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National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09)

National
Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31,
2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United
States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention
and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery.

NLE 09 is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise. Tier I
exercises (formerly known as the Top Officials exercise series or
TOPOFF) are conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise
Program (NEP), which serves as the nation's overarching exercise
program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national
level exercises. The NEP was established to provide the U.S.
government, at all levels, exercise opportunities to prepare for
catastrophic crises ranging from terrorism to natural disasters.

NLE 09 is a White House directed, Congressionally- mandated exercise
that includes the participation of all appropriate federal department
and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key operational
elements.  In addition, broad regional participation of state, tribal,
local, and private sector is anticipated. 

This year the United States
welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United
Kingdom in NLE 09. 

EXERCISE FOCUS
NLE 09 will focus on intelligence and information sharing among
intelligence and law enforcement communities, and between
international, federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private
sector participants.

The NLE 09 scenario will begin in the aftermath of a notional
terrorist event outside of the United States, and exercise play will
center on preventing subsequent efforts by the terrorists to enter the
United States and carry out additional attacks. This scenario enables
participating senior officials to focus on issues related to preventing
terrorist events domestically and protecting U.S. critical
infrastructure.

NLE 09 will allow terrorism prevention efforts to proceed to a
logical end (successful or not), with no requirement for response or
recovery activities. 

NLE 09 will be an operations-based exercise to include: activities
taking place at command posts, emergency operation centers,
intelligence centers and potential field locations

to include federal
headquarters facilities in the Washington D.C. area, and in federal,
regional, state, tribal, local and private sector facilities in FEMA
Region VI, which includes the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New
Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and California.

EXERCISE OBJECTIVES
Through a comprehensive evaluation process, the exercise will assess
prevention and protection capabilities both nationally and regionally.
Although NLE 09 is still in the planning stages, the exercise is
currently designed to validate the following capabilities:

• Intelligence/Information Sharing and Dissemination
• Counter-Terrorism Investigation and Law Enforcement
• Air, Border and Maritime Security
• Critical Infrastructure Protection
• Public and Private Sector Alert/Notification and Security Advisories
• International Coordination

VALIDATING THE HOMELAND SECURITY SYSTEM
Exercises such as NLE 09 are an important component of national
preparedness, helping to build an integrated federal, state, tribal,
local and private sector capability to prevent terrorist attacks, and
rapidly and effectively respond to, and recover from, any terrorist
attack or major disaster that occurs.

The full-scale exercise offers agencies and jurisdictions a way to
test their plans and skills in a real-time, realistic environment and
to gain the in-depth knowledge that only experience can provide.
Participants will exercise prevention and information sharing functions
that are critical to preventing terrorist attacks. Lessons learned from
the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning
for securing the nation against terrorist attacks, disasters, and other
emergencies.

For more information about NLE 09, contact the FEMA News Desk: 202-646-4600.

 

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to
ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve
our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover
from, and mitigate all hazards.

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