Top Officials (TOPOFF)

• Sandra Santa Cosgrove
• Oglivy PR Worldwide
• 36 pages
• For Official Use Only
• November 4, 2005

•Public Law 106-553 provides funding for TOPOFF, and Senate Report 106-404 outlines the concept.

•Responsibility for the TOPOFF Domestic Counterterrorism National Exercise Series transferred from the Department of Justice to the Department of Homeland Security on March, 1 2003 with transfer of the Office for Domestic Preparedness.

•A national, biennial Domestic Counter Terrorism Exercise Series.

•Two year planning endeavor, involving experts at all levels of government and the private sector.The Top Official (TOPOFF) National Domestic Counterterrorism ExeThe Exercise Series is the rcise cornerstone of the Secretary of Homeland Security’s National Execornerstone Exercise Program.

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TOPOFF 2 (T2) GOALS

•Improve the nation’s capacity to manage complex/extreme terrorism events.

•Create a broader operating framework of expert Federal, State, and local (FSL) integrated crisis/consequence incident management capability.

•Validate FSL authorities, strategies, plans, policies, procedures, protocols, and synchronized capabilities.

•Build a sustainable, systematic national exercise program to support national domestic preparedness objectives.T2 focused on a limited number of critical federal, state, localT2 localand and international crisis and consequence management objectives.

TOPOFF 2 Included Participation by:

•Key Cabinet officials

•Senior federal officials at the national and regional level

•Senior state and local officials

•Canadian key and senior officials

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TOPOFF 3: AN EXERCISE IN PARTNERSHIP

T3 PARTICIPANTS

•27 Federal departments and agencies

•Connecticut: single venue, statewide impact

•New Jersey: statewide venue

•United Kingdom: Command Post Exercise (Home Office and Metro Police)

•Canada: Command Post Exercise

•Nongovernmental organizations

•Private sector participants: 156 organizations

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•T3 was the largest and most complex WMD terrorist exercise ever undertaken by the U.S. government.

•The exercise was successful in stressing domestic and international response systems and the agencies.

•It was the most extensive test to date of the new National Incident Management System (NIMS) and NRP.

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T4 PARTICIPANTS

•Guam, Arizona, and Oregon

•Observe and learn each phase of TOPOFF 3

•TOPOFF 2 representatives present to mentor during segments of T3 process

-Also Available via phone/email

•T3 participants mentor T4 participants

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