London’s 2012 Olympics add 13,500 troops to security plans

Up to 13,500 British troops have been enlisted to guard the 2012 summer Olympics in London, Reuters reported. That is more troops than the UK currently has in Afghanistan, and will make the games Britain's largest peacetime military operation. 

The number of security guards required at the event has risen from an initial estimate of 10,000 to 23,700, as concerns about international uncertainty mounted. The terrorist threat level for the Olympics will be at "severe", The Guardian reported. 

The military presence for the games will include specialized bomb disposal units and special forces. The Olympic park in east London will also be protected by missiles, similarly to the security strategy used in Beijing in 2008 and Athens in 2004.

As the Guardian reported, 

Ministers have insisted that using such a large military deployment will not impact on operations elsewhere and organizers say it is prudent to use a mix of suppliers to provide security. They have likened the role of the military to that at Wimbledon, where they wear ceremonial dress and add to the sense of occasion.

The additional security measures have caused the budget for the games' security to jump to 553 million pounds ($850 million) from the previous estimate of 282 million pounds ($437 million), Sports Minister Hugh Robertson said earlier this month, Reuters reported.  

The security is organized by the games' organizing committee (Locog), which contracted US private security company G4S in March to provide it with an estimate for the cost of securing the event; however, those estimates were based on the original number of 10,000 security personnel, which was decided in 2006. 

The increasing price of security has been a touchy subject for Olympic organizers, who insist that a final figure could not be determined until the plan for venues was drafted.

"We did not misunderestimate," Dame Helen Ghosh, the Home Office permanent secretary, told The Guardian. We did not have the facts on which to do the planning. We now have the facts on which to do the planning, which is why, having pressed Locog very hard on their estimates and having tested it in various security scenarios, we have agreed that the maximum [they will] need is the 23,000. This is realistic – that was slightly finger-in-the-air [to say], 'We think it is 10,000 and that would cost us 282 million pounds.'"

In November, reports circulated that the US was dissatisfied with security arrangements for the games and was planning to send FBI agents to protect American athletes. London's national Olympic security coordinator Chris Allison dismissed these claims as "rubbish", Reuters reported. 

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