Olympic security: MoD to set up temporary base for troops

Soldiers walk past the Velodrome at the Olympic Park in Stratford. Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters

The Ministry of Defence is to establish a forward operating base close to the Olympic Park in east London to house up to 3,500 soldiers who have been drafted in as emergency cover for the crisis-hit security contractor G4S.

Defence officials have identified a preferred venue, believed to be a warehouse near Stratford, to accommodate the soldiers coming from Germany, as well as Royal Marines and members of the Parachute Regiment.

The MoD is negotiating a short-term lease and change of licence over the weekend, and if approval is granted it will equip the base in the same way it would such a base in Afghanistan, with temporary beds, kitchens, showers, and toilets. Televisions, gym equipment and other sporting facilities will also be provided for troops, who will start arriving next week.

David Cameron indicated that the government would demand money back from G4S on its ?284m contract. The security firm admitted on Friday night that it was very unlikely to be able to meet its commitment to supply 13,700 guards as demanded in its contract.

"If companies don't deliver on their contracts then they should be pursued for that money," Cameron said.

A G4S spokesman said the firm was training 3,000 new workers a week, but evidence continued to emerge of problems with its recruitment drive.

An x-ray machine operator told the Guardian he repeatedly failed tests assessing his ability to spot dangerous items. He said he was certified anyway because, he was told, "they are short of x-ray operators". He said sessions using x-ray machines were abandoned when none of the six in the training centre worked, and a promised session on how to calibrate the machines never happened.

"I asked the trainer what happens if we fail and he said we just keep retaking the tests, which are the same every time, until we get them right," he said. "The only reason I ended up passing some of them was because I remembered the answers."

He was eventually given two hours on a working x-ray machine, which he said "wasn't very helpful". "When I do work there, I will be extremely worried about the role and will most likely have to send a lot of bags to be searched due to the inadequate training, and that will make the queues very long," he said.

At the Olympic Park, Lord Coe, chairman of the London organising committee, said it was inevitable that problems with security would emerge at a late stage. "When you go into lockdown, you then understand where the gaps are," he said, describing the decision to call in the armed forces as "prudent and judicious".

He refused to comment on what penalty clauses were in the G4S contract, beyond saying it was "robust".

"This isn't the moment to be wading through the minutiae of legalese or playing the blame game," Coe said.

A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee said it was "watching the situation" with G4S, but said it was "very confident we don't have any major worries". IOC staff working at the Olympic Park have voiced surprise at the extent of the security checks and have reported back to Lausanne that they are tighter than at any other Olympics.

The London mayor, Boris Johnson, described the G4S saga as "pre-curtain-up jitters". He said: "The Games are going to be very safe, very secure and the arrangements that are going to be made by G4S, by the armed services, will deliver very good results."

From this weekend London's airspace will be under restrictions and RAF Typhoon fast jets and RAF Puma helicopters with snipers will be among the aircraft patrolling. Air Vice-Marshal Stuart Atha, the Olympics air security commander, said: "As a last resort, we will have lethal force as an option."

At RAF Northolt, a Home Office spokesman said: "We are planning on a terrorist threat environment that is severe," which means working on the assumption a terror attack is highly likely. The threat level currently declared by the Home Office is one notch lower at substantial, which means an attack is a strong possibility.

"We are not suggesting that there is any particular threat or risk to the Games that we know about."

One expert on policing said the public did not need to be worried about attending the Games. "The high-level security issues that will need to be considered will be a main priority for the police and the security services," said John Graham, director of the Police Foundation, an independent thinktank.

"A lot of the work the private security industry does is a lot more routine. The chance of terrorist activity occuring as a result of someone getting a bomb through an x-ray machine is pretty remote."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/13/olympic-security-temporary-base-troops

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