A Scenario Where Questions Linger

Despite Plans, Some Doubt Government's Ability to Provide Services in Emergency

In an era of doomsday scenarios, this is among the worst: Terrorists detonate a small nuclear weapon on Pennsylvania Avenue during the presidential inauguration.

The president and vice president, congressional leaders and much of the outgoing Cabinet are killed in the blast, not to mention thousands of ordinary citizens. It is not immediately clear who is still alive -- or who is in charge. Much of federal Washington is uninhabitable. Many agency leaders are dead. Federal employees who are still alive cannot get to their offices.

The scenario, outlined in a report last year by the independent Continuity of Government Commission, is extreme. But commission members and other experts say it illustrates that, nearly three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks shut down agencies and threw Congress into temporary chaos, serious questions remain about the government's ability to make crucial policy decisions and provide basic services after an attack.

Although much of the legislative debate since Sept. 11 has been about how to quickly replace dead or incapacitated lawmakers, less noticed have been such matters as whether Americans would continue to get their Social Security checks, veterans hospitals would stay open, the banking system would function and mail would be delivered. Maintaining such government services, important in and of themselves, would assure Americans that the country remains unbowed, experts say.

"What you would hope to do if something drastic happened is to convince people that it's limited and it's contained, and awful as it is . . . the basics of our lives go on," said Norman J. Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an adviser to the independent commission, a joint project of AEI and the Brookings Institution.

It's not a new subject. Plans to ensure the survival of federal rule after a catastrophic attack date to the Cold War and fears of a massive nuclear strike by the Soviet Union. After Sept. 11, President Bush activated such plans for the first time, dispatching a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington.

More recently, the Federal Emergency Management Agency supervised the deployment of thousands of federal workers to secret sites in a test of whether agencies could carry on essential work in dire circumstances.

In 1998, a presidential directive put FEMA in charge of continuity of operations planning (COOP). FEMA told agencies to identify essential functions, devise methods to preserve vital records and develop succession orders for key jobs. Agencies had to be able to reach alternate facilities within 12 hours of an attack and operate there for as long as a month.

A recent General Accounting Office review of plans for 35 departments and agencies found that none fully met all requirements. Agencies variously did not prioritize essential functions and did not account for their reliance on other agencies to carry out critical missions. Few agencies documented that they had adequate communications capabilities and space for staff and equipment in alternate facilities. And few had done recommended tests of plans. The report did not name the offices.

"Until these weaknesses are addressed, agencies are likely to continue to base their plans on ill-defined assumptions . . . and, as a result, risk experiencing difficulties in delivering key services to citizens in the aftermath of an emergency," Linda D. Koontz, a senior GAO official, testified at an April hearing of the House Government Reform Committee.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), the committee chairman, put it in starker terms, saying some agencies were "woefully prepared."

"Here we sit, 2 1/2 years after facing the mortal threat of 9/11, and we still cannot be assured that we are prepared to provide essential government services in the wake of a disaster," Davis said. "My colleagues and I want some answers."

Officials at FEMA, now part of the Department of Homeland Security, say most problems have been fixed. They say the GAO studied plans from 2002, many of which have since been updated.

"I believe that every department and agency has a very good, robust COOP plan in place that we just now need to fine-tune," Michael Brown, DHS undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response, told the committee.