'This Week': Sochi Security

Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, ABC News' Pierre Thomas, and Ret. Col. Steve Ganyard on Sochi security.
3:00 | 02/09/14


Coming up next:



Skip to this video now

Now Playing:


More information on this video
Enhanced full screen
Explore related content
Related Extras
Related Videos
Video Transcript
Transcript for 'This Week': Sochi Security
Now for more analysis, our trio of security experts. Ray Kelly, former commissioner of the New York police department who just left the NYPD as the longest-serving commissioner in its history. Our senior justice correspondent, Pierre Thom. And colonel Steve is an ABC news contributor and a former state department official. Ray, start with you. You have prepared New York City for so many events. Times square at new year's, huge security challenges, the times square bombing. When you see what's happening in sochi, what lessons can you provide on how you would do it? What you would do differently or what they're doing now that's you think is working? Well, so far, so good. Looks like detailed planning. Obviously the Russians had seven years to plan. But I would suspect right now they're still adjusting that plan because it's a dynamic process. The intelligence assessment, of course, is very important here. And that drives a lot of what you do as far as the planning is concerned. We know that the major threat is from these -- these Muslim terrorists who are in the north caucasus republics. With skpef -- and we have an individual who's threatened to upset the games. It looks to me like they have done everything they can do. They have devoted probably as many as 100,000 people. The Numbers are anywhere from 40 to 100,000. But I've -- I think it's on the upper side. Can they prevent an attack, do you believe? I think they can prevent an attack in the venue itself. Obviously as has been said, I think outside of the area of sochi, there is a risk of a -- of an attack. But I think the Russians, they have the tools. They're listening in on everything going on certainly -- They sure are. We hear a lot of stories about that. Right. I think they're going everything they think they can do. Pierre, I want to ask you about the ring of steel. We see the map, looks like more like a rectangle of steel to me. But what does that mean? A combination of barriers, guards? Exactly. 1500 miles, combination of barbed wire, 50-100,000 security personnel, surveillance cameras, and drones. And they have boats in the black sea. They are prepared on the outer ring to block things from getting through. The concern is islamic fundamentalists trying to get into the olympic venue. I asked the congressman about this and evacuating Americans. You've worked in disaster relief in your marine corp. Career, running exercises for earthquakes and terrorist attacks. Are you confident we could get those athletes out of there quickly? Not confident. One of the things that's most disturbing to the U.S. Government, when the U.S. Embassy ran a simulation in December, what if they're unable to prevent a terrorist attack, how will the Russians deal with that? The embassy got nervous. They found problems in the medical, evacuations, to do the communications, to do interoperatability. They have put too much on prevention and not enough on what if something happens on the ground. It's as if they have been told you might play in a big football game. Here with the people, not let them practice or run a play, just do it if it happens. What we have in the area, we have two ships in the black sea. We have C-17s standing by in Germany. Can those ships not help, can those airplanes not help if there's an evacuation? It's a token force. The kinds of ships we have, we have a small one that may have one helicopter on board that's designed for anti-submarine. It's not designed for rescue or evacuate evacuation. We have a command and control ship, you could run an evacuation, but it's not a warship. We have the C-17s that could be there within six hours. But think about it, if we had a helicopter on one of the ships and tried to get into sochi, who's going to get them in through the anti-aircraft batteries? Who's going get them on the ground? We don't speak Russian. Language. Right. Just very quickly, are there things going on we don't know about? You have been in government. I'm sure there are. But doesn't mean they're successful. We have been blocked and stopped by the Russians at every attempt to coordinate a prior response. You can't just go in and hand out business cards if something happens. The concerns about sharing intelligence that the congressman talked about, the Russian the just aren't giving up much. I talked to a senior official in law enforcement last night who said it's their house. We have to play by their rules. The official said, think about Salt Lake City. If something were to happen in Salt Lake City, we weren't going to allow a bunch of Russians with weapons to do anything. We are getting some information, not as much as they could like. But the key is the prickly issue of sources and methods. They don't want us to know how they're getting their information, and we don't want them to know how we get ours. That's part of the problem. I want to talk about letting our guard down. You heard Christine, everything's going so well now. You have seen so many terror alerts. You tried to keep a city vigilant. How do you do that? How do you make sure they don't take for granted that things are going well? There is a concern in that regard. The olympics go to February 23rd. That's a long way off. Actually the paralympics into March. The adrenaline is going now, but the attack at the 1972 Munich olympics didn't happen until nine days into the olympic S. The fatigue -- And that's when the terrorist would strike. You have to rotate people. Make certain their energy level is up. But we have 12-hour work shifts here with a big event. And it's very debilitating. It's something that the Russians have to look at closely. And you need the leadership to keep people on guard and on alert. What scares you most is the attack outside of the venue. I think that's the consensus of the intelligence community. Sochi area is pretty well locked down. If anything happens, it's going to happen away from sochi. Thank you for joining us. Much more ahead in New York.


{"id":22433800,"title":"'This Week': Sochi Security ","duration":"3:00","description":"Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, ABC News' Pierre Thomas, and Ret. Col. Steve Ganyard on Sochi security.","section":"ThisWeek","mediaType":"Default"}