In November and December, specialized units assigned to the Olympic Games, including Utah SWAT teams, quietly trained at a government-funded counter terrorism boot camp in the Nevada desert. They faced every imaginable terrorist scenario–tractor-trailers crashing into power lines, hostage-taking, live biohazards, an exploding nuclear facility. No expense is being spared in the interest of protecting 2,600 athletes, 175,000 daily spectators and the 1.8 million wary residents of metro Salt Lake City, who–despite a security budget of $310 million–still see the Games as the next logical target. The presence of the U.S. military guarantees some of the same high-tech gadgetry that clipped the Taliban. “We’re going to use almost every credible piece of technology that you can use to protect the Games,” says David Tubbs, deputy chief of Salt Lake security. About 900 square miles will be covered by 5,100 uniformed troops, 7,000 public-safety officers and 2,100 fire and EMS personnel. Just in case, local businesses have hired a private security force 6,000 strong.
Terror is hardly a new Olympic fear, as memories of the summers of 1972 in Munich and 1996 in Atlanta remind us. September 11 only upped the ante. Now the Secret Service is charged with overall security planning, while the FBI is poised to investigate and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is ready to react. The Secret Service takes the job personally. Its New York office was in the World Trade Center. “We will not forget that we lost people we knew well,” says Mark Camillo, special agent in charge of the Games. “We do not intend to allow that to happen again.” Despite their public self-assurance, privately some Olympic officials are realistic. “Fact is that if someone really wants to do something,” one official concedes, “they’ll do it.”
They learned that the hard way in Atlanta. Security was said to be as tight as a Kevlar blanket. Officials were prepared for a plane crashing into the stadium during the opening ceremonies. Precautions were even made against an amphibious attack by scuba-diving terrorists at the kayaking venue. “They were preparing for every possible contingency,” says Harvard’s Juliette Kayyem, a member of the National Commission on Terrorism. All but one: Centennial Olympic Park. Pipe bombs inside a backpack exploded and killed a woman (the perpetrator was never caught). Security turned out to be closer to Kleenex than Kevlar. One low-tech command center was housed in a double-wide trailer, and Atlanta’s 911 operators didn’t know the location of Centennial Olympic Park, which lacked fences and metal detectors. Even when venues were guarded with magnetometers, they were often operated by unreliable volunteers. The bombing prompted the Olympics to be declared a National Special Security Event, which commands the same priority as a presidential Inauguration. Now, Salt Lake Olympics gathering spots will be cordoned off with 10-foot fences topped with razor wire and draped with motion detectors. Hundreds of military observers, including psychologists profiling the bad guys, will circulate in plain clothes.
The Olympics war–whether against snowstorms, pickpockets or terrorists–will be prosecuted at the Olympic Coordination Center, a few blocks from the state capitol. The nerve center, supporting nearly 50 agency representatives, houses rows of computers and a dozen ceiling-mounted televisions with quad-split screens that display security points captured by some 400 cameras installed across the Olympics region.
September 11 prompted officials to buy a thicker security blanket. Agent Camillo helped wrest an extra $75 million from Congress and make adjustments, most notably in airspace restrictions. During the Games, all incoming noncommercial aircraft must stop at “buffer” airports, where they’ll be searched. A 100-mile restricted-flight area will become a no-flight zone during the opening and closing ceremonies. “No balloons, no gliders, no model airplanes, no paper airplanes,” says Stu Smith, a deputy security director. “Nothing that flies.” Planes will be easily spotted by AWACS 200 miles out. In addition, at least nine F-16s and 21 Black Hawk helicopters, outfitted with infrared cameras, will send images back to the command center.
Nobody wants Salt Lake Olympic Square to look like a World Bank meeting. But it will. Officials prefer to describe an operation that sounds like an iceberg. “Three quarters of our security efforts aren’t seen,” says Bob Flowers, the state head of Olympics security. The tricky navigation will start as soon as visitors attempt travel. Walking a mile from parking lot to venue could become a new endurance event. Spectators will filter through “mag-n-bag” –submitting to troops wielding hand-wand magnetometers and checking bags. Other parts of the iceberg include fiber-optic wiring of manhole covers; chemical- and biological-weapons sensors; facial-recognition technology, and global-positioning satellites that track Olympic athletes.
But fancy gadgetry can’t replace men and women in the field. Secret Service agents consider the backsides of Alpine-event mountains porous boundaries. “It’s a huge challenge,” says Camillo. “The conditions will be severe,” says Special Agent Bill Bishop. “But we’ve been given the best equipment to succeed.” Bishop and his team of sharpshooters on skis, snowshoes and snowmobiles will carry avalanche kits, handcuffs, night-vision monoculars, thermal-vision binoculars and .357 pistols with two extra magazines.
Despite its aggressive precautions, Greater Salt Lake City feels vulnerable. It’s concerned about bioterrorism. Even some Secret Service agents worry about smallpox attacks. “The bigger risk is what’s happening in between the venues, in the rest of the Salt Lake area,” says Dave Thompson, a security adviser whose clients include the Pentagon.
But plans are only as good as their execution. That was evident in Salt Lake City earlier this month. In the lobby of the security command center, a scruffy twenty-something sat twirling a six-inch knife. At a press conference with senior federal officials, anyone with a driver’s license entered without even a cursory securi-ty check. At Olympics headquarters, metal detectors failed to notice a cell phone, digital camera and tape recorder. Some glitches in dress rehearsal are to be expected. But come opening night, the bad guys won’t be actors.
