by Hugh Manatee Wins » Thu Feb 02, 2006 1:12 am
(Summer 2005 saw the US playing chicken with Canada's hesitancy to renew the NORAD agreement.-HMW)<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=c4aac891-5e0a-4c84-a4f1-e57b2febdf72">www.canada.com/ottawa/ott...7b2febdf72</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>(expired link)<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://control-alt-delete.ca/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?p=21720&">control-alt-delete.ca/v-w...p?p=21720&</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>(mirrored story)<br><br><br>NORAD simulation, Privy Council Office was never notified!<br><br>'Nerve centre' out of loop on terror exercise<br><br>Plane 'shot down' over Ottawa in NORAD simulation without input from Privy Council Office<br><br><br>David Pugliese<br>The Ottawa Citizen<br><br>Monday, August 01, 2005<br>It had all the makings of another 9/11, but this time with Ottawa as the target.<br><br>An aircraft is hijacked by terrorists over Ottawa and fighter jets are scrambled to intercept the plane. The situation goes from bad to worse and the decision is made to blow the aircraft out of the sky before it can be used as a flying weapon of mass destruction.<br><br>That major war game, played out last August using real fighter jets in an exercise involving thousands of military personnel on both sides of the border, forgot just one thing. Two key government agencies in Canada, the Privy Council Office, usually described as the nerve centre of the federal government, as well as the Department of Foreign Affairs, were out of the loop as the scenario involving multiple attacks on North America unfolded.<br><br>Federal bureaucrats appear to have been told about the exercise, launched by the joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad), only after it was over and the decision to destroy the aircraft was made.<br><br>The Privy Council Office not only provides advice to the prime minister and cabinet, but has played a leading ro<br><br>le in designing the country's national security and terrorism policy.<br><br>But Privy Council Office spokeswoman Valerie de Montigny argued that numerous security exercises are held annually and the participation of the central government office is decided on a case-by-case basis.<br><br>"In this case since the focus was on a Norad military-to-military basis it wasn't considered necessary for PCO to participate," she said. "It was felt that Canada's interests and international obligations were more than ably met by DND."<br><br>E-mails obtained by the Citizen through the Access to Information law, however, show that some federal bureaucrats were surprised the shoot-down exercise was taking place and that it did not involve the Privy Council Office or Foreign Affairs. They scrambled to find out more information about the exercise, dubbed Amalgam Virgo 04, which involved simulated hijackings in eastern and western Canada and as terrorist aerial attacks throughout the U.S. Amalgam Virgo provided the air portion of larger exercise called Determined Promise 04. That involved simulated terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction and was conducted at the same time in the U.S.<br><br>In Determined Promise, terrorists detonated a radioactive dirty bomb in Los Angeles, prompting California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to mobilize national guardsmen.<br><br>The two major exercises were to test the response by Norad and the U.S. Northern Command to terrorist events, according to Canadian defence officials. More than 4,000 Canadian and U.S. military personnel, as well as U.S. governors and other lawmakers, were involved.<br><br>"In future, we will have to figure out a way to learn about these things in advance," wrote Paul Chapin, director general of Foreign Affairs' international security bureau. "It's curious that the Canada/U.S. air defence arrangements being tested appear not to require any involvement of this department or PCO, either in developing the protocols (the key) or in participating in the action."<br><br><br>A Foreign Affairs spokesman wasn't sure why the department did not take part. He noted, however, that the department would not be involved if the hijacked aircraft was of domestic origin and only carried Canadian citizens. For the department to take part in the exercise, the scenario would have to involve a foreign-owned aircraft or a plane carrying foreign nationals.<br><br>A Canadian Norad official said in a case where government decision-makers are not available to take part in an exercise, the military would provide stand-in personnel to play the role of those individuals.<br><br>It's not the first time the PCO has been kept out of the counter-terrorism decision-making process. It was recently revealed that the government's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, which examines terrorist threats, is still without a PCO representative. It is estimated it will take two months before the office can assign an official. <p></p><i></i>
