Britain puts 3,500 more troops on standby for Olympics

In Britain's mammoth Olympics security operation, 7,500 troops are already being deployed at venues and 6,000 more had previously been put on stand-by to provide a range of security duties.

|
Matt Dunham/AP/File
In this May 3 photo, Sergeant Craig from Britain's Royal Artillery regiment holds a high-velocity missile, or HVM, lightweight multiple launcher during a media event ahead of a training exercise designed to test military procedures prior to the Olympic period in Blackheath, London.

Britain put an extra 3,500 military personnel on standby Wednesday to protect venues at the London Olympics, after a private contractor acknowledged it may not be able to provide enough guards on time.

The contractor, G4S, had been enlisted to provide the bulk of the 13,200 private security guards across 100 venues, but said in a statement that it may not hit its target due to problems supplying staff.

The company has insisted that it still hopes to be able to supply the guards, but Britain's government is putting the troops on alert to be quickly deployed if the contractor cannot meet its obligations.

A person briefed on the government's planned response, who demanded anonymity because the move has yet to be announced publicly, said the troops are being prepared after G4S acknowledged its problems in talks with London's Olympic Organizing Committee and Britain's government.

"This has been an unprecedented and very complex security recruitment, training and deployment exercise, which has been carried out to a tight timescale," G4S said in a statement. "We have encountered some issues in relation to workforce supply and scheduling over the last couple of weeks, but are resolving these every day."

The firm said it accepted "that the government has decided to overlay additional resources." It was not clear what, if any, penalties the company would face if it failed to meet its contract.

In Britain's mammoth Olympics security operation, 7,500 troops are already being deployed at venues and 6,000 more had previously been put on stand-by to provide a range of security duties. If all military personnel — including the extra forces — were deployed, the total would be 17,000 — dwarfing the 9,500 troops Britain currently has on the ground in Afghanistan.

About 12,000 police, Typhoon fighter jets, helicopters, two warships and bomb disposal experts are also part of the vast program aimed at securing the Summer Games.

"The government has been clear that as part of a civilian and police-led overall security operation, militarypersonnel will be playing a key role in providing venue security for Olympic sites ahead of and during the Games," Britain's defense ministry said in a statement.

Government officials said final details of the extra troops being put on stand-by would be publicly confirmed Thursday in a statement to Parliament by a top defense official.

London's Olympic Organizing Committee said in a statement that the security plan was "big and complex, but we have the best brains in the security business working on this — Home Office, Metropolitan Police, MoD (Britain's defense ministry) and (the) world's largest private security business."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Britain puts 3,500 more troops on standby for Olympics
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Olympics/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0711/Britain-puts-3-500-more-troops-on-standby-for-Olympics
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe