Athens Makes Security ‘Priority No. 1’

Operating on the premise that the world was forever changed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Summer Games that begin one year from tonight in Athens will test, as never before in the history of the Olympics, the ability to make the Games safe for athletes, coaches, officials and fans.

Greek authorities will deploy a record 58,000 security personnel in an effort to protect the Olympic village, stadium and other venues. Security costs are projected at $1.135 billion.

Those figures represent dramatic escalations in manpower and budget, officials said, up from previously announced estimates of 45,000 personnel and $600 million. Training includes reaction and response to scenarios such as an airplane hijacking, hostage rescue, close-combat warfare, even the deployment of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

“The focus is transnational terrorism,” said the U.S. ambassador to Greece, Thomas J. Miller.

Added police Col. Eleftherios Ikonomou, a spokesman for the Greek Ministry of Public Order, “We now realize we have to deal with asymmetric threats on a global scale.”

It is one of the cruel ironies of the Olympic Games, a festival dedicated not only to sporting excellence but to the advancement of brotherhood and peace, that they inspire an enormous police, military and security apparatus, and Greek authorities acknowledge their delicate task as the Games return to the nation that gave the world the Olympic ideal: how to keep the peace without giving Athens the feel of a war zone.

Dora Bakoyannis, the mayor of Athens, indicated that security would be “visible enough” but, she said, “I hope not oppressive.”

Greek authorities proclaim regularly that the 2004 Games represent a chance to show the world that they can transform their ancient capital into a 21st century city the equal of any in Western Europe, that they can build world-class sporting venues to which spectators can take air-conditioned subway trains, that they can meet the logistical and organizational demands of the 17 days of the Olympics.

Planning for the 2004 Games has long been plagued by delays, however, and any further delay would significantly threaten readiness by early next summer. The International Olympic Committee, which as recently as February was signaling concern, has since issued strong statements of support and confidence.

In all, the Games will cost at least $7 billion. The Athens 2004 organizing committee, which runs the venues and stages the Games, will spend about $2.258 billion. The government’s outlay for construction of the infrastructure is estimated at $5.2 billion.

And the entire enterprise hinges on security.

“For us, security is probably the biggest of our worries,” said Bakoyannis, adding, “It’s very important that we succeed.”

Reminders of failure are vivid:

* Munich in 1972, when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and killed 11 Israeli athletes, coaches and officials.

* Atlanta in 1996, when a pipe bomb exploded in Centennial Park, killing one woman and injuring more than 100. Eric Rudolph, a former soldier and survivalist who is accused of having planted the bomb, is in custody, awaiting trial on that case and others.

“Atlanta showed how a single person -- a single-issue individual -- could make us all remember [those Games] for that bomb instead of the medals that were won,” said Peter Ryan, the former police commissioner of the Australian state of New South Wales who oversaw security at the 2000 Sydney Games and now is the principle consultant to Athens organizers.

Ever since Munich, security has been, in the words of International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, “priority No. 1” at the Games.

But, as Miller pointed out, “It’s not really fair to compare these [Athens] Games with previous Games because 9/11 changes the entire landscape.”

Thus, according to Ryan, the Greek government, which is responsible for security matters in and around the 2004 Olympics, is “going to put anything and everything they’ve got into making sure these Games are as secure as they can possibly be.”

Ikonomou, the police colonel, said the 58,000-strong force to be deployed would include 45,000 officers from the Hellenic Police Force along with 13,000 others -- firefighters, port police and 7,000 soldiers. In addition, he said, security cameras would be installed “throughout the city.”

The size of the force is mammoth compared to previous Games.

In Sydney only three years ago, the security contingent totaled 15,000.

In Atlanta, it was 22,000. In addition, some 10,000 private security guards staffed checkpoints at media centers and other sites.

In Salt Lake City, site of the 2002 Winter Games, roughly 10,000 law enforcement officers and military personnel patrolled the various venues. Supplemental staff included 5,000 event-services officials whose duties could include security and an additional 1,500 private security guards at warehouses, hotels and the like. Security costs for those Games topped $310 million, a record for a U.S. Olympics.

The Winter Games, though, are much smaller than the Summer Olympics. The athlete count at a Winter Games is about 2,500, about one-fourth the total at the Summer Games.

And, as Ryan pointed out, “Australia is a giant island.” And Salt Lake City “is a desert town ... surrounded by mountains and few roads in, and an airport. Now that’s pretty easy to defend.”

Athens presents “a much more difficult challenge,” he said, ticking off: “Porous borders. Large numbers of illegals already in the country from a variety of Balkan states. Instability in some of the Balkan states surrounding us. The proximity to the Middle East, the continuing conflict there. And then, of course, the general anti-globalization, to some extent the anti-American, anti-coalition feelings that still exist today.

“That’s not to say the task is that impossible. We can do the task. It just makes it more difficult and hence the larger number of security forces than at any other Olympic Games.”

For months now, Greek officials have been planning or training with security experts from seven other nations -- the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Australia and Israel.

Ikonomou said, “International cooperation is the answer to international terrorism, and that’s what we’ve done.”

As an example, Ryan said, planners are engaged in “detailed discussions” with a “small Israeli contingent” over ways to detect and deter suicide bombings, which he called “a frightening scenario.”

U.S. officials have been lending training assistance.

Miller declined to provide details and Ryan would say only, “It’s not guys on the ground dressed in black and hiding in buildings. It’s training the Greek authorities to manage the unthinkable scenarios, like weapons of mass destruction, massive crises where you have multiple scenarios, briefing on terrorist methods, ideologies and processes and so on.”

Earlier this year, the Bush administration asked Congress for $4.5 million to protect U.S. athletes at the Athens Games. The U.S. delegation figures to total 1,200, about 700 of those athletes.

Greek authorities last year broke up a murderous domestic terror group called 17 November, which had operated, seemingly without challenge, since the 1970s.

The radical leftist group has been blamed for 23 homicides. Four of those killed were American. Also among those slain was Pavlos Bakoyannis, killed in 1989 when he was a deputy in the Greek parliament. His widow is now the mayor.

N17, as the group was known in security circles, had contributed to an impression that Athens and Greece just weren’t safe -- an impression that Greek officials vehemently protested, noting such statistics as the national homicide rate, 94 throughout all of Greece in 2002. In comparison, there were 118 homicides in 2002 in just one of the Los Angeles Police Dept.’s 18 divisions, the 77th, which straddles the Harbor Freeway south of Florence Avenue.

Court trials are underway in Athens for reputed N17 members, and the mayor said, “Now Greece has shown that even late, very late, it was able to deal with the imperial terrorist problem.”

Even so, the question remains: Will “anything and everything” be enough?

Nigel Churton, managing director of Control Risks Group, a London security firm that was involved in preparing for the Sydney Games, travels to Greece regularly and though not directly involved in 2004 Olympic planning, said, “I remain concerned by Greece.

“As someone said, ‘Just in time’ was definitely a Greek expression. ‘Just too late’ was also a Greek expression. What are they actually going to have on the [13th] of August 2004? I haven’t got a clue.”

Asked if he too were concerned, Miller, the U.S. ambassador, replied, “The only way I can answer that question is, would I have any qualms about having friends and family visit [Greece] during the Olympics?

“My answer, on the basis of what I know now, is no.”