UNCLAS ROME 000111

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

DEPT FOR FSINFATC, EUR/EX, S/ES-O/CMS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: AEMR AMGT ASEC CA IT CA OCS ACS POSTS FOR RSO
SUBJECT: CRISIS MANAGEMENT EXERCISE FOR ROME, TURIN, MILAN

REF: A. FSINFATC 02754


B. ROME 003863

Sensitive But Unclassified


1. (SBU) On December 14 and 16, Embassy Rome, the Olympic
Coordination Office in Turin, and Consulate Milan underwent a
coordinated Crisis Management Exercise (CME) facilitated by
the Foreign Service Institute's Office of Crisis Management
Training. According to FSI, this was the first time a CME of
this size and complexity had been attempted with three
separate missions participating simultaneously. Mission
Italy believes that the exercise was a resounding success
with all 3 posts taking away pertinent and applicable lessons
learned. It is also our conclusion that the exercise was
vital to testing our communications, command and control and
emergency response protocols for the Winter Olympic Games
being held in Turin February 10-26. Representatives from
NGA, FBI, DOE, S/CT, FEST, EUCOM were also present for both
the Turin and Rome portions of the exercise.


2. (SBU) The CME highlighted the importance of coordination
between security, Consular and Public Affairs portfolios and
was extremely useful to participants not accustomed to
working in a task force environment overseas. The fact that
the Rome EAC was able to monitor and communicate directly
with Turin and Milan during their "scenarios", proved
enormously useful for practicing how Embassy Rome would react
and coordinate with Milan and Turin during events in those
locations. Of significant value was the exercise in Turin,
which allowed the Olympic Security Coordination team to work
together through a number of scenarios that would effect
every aspect of their operations, from the possibility of
requesting a FEST to working with injured and displaced
American visitors and the ever voracious international press
contingent. This was the first time the OSC team was able to
work together on crisis planning and response to simulate
working conditions should a crisis take place during the
Games, which was beneficial to all.


3. (U) Mission Italy would like to thank FSI and
particularly, Douglas Kinney, Douglas Treat and Mark
Mayfield for their superb job crafting such reality driven
scenarios, and guiding us so skillfully through the 2 day
exercise. We received positive feedback from all
participating agencies and the exercise culminated in
extremely useful lessons learned for Milan, Turin and Rome.
It is with pleasure that we look forward to our Mission wide
CME in the spring.

END
SPOGLI