NOTHING CAN GO WRONG...GO WRONG...GO WRONG...

Delays in Athens Raise Concern on Olympic Security Readiness: Officials say delays in completing the security apparatus and athletic facilities have left too little time to test systems meant to detect or respond to an attack. (RAYMOND BONNER and ANTHEE CARASSAVA, 7/03/04, NY Times)

[S]ix weeks before the opening of the Games, the main Olympic park and the soccer stadium are still construction sites with towering cranes hoisting workers and equipment to dizzying heights, dump trucks stirring up dust, and hundreds of shirtless laborers covered in sweat. Surveillance cameras cannot be installed until the complexes are finished, and the major stadiums have held no events, which would have allowed officials to test their security procedures, officials said.

"We're running out of time," said a foreign intelligence official advising the Greeks on security. "The degree to which you run it down to the wire, therein lies the greatest risk."

Intelligence and law enforcement officials from five countries working with the Greeks on security were interviewed in the past two weeks. None would allow their names to be used, nor their countries, primarily out of concern for Greek sensitivities.

The huge event, spread over 17 days and more than 100 sites, presents an enormous security challenge. And while any threat of a major attack remains paramount for security officials — even if some of them view the risk as small — they are also mindful of potential disruptions from a number of other sources, including Greece's small anarchist groups and Chechen and other rebel groups.

"We have done everything humanly possible," said George A. Voulgarakis, the Greek minister of public order. "We have spent more than we could afford." The expected $1.2 billion security bill is four times that spent in Sydney, Australia, for the last summer Olympics in 2000.

"We have the most modern and sophisticated technologies," Mr. Voulgarakis said. "We have the maximum intelligence that a country could have."

It's likely to look something like the movie Brazil.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 3, 2004 9:19 AM