Shadow Government Activated for U.S. WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration has activated Cold War-era plans for a ``shadow government'' consisting of 75 or more senior officials who live and work secretly outside Washington in case the nation's capital is crippled by terrorist attack, a senior government official Thursday night. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the operation has been in effect since the first hours after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but has evolved over time. Originally designed to help the government withstand Cold War nuclear threats, the shadow government plan was activated out of heightened fears that the al-Qaida terrorist network might obtain a portable nuclear weapon. U.S. intelligence has no specific knowledge of such a weapon, but the risk was great enough to warrant the activation of a plan dating to the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the official said. Under the classified ``Continuity of Operations Plan,'' first reported by The Washington Post, high-ranking officials representing their departments have begun rotating in and out of the assignment at one of two fortified locations along the East Coast. The Post said the first rotations were made in late October or early November, a fact confirmed by a senior government official late Thursday. Officials who are activated for the duty live and work underground 24 hours a day, away from their families, according to the Post. The shadow government has sent home most of the first wave of deployed personnel, replacing them most commonly at 90-day intervals. A government official who spoke to The Associated Press said the groups usually number 70 to 150 people, depending on the level of threat detected by U.S. intelligence. He said Bush does not foresee ever needing turn over government functions to the secret operation, but believed it was prudent to implement the long-standing plan in light of the gathering war on terrorism and persistent threats of future attacks. The team, drawn from every Cabinet department and some independent agencies, would seek to prevent the collapse of essential government functions in the event of a disabling blow to Washington, the official said. The underground government would try to contain disruptions of the nation's food and water supplies, transportation links, energy and telecommunications networks, public health and civil order, the Post reported. Later, it would begin to reconstitute the government. The government-in-waiting is an extension of a policy that has kept Vice President Dick Cheney in secure undisclosed locations away from Washington. Cheney has moved in and out of public view as threat levels have fluctuated. As next in line to power behind President Bush, he would need help running the government in a worst-case scenario ``We take this issue extraordinarily seriously, and are committed to doing as thorough a job as possible to ensure the ongoing operations of the federal government,'' Joseph W. Hagin, White House deputy chief of staff, told the Post, though he declined to discuss details. ``In the case of the use of a weapon of mass destruction, the federal government would be able to do its job and continue to provide key services and respond.'' According to the Post, the backup government consists generally of officials from top career ranks, from GS-14 and GS-15 to members of the Senior Executive Service. The White House is represented by a ``senior-level presence,'' one official said, but well below such Cabinet-ranked advisers as Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Many departments, including Justice and Treasury, have completed plans to delegate statutory powers to officials who would not normally exercise them, the Post said. Others do not need to make such legal transfers, or are holding them in reserve. The report said civilians deployed for the operation are not allowed to take their families and may not tell anyone where they are going or why. The two sites of the shadow government make use of local geological features to render them highly secure, the Post said. They are well stocked with food, water, medicine and other consumable supplies, and are capable of generating their own power.
Taken from <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/03/01/bunker.government/index.html"> Here</a> WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly six months after the September 11 attacks, a bunker government of senior federal agency officials remains in place at secure locations outside Washington as a precaution against a catastrophic strike on the nation's capital, a senior government official told CNN on Friday. The secretive operation is based on Cold War protocols and its guidelines and infrastructure are the subject of urgent review within the administration to bring "continuity of government" planning up to modern-day needs and capabilities, the official said. Precautions that have placed Vice President Dick Cheney at "a secure and undisclosed" location since the terrorist strikes on New York and the Pentagon are part of the plan. But while Cheney has resumed a schedule that is "almost normal," as the senior official put it, the bunker government of "several dozen, roughly 100" senior government workers remains in place, using two secure locations in the eastern United States that were constructed for such a contingency. Because Bush has decided to leave the operation in place, agencies including the White House and top civilian Cabinet departments have rotated personnel involved, and are discussing ways to staff such a contingency operation under the assumption it will be in place indefinitely, this official said. "We are learning a lot from just putting this in place, and we are adjusting to that," the official said. The lessons, according to this official, included a dramatic need to improve computer and other communications equipment and capabilities at the secure locations. Also, several departments are reviewing legal requirements to make sure those serving in the bunker government have the authority to carry out key government functions, should contact with Washington somehow be severed. Guidelines date back to Cold War preparations for the prospect of a devastating nuclear attack on the United States, and were last significantly revised in the Reagan administration. Bush ordered the precautions in the hours after the September 11 strikes, and has left them in place because of continuing U.S. intelligence suggesting a possible threat. Concerns that al Qaeda could have gained access to a crude nuclear device "were a major factor" in the president's decision, the official said. "The threat of some form of catastrophic event is the trigger," this official said. This same official said that the United States had no confirmation "and no solid evidence" that al Qaeda had such a nuclear device and also acknowledged that the consensus among top U.S. officials is that the prospect of such a catastrophic event is "quite low." Still, the officials said Bush and other top White House officials, including Cheney, were adamant that the government take precautions designed to make sure government functions ranging from civil defense to transportation and agricultural production could be managed in the event Washington was the target of a major strike. "And to be honest as time passes this has also been a useful learning experience as to how some of this is grossly outdated and needs to be fixed," the official said. Bush has placed Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge in charge of the operation and the parallel effort to improve the communications and other infrastructure issues, the senior official said. The Pentagon has a separate operation to ensure continuity of operations. Bush visited one of its secure "command and control" bunkers -- at an Air Force base in Nebraska -- as he took a careful route back to Washington from Florida on September 11 as the "continuity of government" protocols were first implemented. Cheney took the lead in Washington, working from a bunker deep beneath the White House complex. Man, those basterds know something we don't! I'm moving to antarctica!
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