Critical Incident Response Analysis - Term Paper Example

 Introduction Critical incidents occur in situations of crisis and disaster and are caused by natural occurring phenomenon like cyclones, earthquakes or man made ones like terrorists activities, transportation disasters etc (Levinson & Granot, 2002). In an event of crisis it is essential that the full understanding of the proportions and scale of the disaster be understood and the immediate and long term implications identified. And all this needs to be done in a very limited time before a plan of action to combat the challenges posed is prepared, as it’s only a full appreciation of the crisis situation that leads to the summoning of the right resources that in turn help in the management and resolution of the crisis (McMains & Mullins, 2001). For example, in the case that there is an aircraft crash, the most essential step in the process of disaster management requires that a preliminary assessment of the cause of crash be made so that it could be classified as technical or pilot error or a terrorist act. The correct classification leads to the development of appropriate plan of action – in case of technical faults, the scene would be treated as an accident scene, while in case of suspected sabotage or bombing, the crash site would have to be managed as a crime scene (Dyson, 2005) Crisis management and preparing and delivering a Critical Incident response comprise of some of the most essential tasks that governments, law and order agencies and other crime fighting agencies have to be well equipped to undertaken. Increasing terrorism and occurrence of man made and natural disasters has led the focus on devising means and methods to either preempt or display full preparedness in dealing with such crisis events. Prior to the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attacks, the approach taken to crisis management was isolated and restricted to the agencies and the jurisprudence restrictions (Tierney, Lindell & Perry, 2001). However, post attack on the USA, crisis management and critical incident response framework has been restructured to involve an ‘all hazard’ approach to management and resolution of the situation that involve co-ordination between agencies, using high end technology for information gathering and knowledge sharing, and developing organizational structure of crime fighting agencies that facilitates quick decision making (Tierney, Lindell & Perry, 2001). In addition to the USA, there are several other countries that face an immense threat of terrorism and that are working together, with inputs from the United States agencies, to restructure their own internal mechanisms to fight against terrorism better. One such country is India that has repeatedly been a target of terrorist activities in its major cities and public places. The next section describes the terrorist attacks on 5 start hotel, The Taj, in Mumbai India. The Taj is one of the most favored places for foreigners visiting India, and as such, its choice as a target spelled out a deliberate attempt of the terrorists to target the US, Israeli and European guests that were present. The following section elaborated upon the sequence of events in brief as well as analyses the critical incident response of the Indian agencies in managing the crisis. Case Study: Mumbai (India) Terrorists Attacks of November 26, 2008 On November 26, 2008, around a dozen terrorists reached Mumbai, a sea port and a major city in India, via sea and spread out to 8 locations including the main railway station, The Taj and The Trident Hotels and cafes, a Jewish Chabad House, and a hospital and continued to wreak havoc in the heart of the city unchecked for several hours. All the target locations were near to local police stations, and the railway station itself was equipped with surveillance cameras and metal detectors and manned with armed police security at various points. Over twenty police personnel were killed in the incident and the death count included head of the Maharashtra state Anti-Terrorism Squad, and over 2oo civilians including hotels guests and staff, railway commuters, and motorists from whom the terrorists took the vehicles to commute to the various locations (Friedman, 2009). The Mumbai police was able to secure all the targeted locations only after a gap of 2 days, while the terrorists continued to hold the Taj for 4 days. The Taj was secured only after the National Security Guards or the elite conducted Operation Black Tornado and killed all the remaining terrorists. Critical Analysis of the Crisis Incident Response The terrorists’ attacks on Mumbai showed that governmental crime fighting mechanism failed in handling the situation. The overall management of the crisis was poor due to several reasons that are discussed in the following paragraphs. It can be seen that the three steps of critical incident response – reaction, management and resolution (Vecch, 2006) – all lacked in appropriateness and suitability for the type of crisis that was at hand. The reaction or the immediate action that were taken by the agencies to stabilize the crisis and contain it were too weak and too delayed and completely out of proportion to the scale of havoc that the terrorists were capable of creating. The lack of containment of the attack led to the spread of the terrorists to diverse locations showing that the terrorists with guns in hands were able to walk freely on the roads and reach out and enter targeted points without any resistance. Even after the terrorists final positions were located and at places hostage like situations established, there was an utter lack of management and follow through to make these locations secure. There were several reasons why the scale of disaster was magnified and the victim toll increased. These reasons are embedded in the failure of the organizational structure of the agencies involved in the crisis management, their lack of coordination, lack of resources and technology available to the tactical teams, and a general lack of centralized approach to managing and resolving large scale crisis. Lack of Coordination and Information Sharing The event was an example of barricaded Crisis Situation with victims as the Terrorists had taken over the two hotels, The Taj and The Trident, in the heart of a large metropolitan and capital city. The terrorists were not interested in taking hostages or negotiating with the government and were apparently on a killing spree to cause the death of as many people as they can. This was a situation where the government or the crime fighting agencies had little leverage or scope for getting a breakthrough using negotiating techniques and tactical and strategic action was the only option to deal with the crisis. This was also a Tier 1 incident, an incident that involves many agencies and is of proportions that central and local agencies have to coordinate (Haddow & Bullock, 2003). The Mumbai jurisdiction lies with the Mumbai Police that is State operated entity but, combating with terrorism is also attributed as a task for the National Security department and hence it involves the National Ministry of Home and Ministry of Defense. As such, the terrorists attack created a situation where multiple agencies needed to coordinate and work together and this created a position of conflict due to the structure of the different agencies involved and in the chains of commands. Another issue that was apparent was the inadequate co-ordination between the State of Maharashtra government and the Police departments. While the police department lies directly within the jurisdiction of the Internal Ministry of Home Affairs, there were delays in sharing information and inputs and overall lack of communication and team work that led to the crisis being handled in an inappropriate manner. As a result of these problems, the National Security Guards which is the special elite task force that is trained and equipped with dealing terrorism related situations were not called in until much later and after the terrorists had already lead a trail of dead bodies across the railway terminals and on their way t the two hotels. During this time, the ill equipped and inadequately trained Mumbai Police continued to battle with the highly trained terrorist who had state of the art weapons at their disposal. This shows that the initial response to the crisis situation or the reaction was very limited in scope and the terrorists could not be contained in any of the places that they had so easily taken over. Command and Control The Indian Counter-Intelligence set up consists of several diverse agencies and bodies that have their own rigid organizational structure and chains of commands that often lead to mis-communications between agencies. For example, the first line of combat is provided by the federal state police that come under the direct command of the state government. In addition, there are specific paramilitary units, the Central Industrial Security Force that looks after the security of strategic industrial installations, the National Security guards that are specifically trained for terrorism related crisis management, and the Special Protection Group that gives security cover to government officials (Raman, 2003). All these special forces come under the central government and are often mobilized to work in tandem with the state police. However, as the police has its own chain of command and the special forces follow their own command central, there are often lack of communication and coordination resulting in costly delays. In addition to the diversity and mis-match of command and control of these different forces, there is also a problem in terms of intelligence information sharing. Intelligence Bureau of Ministry of Home Affairs and the Research and Analysis wing of the Ministry of external affairs are the prime intelligence gathering agencies, but both are commanded by different Ministries and often end up doing redundant information gathering as well as avoid sharing information. Further, each of the security forces have their own intelligence gathering mechanisms. There is an initiative to have a central agency within the Intelligence Bureau that acts as the central authority for information collection and dissemination, but till now there has been no progress (Raman, 2003). The Mumbai terrorist attacks exposed the complicated labyrinth of chain of commands and organizational structures that make mutual cooperation difficult and obeying and follow through orders confusing in events when multiple agencies have to come together. It was seen that either Intelligence Bureau was not able to forewarn the state government, or the state government was not able to inform the local police about the potential attacks. Further, local police offers appeared to break their chains of commands and protocols thus indicating a presence of intra-agency conflict. Also, there were prolonged delays in getting the National Security Guards or the NSG involved and even when they came to Mumbai there were conflicts and delays due to slow reaction from the federal agencies as the NSG comes under the central government. Lack of Leadership It was seen that the senior most police officials of the Mumbai Police, neglected the standard operating procedures and failed to follow the stated framework of operations that has been developed for dealing with crisis situations. Police Commissioner of Mumbai, Hasan Gafoor was required by precedent and protocol to take position at the control room and coordinate the activities of the different police tactical teams that were equipped with ground operations. Instead of remaining at the central Control Room, the commissioner went ahead with the tactical units and positioned himself in front of Trident Hotel, one of the places where the terrorists were hiding (Magnier, 2008). This opened the possibility of a lack of command as the person in charge of the decision making process and of providing an overall direction to the police efforts against the attacks was not available by segregating himself at one of the locations alone. Lack of Training Post Attack investigations revealed that the police force that had the task of making the initial reaction and management to the situation was ill trained or prepared for dealing with a crisis of this magnitude. The Quick Response Teams of the police force – that are structured on the pattern of the SWAT or the HRT teams of the US, had had no training or practice in the past 2 years preceding the attacks (Shankar and Somayaji, 2008). Also, the local policemen were seen as taking refuge and running way when the terrorists opened fire (Times of India, 2010) which is largely attributed to their lack of training as well as lack of arms and ammunition at their disposal (Magnier, 2008). Lack of Resources It was also found that the Mumbai police suffered from a severe lack of basic resources and that it did not have adequate ammunition, in fact a report by the ‘Ram Pradhan Committee’ that was commissioned by the government of Maharashtra to investigate the handling of the Mumbai terror attacks by the police, revealed that the police force had not been issued with any ammunition since 2006 (Shankar and Somayaji, 2008). The police offices and cops that were fighting with the terrorists were armed with simple rifles and batons while the terrorists had the latest machine guns and GPS enabled tools (Magnier, 2008) Inadequate Logistics Management The elite National Security Guard force took around ten hours – and all this time the terrorists continued with the carnage – to reach Mumbai from Delhi where the force has its headquarters and station. The force is supposedly the best prepared and the most equipped with training, technology and personnel in terms of their combative capacity. However, in the event of a real crisis, it is of great importance that the response is made as quickly as possible and the forces that are trained for responding are available at the scene. In the case of the Mumbai Terror attacks, there was a logistical blunder as the elite force could not travel with its equipment and tools and cover a distance that is a mere 2 hours by air and reach its required position in time. It was later reveled from post attack investigations by FBI that helped the Indian government in forensic investigations, that the NSG did not have access to a helicopters to take them to the spot of action earlier (Times of India, 2010). Information and Intelligence Function The lack of coordination is also apparent in the fact that several months prior to the attacks, the research and analysis wing of the ministry of external affairs that is largely concerned with collecting data on hostile groups and nations, as well as the Intelligence Bureau, another agency that is involved with intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence activities, had provided specific inputs about a probable terrorist attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai. However, this information was apparently lost at some levels as nether the Central government has issued any directives for security enhancement and nor the state government had taken any initiatives to beef up the security arrangements in the city (Shankar and Somayaji, 2008). Additionally, the complete lack of coordination and inadequate information sharing was seen in the case when the NSG team’s deputy director was mis-informed by the Intelligence agencies about the number of terrorists or the location where they were holed up (Dutt, 2009). Inadequate Risk Assessment It is essential that in situations of crisis, thee agencies like the local police that are in the first line of operations and carry out the immediate reactions, are also able to accurately assess the scale and proportion of the situation and its short term and long term impacts. This assessment enables the local agencies in getting appropriate help from external agencies and in getting aid in terms of technology or resources. If the need demands, the local agencies may step back to let central agencies that are more equipped to deal with the crisis to take over. However, in the case of the Mumbai attacks, there appears to be a general lack of preparedness displayed by the local police force – as they were not aware of protocols and they could not assess the risks associated with the attacks or the scale of the crisis (Shankar and Somayaji, 2008). This led to an escalation in the number of victims and also caused the death of several policemen. Lack of Media Control During a crisis situation, the government agencies have press spokespersons who give out the official details from time to time to let the public be aware of the latest situation. However, it is also needed that there be a protocol set for the press to report incidents in a manner that does not create public panic or jeopardize the security plans (Indian Express, 2009). However, in the case of the Mumbai Attacks, the Indian media played a crucial role in creating panic and fuelling rumors. It even overzealously telecasted the security personnel strategies and preparations, that led to change of plans repeatedly as the terrorists had access to cell phones and the Internet all the time and were kept updated by the media reports on what actions to expect from the response teams. There was a complete mismanagement of the media and there appeared to be no mechanism for controlling the media reports or at least coordinating with the media to tone down their stories or to keep restrain. Conclusions The above analysis reveals that the four phases of crisis management, namely – mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery (Schneid and Collins, 2001) – were not conducted in a suitable manner. The reasons for this mis-management lies in the inadequate counter-terrorism structure and mechanism of the country that has as yet not been able to have a centralized agency to assimilate and coordinate all the counter-terrorism related work. In cases of a crisis of the proportions of the Mumbai attacks of 2oo8, lack of leadership and multiple command structures slowed down the response to the crisis. There was also lack of information sharing, resources availability and the inter-governmental and inter-agency conflicts that led to security lapses in the first place and also caused costly delays in combating the terrorists. The handling of the above crisis shows several lapses in overall preparedness and readiness as well as in providing an adequate response for the event. References Dyson, W. E. (2005). Terrorism: An investigator’s handbook (3rd ed.). Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing. Dutt, J. K. 2009. In conversation with Vicky Nanjappa, the NSG's then director general. [Online] available at: http://news.rediff.com/interview/2009/nov/24/anniversary-26-11-exclusive-interview-with-former-nsg-chief-j-k-dutt.htm Retrieved on July 12, 2010 Friedman, T. 2009. ‘No Way, No How, Not Here’ The New York Times [Online] available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/opinion/18friedman.html?_r=1 Retrieved on July 12, 2010 Haddow, G. D., & Bullock, J. A. (2003). Introduction to emergency management. Burlington, MA: Butterworth Heinemann. Indian Express, (2009) ‘26/11 fallout: Mumbai top cop Maria wants to quit’ [Online] available at: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/26-11-fallout-mumbai-top-cop-maria-wants-to/546967/ retrieved on 14 July 2010 Levinson, J., & Granot, H. (2002). Transportation disaster response handbook. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. McMains, M. J., & Mullins, W. C. (2006), Crisis negotiations: Managing critical incidents and hostage situations in law enforcement and corrections (3rd ed.). Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing. Magnier, M. 2008. ‘Facing attackers with little more than courage’ Los Angeles Times [Online] available at: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/03/world/fg-police3 Retrieved on July 12, 2010 Raman, B.2003. ‘India's counter-terrorism strategy’ [Online] available at: http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/apr/05spec.htm Retrieved on July 12, 2010 Schneid, T. D., and Collins, L. (2001). Disaster management and preparedness. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Shankar, J. and C. Somayaji, 2008 ‘Mumbai Attack Failures Expose Collapsed Police Force’, [Online] available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=alFhcEKpcPoc Retrieved on July 12, 2010 Tierney, K. J., Lindell, M. K., & Perry, R. W. (2001). Facing the unexpected: Disaster preparedness and response in the United States. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press. Times of India, 2010 ‘26/11: FBI Officer Highlights Sloppy Response’ July 12, 2010, page 8, column 2-5 Vecch, G. M. (2006). Assessing organizational group conflict in hostage/barricade management. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest. Read More