Shadow government heads to bunkers for terror attack drill

[SavetheUSA]

On Monday, June 19, about 4,000 government workers representing more than 50 federal agencies from the State Department to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will say goodbye to their families and set off for dozens of classified emergency facilities stretching from the Maryland and Virginia suburbs to the foothills of the Alleghenies. They will take to the bunkers in an "evacuation" that my sources describe as the largest "continuity of government" exercise ever conducted, a drill intended to prepare the U.S. government for an event even more catastrophic than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The exercise is the latest manifestation of an obsession with government survival that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration since 9/11, a focus of enormous and often absurd time, money and effort that has come to echo the worst follies of the Cold War. The vast secret operation has updated the duck-and-cover scenarios of the 1950s with state-of-the-art technology -- alerts and updates delivered by pager and PDA, wireless priority service, video teleconferencing, remote backups -- to ensure that "essential" government functions continue undisrupted should a terrorist's nuclear bomb go off in downtown Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/02/AR2006060201410_pf.html

[Benhurst]

1. What a sick joke.

[malaise]

6. What are they plotting this time?

Here come the fear tactics for the next five months.

[Jazzgirl]

2. Hmmm.....weren't they doing something like this on 9/11?

:freak: :nuke: :scared:

[Lerkfish]

3. yes

[mourningdove92]

4. Here in Texas, we are having a "Regional"

disaster drill that begins on 6/20.

My hosital will participate on 6/21 with about 30 victims. It should be some kind of chemical attack since the Decon Unit will be activated.

[rodeodance]

5. oh well.

[SavetheUSA]

7. more

After 9/11, The Washington Post reported that President Bush had set up a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work outside Washington on a rotating basis to ensure the continuity of national security. Since then, a program once focused on presidential succession and civilian control of U.S. nuclear weapons has been expanded to encompass the entire government. From the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration to the National Archives, every department and agency is now required to plan for continuity outside Washington.

Yet according to scores of documents I've obtained and interviews with half a dozen sources, there's no greater confidence today that essential services would be maintained in a disaster. And no one really knows how an evacuation would even be physically possible.

[earth mom]

8. OMG, I feel sick to my stomach!

:scared:

[Tulum_Moon]

9. If there is a shadow government

Is there a shadow population? That will take over the day to day work we do now?:scared: Creepy, creepy, creepy!