Military partnerships in terrorism prevention and U.S. Northern Command

Emergency Terror Response

Roles and Responsibilities of Terror Response Incident Commander

In the event of an emergency incident such as the terrorist attack described in the case scenario, the National Response System (NRS) is immediately invoked. This places a previously designated Incident Commander at the helm of all efforts to control, contain and respond to a terrorist attack. In the present case, as the Incident Commander, it is incumbent upon me to employ the NRS and the resources which it has placed under my control in order to bring order to the chaos of a terror attack.

Inclusion:

With the initiation of the incident, my first priority is to gather together an assembly of delegates and representatives from concerned agencies. This would include personnel from local law enforcement (police, municipal personnel, HAZMAT teams), the Department of Defense (NORAD, NORTHCOM, etc.), Homeland Security and various affiliated and subordinated intelligence agencies as well as military personnel, owing generally to the nature of the incident and specifically to the fact that the suspected offenders are armed forces personnel. This command team will likely include personnel previously designated for participation in a terror response effort. It is incumbent upon the Incident Commander to assign personnel with duties relating to the immediate provision of security against an expanding threat. This, according to the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), calls for the Incident Commander to "establish immediate priorities especially the safety of responders, other emergency workers, bystanders, and people involved in the incident." (OSHA, p. 1)

Roles:

Roles within the command team are dictated in combination by the pre-existing Emergency Operating Procedures (EOP) established for the locality or region and by the dictate of the Incident Commander. According to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (2012), the Incident Commander is given direct support by other members of the Command Team, including a Safety Officer, a Public Information Officer, a Senior Liaison and Senior Advisors. The first two parties here will play an important part in the present terror attack response strategy, helping respectively to provide immediate direction to law enforcement, military and emergency response personnel for the prevention of further casualty and to provide immediate direction to the public through channels of mass communication. As the Incident Commander, I must work with Senior Advisors to delineate Operations, navigate Logistics, produce quick and appropriate management and contingency Planning and to produce a Financial picture of the operation's resource demands.

Also essential will in this case will be using the authority of delegation to engage law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the military itself in a process of identifying perpetrators, conducting interrogation and securing additional target locations against attacks coordinated to the first three bombings.