'Systemic approach' needed in anti-terrorism. (Security Beat).

Despite repeated emphasis on the importance of intelligence sharing, emergency responders are "still waiting for the adoption of a systemic approach to providing the intelligence that is so viral to preventing the next attack," said retired Gen. Dennis J. Reimer.

A former Army chief of staff, Reimer is now director of the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City.

"The $3.5 billion to improve the capabilities to deal with man-made disasters at the local level has not yet made it through the appropriation process and consequently, not one penny has been provided to emergency responders," he said.

Reimer said that intelligence is a two-way street, "information needs to flow from top to bottom, and vice versa."

However, intelligence is blocked by the constant requirement to classify material. The intelligence community, he said, has expressed the need for additional personnel that is properly secured. However, running a security clearance for all the additional people would unnecessarily slow down the process, he argued.

"A better solution is to declassify as much intelligence as possible and pass the appropriate information up and down the chain," he said, "Quite frankly, emergency responders need to receive appropriate information in a timely manner and are not concerned about how it was obtained." He stressed that there are ways of establishing credibility for this information without requiring everything to be classified.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, which Reimer heads, has been dedicated to preventing and reducing terrorism and mitigating its effects after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995. The non-profit organization was incorporated in 1999.

The organization is currently funded by congressional appropriations that direct it to conduct research into the social and political causes and effects of terrorism as well as the development of technologies to counter biological, nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction, and cyber-terrorism. The institute's Web site is www.mipt.org.