So I am watching video and reading all of these reports coming out of Mumbai, and I have just been cringing. I mourn the deaths of hostages, and my heart goes out to the families. But there is a part of me that watched this attack from a tactical command point of view, and it pissed me off. Could the death toll have been minimized if in fact the Indian response was coordinated and well managed under one management system? I think so.
Incident Command System or ICS is the most important element of the response to any incident or attack. And this management system, if applied correctly, could have saved lives. It is a system that would have helped to organize and call up resources quickly, and help to control and end the attack quickly. ICS is a system used to bring order to chaos, and if the Indian government would have trained on this aspect of command, then they could have dealt with this in a much more efficient manner.
As for some thoughts on what was missing from the response, where do I start? For one, if all of the police and military were briefed on ICS and how it works, then that would be a great start. From there, the police(who are the first responders), would act as the Incident Commander for their particular scene, and request more resources. That request should be in the form of how do we expand the ICS, because this attack is spreading all over the city. I would also ask all resources to make communications with the Incident Commander, and establish the on scene chain of command. But really, the first order of business is make your assessments of the situation, and order resources. And if that initial Incident Commander of the scene is not qualified for larger incidents, then he orders up a more qualified Incident Commander through dispatch. Until then, that individual is in command, because there is no one else.
For this deal in India, if I was the overall IC, I would have separated the city into divisions. And then assign a competent division boss for each division. Just divide up a tourist map or something, and mark the divisions out with a pen, and make sure each boss had a map with those boundaries. Each division boss would be responsible for their little piece of land. I would also establish communications with every one on scene, establish a centralized command center, organize the police effort and evacuate everyone from the city, and keep all media and anyone else out and at a safe distance. So clear out the city, and keep everyone out as a first step, and establish divisions with command assigned.
Then I would coordinate with each division boss and demand a situation report from each of them, and if the division boss required more resources, I would order them up for him. I would allow the division boss, to decide what they need to control their chunk of land. The division boss would be my sensor of how things are going, and then I could construct a bigger picture from all of these inputs. Things must be simple and basic in the beginning, and you must take a large mess, and divide it into smaller messes that competent leaders can handle. If I was the overall incident commander, my job is to help these division bosses do their job. The division bosses could break the command down even further on their own division, and that is up to them. They just need to keep the overall IC within the loop.
If a division boss sucks, then the IC has the control to remove them, and put someone else in there. Span of control for each leader should be within their capability, and they should always be striving to make their operation efficient and effective. And under ICS, as the incident gets bigger, so should the competency of the IC become bigger. For small incidents, you have Type 5 and 4 ICs. As they get bigger, they go to Type 3, 2, and 1 IC’s, and each Type IC is qualified for a certain size incident. That goes back to training and knowing the system of ICS, and having the appropriate amount of Type 5,4,3,2, and 1 commanders within the pool, to take on incidents like this.
The other big one with ICS, is that when you mix police and military and everything else within EMS, then you must have a means for everyone to communicate with each other. It must be a coordinated effort with a unified command. One command system, that everyone can understand is such a vital thing for fast moving incidents like this. Everyone should know what a division boss is or what the structure of ICS is, so they know that once they are on scene, that is what to expect and they know who to listen too.
A good dispatch center is important as well. This is the group, removed from the scene, with the capability to find resources through their databases and networks, and dispatch them to the requesting unit. The faster and ICS system is established on the ground, the faster that IC can contact the dispatch center and request the appropriate amount of resources for that incident. The can also do open calls on the radio, or use repeater towers and their stronger communications center, to relay messages from the IC. Dispatch can also notify the resources that have been called up, who they must report to on scene. Also, dispatch can sometimes catch things, that the field IC missed. Most of all, the dispatcher is a tool of the IC, and must be notified quickly to help solve problems. A dispatch center can even be used by an IC as a command center.
Another issue that a friend brought up, was about the Indian culture and it’s caste system. Does a caste type system lend itself to a unified command for an incident? Will individuals only listen to certain persons, based on the societal status of that person? I am sure there is some of that, but yet again, do they want to save lives or adhere to cultural beliefs? And especially when there are those being hurt or killed, that are not are not even Indian, in a fast moving attack. This goes back to training and working out how Incident Command will work for them, within the construct of their culture.
A great tool that could have been used to save lives, is an SMS or text message emergency plan. Everyone has phones these days, and everyone could have been notified via text message to leave the area. Those without phones, could easily see those with phones moving out of the area, and get the message that way. It is a simple concept, and certainly a tool of the IC and dispatch, and a sound SMS plan could have saved some lives.
Everyone should also have radios, and those radios must be programable so they can get on the same frequency as everyone else on the incident. And they should know the terminology of the command system. That is so important, and it is such a simple thing that many EMS/military/police units need to do, but don’t. Everyone wants their own system, with all of the bells and whistles, and their own little command structures. But in the end, what is most important is that everyone is on the same sheet of music with command/communications/strategy, and bring some control to the chaos. I highly recommend checking out ICS, if you are interested in how this works. The National Interagency Fire Center, located in Boise, Idaho would be another great resource if you would like to talk with some experts about ICS. –Head Jundi
Wikipedia for Incident Command System
NIMS-History of Incident Command System
FEMA-Resource Center for ICS
ICS for Law Enforcement Online Study
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Forces accused of bungled response
Tom Reilly
November 30, 2008
INDIA’S response to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai has been criticised as military commanders declared the siege at the Taj Mahal Hotel over yesterday.
Even before the operation against the militants was completed, security experts questioned the tactics being used.
One British official said that while India’s Black Cat commandos had an excellent international reputation, their deployment in the commercial centre of the city was a failure.
“They are supposed to set up a command centre in complete control as their first priority,” he told London’s Daily Telegraph.
“Instead, they arrived and went in guns blazing. It was blind. They didn’t have maps of the hotels, yet the terrorists had done enough reconnaissance to use the service facilities to manoeuvre.”
The newspaper said one of its reporters was able to walk past security checkpoints and enter the foyer of the Oberoi Hotel even as the fighting was continuing.
The failure to cordon off the area was the fault of local police, according to Clive Williams, visiting fellow at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre.
He told The Sunday Age: “If there is criticism that can already be attributed, it has to go to the Indian police. At times their efforts looked like a shambles.
“I understand it was the police force’s job to secure the area where the attacks took place and set up a proper cordon, but it doesn’t look like that happened.”
Mr Williams, a former army intelligence officer, said media management of the siege was also a failure.
“When you have a situation like we saw in Mumbai, it is essential that different arms of government are sending out a coherent message, but that didn’t happen,” he said.
Reports from Mumbai suggested operations against the terrorists became confused and delayed because of the involvement of many different units including marine commandos, navy special forces, army rapid-response teams, the paramilitary Rapid Reaction Force and assorted provincial police commando teams.
A senior Indian special forces source told the Telegraph: “There were far too many command centres with each one trying to best the other, which led to confusion and delayed operations.
“There appears to have been a lack of detailed, precise planning and even the operations involving over 300 commandos took nearly 48 hours to achieve.”
But Mr Williams said the co-ordinated terrorist attack, involving a series of buildings and scores of hostages, would have been difficult to react to.
“I think that under very difficult circumstances the Indian military did a good job,” he said. “They were coming up against well-armed terrorists who appear to have been well briefed. Added to that, there were large numbers of hostages to consider and they were attempting to take control of a building in the Taj that was partly on fire — it was a very confused situation.”
Mr Williams said if such an attack was launched in Australia, police and the military would struggle to mount an effective operation. “Our defence forces would be very stretched. Although our police have a counterterrorism capability, it would be difficult for them to deal quickly with such an incident.”
Security analysts agreed there had been a serious intelligence breach for such a large attack to be carried out without warning.
Neil Fergus, chief executive of security consultants Intelligent Risks, said: “We need greater co-operation between (intelligence) agencies to prevent such attacks.”