How the crisis action plan supports multiagency response to terrorist attacks

Crisis action Plan (CAS)

Crisis Action Plan

How CAS supports contingency response to terrorist acts

CAS can be used to plan and execute multiagency response to terrorist attacks. With CAS, the planners can see the progress of a coalition planning effort. The first phase of CAS, which touches on situation development, enables respective coalition headquarters and military representatives to assess the event or intelligence submitted to them. Assessment of a crisis begins immediately after the NCA has received military representative's assessment. Upon receipt of this assessment, the NCA can return to pre-crisis situation or have military options developed. This then culminates into COA development. At this juncture, the coalition NCA issues a coalition warning order. The support commander then submits a Coalition Commander's estimate together with courses of action. The courses of action are then presented to the NCA. Selected courses of action are then issued in an alert Order of Planning. Execution planning is then initiated followed by development of executable operations order. The NCA can then decide to execute, place on hold, or cancel the executable operations order. Execution ends when a crisis is satisfactorily resolved (Anonymous, 2004).

Department of Homeland Security and terrorist response operation

DHS just like FBI has a delegated responsibility. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigations are the coordinating agencies. After the Department of Homeland Security has received initial notification from FBI, it can proceed to implement a standard procedure to alert other DHS officials and federal agencies that support consequence management. It can then deploy additional staff to support the FBI in consequence management. It advises FBI on the appropriate agencies that can be deployed to the Joint Operation Center. In this respect, it is DHS responsibility to consult with the Governor's Office and the White House to marshal federal support to avert the threat of the catastrophe. DHS can also convene executive level meeting of the Catastrophic Disaster Response Group and request FBI for liaison purposes (Heacox, Quinn, Smillie, Hayes, & Jensen, 2001).