: the American GI.

The movie ends with Pvt. James Francis Ryan standing over Capt. Miller's Normandy grave 50 years later with his family at his side. He turns to his wife and with tears in his eyes says, "Tell me I've led a good life. Tell me I'm a good man."

This movie, and the story it tells, says a lot about the institution to which the greatest generation belonged ... the institution to which I now belong: the Army.

Those same values, so aptly demonstrated by generations past, are the reason we live in the greatest country in history.

You can believe that our ancestors are watching to see how we respond to this latest threat against our nation. I know that we won't fail them, and to me, the reason is clear. It's simply because we are Americans.

Maj. Gen. Craig B. Whelden is the deputy commander, U.S. Army Pacific, and is stationed at Fort Shafter.