Some have begun to say it openly: they’re scared. At home they may bathe in the hot glow of celebrity but, six months before the Athens Olympics, the United States’s dream-team athletes are voicing fears about their safety.
Will they be targeted by snipers? Will their food and water be contaminated? Will suicide bombers drive explosive-laden trucks into venues? Many have said they will not venture much beyond the fortress-like Olympic village on the outskirts of the capital.
”If you wanted to send a message to the world, what better place to do it?” said US basketball star Jermaine O’Neal. ”The players are definitely concerned.”
After all, said Stacy Dragila, a gold medal winner in the pole vault in Sydney, ”people do hate Americans”.
Greece’s proximity to the Middle East, its long, porous borders and history of anti-American sentiment have made these — the first post-September 11 summer Olympics — the most dangerous yet. As Athens enters the final straight in preparing to host the Games, it is security, not the Greeks’ notorious disorganisation or erratic construction process, that has become the over-arching concern.
A record 202 countries and a total of 10 500 athletes will take part. About a million spectators are expected. With experts predicting the possibility of as many as 300 different types of potentially lethal attack, the magnitude of the operation needed to ensure safety is gargantuan.
The Greeks have budgeted $750-million on security, three times the amount spent in 2000 in Sydney. The plans will involve around 50 000 personnel, including 16 000 soldiers.
”It is self-evident that from the day the Olympic Games were awarded to Greece anyone who wanted to plan a terror attack has had six years to do so,” said Alex Rondos, the Greek Foreign Ministry’s coordinator for the Olympics.
As the smallest nation to date to host the event, the Greeks see the Olympics’ success as a matter of extreme national pride. After a slow start, they took the unusual step of allowing a seven-nation advisory group, led by the British, Americans and Israelis, to guide them on security. A US-based firm has been assigned to set up a sophisticated command-and-control communications network for the Games, while British-born Peter Ryan has been appointed as chief security consultant.
Greece has become a testing ground for global anti-terrorist security. Last week Athenians were told to ”be patient” as British-orchestrated exercises simulating hostage takeovers, chemical attacks and biological and nuclear assaults were staged in the capital.
Next month US special forces will participate in a 20-day ”boots on the ground” operation, the first to date on Greek soil involving American troops in peacetime. The drill will test the Greeks’ ability to defend all 28 Olympic venues, as well as the Acropolis, the capital’s sewage system and other infrastructure works.
With about 12 000 visitors due to be housed on the Queen Mary II and other cruise ships berthed in the port of Piraeus, US troops will focus on beefing up security around the Argo-Saronic coast.
”Greece has become a guinea pig for every conceivable anti-terrorism policy,” said one official. ”We’re not bullshitting. The weeks and months ahead are critical.”
Despite all the measures, nearly 80% of Greeks have told pollsters they fear an attack is ”inevitable”.
The skilfully planned double suicide bombings in neighbouring Turkey were described by experts as a ”loud wake-up call”.
According to one State Department report cited in the reliable Athens daily To Vima, US officials appear especially worried about the Greeks’ capability to react to a biological attack as well as the possibility of snipers hiding in the hills around Athens.
Other nightmare scenarios involve suicide attacks of the kind seen on tourists in Israel, underground explosions, missile assaults, aircraft hijackings, hostage situations, water poisoning and chemical attacks.
Officials are putting on a brave face, but International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge acknowledged that there are no certainties.
”We are very satisfied,” he said of the safety operation. ”But, of course, no one can guarantee 100% security.” — Guardian Unlimited