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ABC Posts Old Counter Terrorism Article As A New Story, twice, are we being warned of an imminent threat of terrorism?

Wednesday, April 24, 2013 9:34
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Here was my response to the article (repasted at very bottom of post) as released by ABC on Apr 22 2013 that I assumed was current news (Report on counter-terrorism drills) with date “May 2″ and no year

April 22 2013
  (Stone)Though many drills come and go without an event, TOPOFF drills have been known to go live in the past. People that have been awake for awhile and have read enough are well aware how real this could get, they’ve been ramping up these drills and ramping them up and its only a matter of time until they take it live, I pray that hour isnt approaching. I find it troubling how theyve set the stage for trickery in withholding details to shock the participants, and this sets the stage for a small contingency to sneak around and carry out actual acts of terrorism.
      I hope good cops are vigilant, even if they have to do it off duty, and keep a close eye on all the activities leading up and through, and thwart any acts of terrorism carried out under the umbrella of an exercise. Perhaps this article was re posted from ABC curiously dated May 2 to draw attention to it in the hopes that good cops, good civil servants, and citizens from every walk will take every necessary measure to prevent another attack being carried out.
——————————————————————————————————————————————-
This is how the article appeared on ABC website on April 22nd 2013

 Preparing for Major Terrorism Exercises Three Cities By David Ruppe
May 2
They have now changed it and added 2004 to the date
 Originally dated simply May 2, and published on April 22, the article now is dated 2004 at the original link http://abcnews.go.com/US/preparing-major-terrorism-exercises-cities/story?id=94708#.UXfOXT7kwSg
Reading the comments on the article may help make sense of this, but it is an old article  I was duped by this into believing the article was a real report by ABC of an upcoming counter terrorism drill, as many people were, now I find they’ve changed the date and its an old article, but it gets weirder, theres also an identical new article dated Apr 23 2013 from ABC (I took screenshots this time in case they change the date again.) of the same old text

As seen on http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=94708&sid=81
 

Originally my paranoia was that the drill could be cover for an actual event, but now that I learn this was an old article and there was a whole series of drills culminating in Topoff 3, Im even more concerned and worried it may have all been dress rehearsal for an actual event, one they’ve had a lot of practice carrying out. At http://tarpley.net/?s=drills we find exhaustive research into the connection between drills and actual events of terrorism carried out by cover and by the planning of the exercise it purports to prevent. These drills do not make us safer, they facilitate acts of terrorism. ABC recent articles on these old news articles of Topoff drills may well still be a warning, they know this will arouse all kinds of speculation, the ABC correspondent may be hoping the truth can somehow be flushed out once the story starts getting looked at? I really dont know what to think but I sure as hell hope someone knows whats going on and can prevent any looming acts of terrorism that might be imminent.

 This ABC story has been reposted all over the web and on one of these I found the following comment
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Guess what? It’s even older than that- NCR-2000(Washington DC exercise)
[Link]
[Link]
But here’s the strange thing. In looking a little deeper, I found this-
[Link]
It just so happens that there is a company named NCR, based out of Denver, Colorado, and their address is 2000 S Colo Blvd Ste 100. NCR 2000? Really? So the name of the Washington DC exercise is also the name and numerical address of a company in Denver, which is also listed in both of the articles listed above as having a simultaneous exercise but with a different name?
The TOPOFF exercises have been happening every few years according to globalsecurity.org. First was 2000, followed by 2003, 2005, and 2007. But I cannot find any reference to a currently dated NCR-2000 exercise. All information pertaining to it is from April or May of 2000. Something doesn’t make sense about this (except for the ramping up of people’s emotions).
———————————————————————————————————————–

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCR_Corporation  CEO: Bill Nuti (August 8, 2005 – present)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Some of these links Ive pasted below showing some of the drills leading up to Topoff 3, and at http://www.globalsecurity.org/index.html  youl find more information on these drills

    

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DOJ/FEMA Thursday, April 27, 2000
(202) 616-2777 WWW.USDOJ.GOV
TDD (202) 514-1888


TO CONDUCT DOMESTIC COUNTERTERRORISM EXERCISES State and Local Law Enforcement/Emergency Responders from Denver Metropolitan Area and Portsmouth, New Hampshire to Participate
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Justice and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will conduct a Congressionally-mandated domestic counterterrorism response exercise that will take place in the Denver, Colorado metropolitan area and Portsmouth, New Hampshire during May 2000. Although counterterrorism response exercises are conducted routinely across the country, this marks the first time that an exercise of this scope, with the participation of top-level federal, state and local officials, has ever been conducted. The exercise consists of a combination of weapons of mass destruction incidents, but there will be no release of any actual weapons or agents.
In 1998, Congress directed the Attorney General and the Director of FEMA to undertake an exercise that involves all key personnel -- federal agency personnel and state and local emergency responders, including law enforcement, fire and emergency medical personnel -- who would participate in the crisis and consequence management of a domestic weapons of mass destruction terrorist attack. The goal of the exercise, called "TOPOFF" because of the involvement of top officials, is to assess the nation's crisis and consequence management capacity under extraordinarily stressful conditions. Consistent with legislative recommendations, the TOPOFF exercise will simulate a chemical and a biological attack.
The exercise scenarios will enable top officials and relevant personnel to practice different courses of action, gain and maintain situational awareness, and assemble appropriate resources. Mayors, city managers, state governors and local and state personnel will be key participants and play active roles throughout the exercise.
"It is important for us to train and prepare for any type of terrorist act," said Attorney General Janet Reno. "TOPOFF, along with regional exercises that are conducted routinely, can only help us to better educate and train responders across all levels of government."
At the urging of Congress, the exercise will be conducted without advance notice to participants. It is scheduled to take place in May over a 10-day period. Specific dates and characteristics of the exercise are being withheld from participants who will be responding as they would in a real-life situation.
At the same time, the FBI, Department of Energy and FEMA will conduct NCR-2000, a separate, but concurrent domestic counterterrorism exercise in the D.C. metropolitan area (Prince Georges County, MD, and Washington, DC), with state and local emergency responders, including law enforcement. NCR-2000-short for National Capital Region 2000-consists of previously planned exercises and will complement the TOPOFF activities occurring in Portsmouth and Denver and involve an undisclosed type of mass destruction weapon.
The Department of Justice's Office for State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support in conjunction with FEMA, established a group of federal, state and local interagency partners to develop the concept and conduct planning for the exercise. Federal representatives include: the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Energy, Health and Human Services, Transportation; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the National Security Council; the Central Intelligence Agency; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the General Services Administration. State and local representatives include officials from the offices of Governors, Mayors, emergency management agencies, other high-ranking local officials and the first responders themselves.
"It is vitally important that our nation be prepared for the consequences of a terrorist event," said FEMA Director James Lee Witt.
The sites were chosen based on discussions that took place during a May 1999 planning conference with more than 150 state and local emergency response experts and planners from across the country. Several cities volunteered and ultimately two were selected to participate: Denver--a large metropolitan jurisdiction that received Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Domestic Preparedness Training; and Portsmouth, N.H.--a small jurisdiction that has not received that type of training. Criteria for selection included the cities' varying levels of training in weapons of mass destruction response, their geographical dispersal, and their willingness to participate in the exercise.
The Attorney General and the Director of FEMA will serve as Co-Chairs for the exercise because by law and Presidential Directive both agencies have responsibilities for responding to and managing the consequences of a domestic weapons of mass destruction incident.
Under a Presidential Directive, the Department of Justice, acting through the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is the lead federal agency for the crisis management response to a domestic weapons of mass destruction incident due to its investigative and law enforcement role in bringing to justice any terrorists involved in such an incident.
FEMA, acting in accordance with the Stafford Act and as the lead agency for consequence management, will implement the "Federal Response Plan" in support of state and local officials.

###

00-230
For additional information on TOPOFF contact:

  • Doug Johnson, DOJ at 202/353-9051 or pager 888/582-6750 or
  • Gina Talamona, DOJ at 202/616-2777

For information regarding Denver contact:

  • Chris Watney, DOJ 202/616-2777
  • Don Jacks, FEMA 202/646-4600

Local: Sheriff Pat J. Sullivan, Jr. 303/734-5101

  • Tommy Grier, Colorado Office of Emergency Management 303/273-1622

For information regarding Portsmouth contact:

  • Doug Johnson DOJ 202/353-9051 or pager 888/582-6750 or
  • Marc Wolfson FEMA 202/646-4600

Local: Jim Van Dongen, New Hampshire Office of

  • Emergency Management 603/271-2231

For information regarding NCR 2000 contact:

  • Dave Miller FBI 202/324-3691
  • Doug Johnson DOJ 202/353-9051 or pager 888/582-6750 or
  • Marc Wolfson FEMA 202/646-4600

Local: District of Columbia Emergency Management Agency,

  • JoEllen Contee 202/727-6161
  • Prince George's County Fire and EMS, Mark Brady 301/883-5220

——————————————————————————————————————————

 

NOT FOR RELEASE - FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY
DOJ/FEMA SUNDAY, MAY 21, 2000
(202) 514-2007 WWW.USDOJ.GOV
TDD (202) 514-1888


FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY - NOT FOR RELEASE

FOR PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY ON MONDAY
WASHINGTON, D.C. - News media interested in covering activities in the Prince George's County, Maryland area, related to NCR 2000, the domestic counterterrorism exercise announced here in April, should report to the Largo Town Center in the parking lot in front of the closed Hechinger's on Monday, May 22, 2000 at 8:00 a.m. to receive credentials required for covering the exercise and information about the logistics of the exercise in the Prince George's County area. Media interested in attending NCR 2000 activities must be escorted to events from this location.
What: Media check-in for NCR 2000 counterterrorism exercise

Where: Largo Town Center
Parking Lot in Front of Hechinger's
(495 south to 214 east, Central Avenue, follow signs for Harry Truman Drive, right on Largo Center Drive, turn into Largo Town Center Parking Lot, there is a Shopper's Food Warehouse and a McDonald's in the same complex.)

When: 8:00 a.m., Monday, May 22, 2000

NCR 2000, short for National Capital Region 2000, consists of previously planned exercises and will complement the TOPOFF activities occurring in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Denver, Colorado, and involve an undisclosed type of simulated mass destruction weapon. TOPOFF, a Congressionally mandated counterterrorism exercise is being conducted by the Department of Justice and FEMA with the participation of other federal agencies.
There will be no release of any actual weapons or agents at any location during the national exercise.
Note: This is a "no notice" exercise as responders and other participating officials do not know the actual date/time of the start of the exercise or specific incident locations. Therefore, this information may not be released or used in any news stories.
For additional information on NCR 2000 in the DC Metropolitan area contact:
National contacts:
Gina Talamona, DOJ, 202-514-2007
Mary Margaret Walker, FEMA, 202-646-3892
Denver contacts:
Chris Watney, DOJ, cell, 202-353-5232
Don Jacks, FEMA , cell, 202-236-1403
Local: Sheriff Pat J. Sullivan, Jr. 303-734-5101
Tommy Grier, Colorado Office of Emergency Management 303-273-1622
Portsmouth contacts:
Doug Johnson, DOJ, cell, 202-353-5610 or pager 888-582-6750
Mike Beeman, FEMA, cell, 917-678-1162
Local: Jim Van Dongen, New Hampshire Office of Emergency Management,
office, 603-271-2231, cell, 603-419-9057, pager, 603-639-6902
NCR 2000 contacts:
Gretchen Michael, DOJ, 202-514-2007 or 202-514-5000
Charles Miller, DOJ, 202-514-5000
Pete Gulotta, FBI, pager, 888-773-4033
Phil Clark, FEMA, 800-759-8888 pin# 1255342
Mark Brady, P.G. County Fire & EMS, pager, 301-499-8215 pin# 2069
Chauncy Bowers, P.G. County Fire & EMS, pager, 301-499-8215 pin# 2071

———————————————————————————————————————

Further Reading

TOPOFF 1
TOPOFF 2
TOPOFF 3
Top Officials 3 (TOPOFF 3) was the most comprehensive terrorism response exercise ever conducted in the United States. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness, TOPOFF 3 was the third exercise in the TOPOFF Exercise Series, a congressionally mandated exercise program. The exercise was designed to strengthen the nation’s capacity to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. Joining the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies in that important effort are the states of Connecticut and New Jersey, as well as two international partners, the United Kingdom and Canada. These countries conducted simultaneous, related exercises.  The TOPOFF 3 Full-Scale Exercise (T3 FSE), which took place from April 4-8, 2005, is the culmination of a two-year cycle of seminars, planning events, and exercises. The exercise involved more than 10,000 participants representing more than 200 federal, state, local, tribal, private sector, and international agencies and organizations, as well as volunteer groups.
In the United States, participants responded to attacks in Connecticut and New Jersey. Simulated terrorist incidents originated in New London, Connecticut (chemical incident) and Union and Middlesex Counties in New Jersey (biological incident). Real weapons were not used, yet the response was mounted as if they had been. Numerous federal departments and agencies actively participated, providing a first opportunity to validate the recently released National Response Plan, and to exercise protocols of the National Incident Management System. As the full international dimensions of the simulated crisis were revealed, related exercises took place in the United Kingdom (ATLANTIC BLUE) and Canada (TRIPLE PLAY). Planners from all three countries have collaborated in the exercise design to achieve shared objectives.
To meet these shared objectives, the T3 FSE focused on four critical areas:
  • Incident management: To test the full range of existing procedures for domestic incident management of a terrorist event and improve, through practice, top officials’ capabilities in affected countries to respond in partnership.
  • Intelligence/investigation: To test the handling and flow of operational and time-critical intelligence.
  • Public information: To practice strategic coordination of media relations and public information issues in response to linked terrorist incidents.
  • Evaluation: To identify lessons learned and promote best practices.
  • Exercises such as TOPOFF are an important component of national preparedness, helping to build an integrated federal, state, local, tribal, and private sector capability to prevent terrorist attacks on the homeland, and rapidly and effectively respond to and recover from any terrorist attack or major disaster that does occur. The ScenarioT3 FSE begins as terrorists, planning attacks in the New York and Boston metropolitan areas, suspect their plans are compromised. They react by accelerating their original schedule, deploying a vehicle-based biological agent dispersal device in New Jersey. Seriously ill patients begin to overwhelm local hospitals. As the scenario unfolds, every county in New Jersey will need a Point of Dispensing (POD) for antibiotics. Meanwhile, the chemical weapon attack originally planned for Boston is also accelerated and executed in New London, Connecticut, augmented with a vehicle-based improvised explosive device.
    Issues to be addressed include public health and safety, contamination, criminal investigation, and patient care. As the events continue, federal agencies implement the National Response Plan, and international aspects of play emerge.
    The TOPOFF 3 Full-Scale Exercise extends the learning derived from earlier TOPOFF exercises and 9-11 in several ways:
  • Increases international and private sector participation in prevention and investigation.
  • Emphasizes terrorism prevention – an opportunity to piece together an intelligence puzzle and “capture” the enemy before the attack occurs.
  • Emphasizes risk communication and public information – participants will explore approaches to public communications in times of high public anxiety and confusion.
  • Focuses on long-term recovery and remediation issues.
  • ————————————————————————————————————————————————–
    Preparing for Major Terrorism Exercises Three Cities
    By David Ruppe Apr 23, 2013, 9:31 PM

    The federal government has begun preparing three U.S. cities for large-scale, 10-day terrorism-response exercises scheduled this month.

    Beginning sometime between May 7 and May 29, local, state and top level federal authorities will respond to simulated weapons of mass destruction attacks in three cities — Denver, Portsmouth, N.H., and the Washington, D.C.-area.

    Denver or Portsmouth will face either a simulated biological or a chemical weapons attack. The D.C. metropolitan area will respond to a radiological attack drill — which could range from simply an exposed container of radioactive material to a small nuclear detonation.

    Looking for Realism

    The congressionally mandated exercises are intended to examine how well local, state and federal authorities are prepared to respond to and together deal with the consequences of a weapons of mass destruction attack.

    “The goal of the exercise is to assess the nation’s crisis consequence management capacity under extraordinarily stressful conditions,” the Department of Justice said in a statement released Thursday.

    Specific dates and characteristics of the exercise are being withheld from participants, to make the tests as realistic as possible.

    Volunteers and professional actors will play the roles of victims, who will be rescued, diagnosed, decontaminated and treated over the 10-day period. A “virtual news network” will be created that will broadcast on the exercises every hour on the hour.

    But the exercises will not be too realistic, authorities say. No weapons or agents will be released and, to minimize the risk of public panic or real-life accidents, emergency responders will not be speeding with lights and sirens blaring to the scenes of attack.

    “We’re doing as much as we can by way of outreach through the media to ensure that all of the residents in the jurisdiction or the cities that we’re exercising in know that they’re occurring, knowing that they’re safe from harm,” said Doug Johnson, the Justice Department’s spokesman for the exercises.

    Congress has provided $3.5 million for the Denver and Portsmouth exercises, which are called “TOPOFF,” reflecting the participation of senior officials. The exercise in the D.C. area, involving district and Prince Georges County, Md., authorities, is called National Capital Region 2000, or NCR-2000 for short.

    All Levels Involved

    The three exercises are expected to involve all key personnel who would respond to an attack: federal agency personnel and state and local emergency responders, including police, fire and emergency medical personnel.

    Though terrorism response exercises are conducted routinely across the country, “this marks the first time that an exercise of this scope, with the participation of top-level federal, state and local officials, has ever been conducted,” the Justice Department said.

    Mayors, city managers, state governors are expected to participate, as are some senior federal officials: Attorney General Janet Reno, Federal Emergency Management Agency Director James Lee Witt, and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.

    Justice and the FEMA will be the lead federal agencies in the exercise.

    Numerous other federal agencies were involved in the planning exercises, including: the U.S. Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Energy, Transportation; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the FBI; the CIA; the National Security Council; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the General Services Administration.

    Not Yet Prepared

    Following two major incidents of domestic terrorism in the 1990s, the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings, Congress and the Clinton Administration made national preparation for dealing with terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction a high government priority.

    Congress has appropriated about $10 billion annually in recent years for combating terrorism — up from around $6.5 billion in 1996 — and various federal agencies have been training local authorities in scores of cities across the country to deal with a major attack.

    But federal efforts have been criticized on a number of fronts, particularly: for not devoting enough money to fully equip local and state authorities across the nation; for not clearly delineating the authorities of various federal agencies; and for failing to adequately assess where the money could best be spent.

    “One of the major deficiencies in federal efforts to combat terrorism is the lack of linkage between the terrorist threat, a national strategy, and agency resources,” Congress’s investigative arm, the General Accounting Office, said in an April 6 report.

    Gauging the Threat

    The GAO has stressed that exercises such as TOPOFF and NRC-2000 can be useful in developing a national strategy and targeting resources.

    A similar, secret exercise recently conducted in Cincinnati showed that local hospitals, police and other services were woefully unprepared for such a disaster, the Washington Post reported Friday.

    That Pentagon table-top simulation, one done on paper or computer, suggested authorities were unprepared to handle the hundreds of thousands of casualties and large numbers of dead bodies, facing a shortage of hospital beds and emergency personnel, inadequate equipment and training, the Post reported.

    It also highlighted major legal issues, such as whether the government has the right to quarantine contagious people, the story said.

    But the GAO and other independent experts have played down the likelihood of a successful chemical or biological attack killing large number of people in the United States.

    “Terrorists would have to overcome significant technical and operational challenges to successfully make and release chemical and biological agents of sufficient quality to kill or injure large numbers of people without substantial assistance from a foreign government sponsor,” it said.

    Governments would be reluctant to sponsor such an attack, experts have argued, because of the risk of massive retaliation by the U.S. government.

    —————————————————————————————————————————————————–

    Why is ABC doing this (reposting old articles of Topoff drills), are they trying to warn us? These drills have all come and gone, but again its being reported as a new event! This is no joke, this exact text was dated May 2 with no year, then they changed it to the date 2004, now there is a duplicate article of the entire two page article on a new ABC page and dated April 23 2013. I find this all very bizaar and after reading about all these drills Im shitting my pants wondering if it was all an exercise leading up to a real event long rehearsed by terrorists hiding in plain sight. Comments welcomed


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    • Alexander Higgins

      Hah, just went through this a few days ago with a Facebook friend.

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