Renovation of Pentagon includes tighter security.

The Defense Department is seeking to improve security at what is already one of the most heavily protected facilities in the world, said Raymond E DuBois Jr., deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment.

Terrorists first hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building, killing 184 passengers, military personnel and civilian workers.

"Immediately after the attack, additional police officers and military police were placed around the building to help monitor the entrances and parking lots," DuBois told National Defense. "Jersey barriers were lined through the parking lot and road entrances to slow down vehicles." Since then, he said, plans to respond to additional terrorist attacks and incidents involving weapons of mass destruction at the Pentagon are being implemented.

DuBois is, in military jargon, "dual hatted." He also serves as the Defense Department's director of administration and management, making him in effect "mayor of the Pentagon." In this position, he succeeded the legendary, David O. ("Doc") Cooke, who died in a 2002 automobile accident after holding the job for more than four decades.

This latest drive to improve Pentagon security began a decade ago, under Cooke, as part of a thorough renovation of the building. But since 9/11, it has been accelerated, according to Brett D. Eaton, a spokesman for the project. Completion now is scheduled for 2010, four years sooner than originally planned. The total estimated cost: about $3 billion.

As part of this plan, major changes are underway to protect the Pentagon from additional terrorist assaults, Eaton explained during a tour of the renovation project. Subway and bus stations have been moved away from the building's entrance. Heavily traveled highways, which now pass right by the facility, are being rerouted to provide more security from potential car bombs.

The Pentagon police force has been enlarged, re-equipped and given a new name, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, explained its director, John Jester.

All of this is being done to protect a building that was constructed on the Virginia side of the Potomac River during a 16-month period in the early days of World War II. The cost at the time: $83 million.

The Pentagon is one of the largest office buildings in the world. In all, 24,000 military and civilian employees work there, including the secretaries of defense, Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff. With more than 3.7 million square feet of office space, it is twice the size of the Merchandise Mart in Chicago and has three times the floor space of New York City's Empire State Building.

In 1990, Congress approved a major renovation plan to upgrade the Pentagon's deteriorating, asbestos-filled building systems in order to meet modern health, fire and life safety codes, and provide reliable electrical, air conditioning and ventilation services.

The plan calls for the Pentagon's five wedges, including the first to the fifth floors, to be renovated one at a time. Work on the first wedge had just been completed, and 2,600 employees had moved back into their offices, when the hijacked airliner struck, Eaton explained.

Many of the improvements saved lives, he said. As part of the renovation, the windows along the E and A Rings of Wedge 1--those opening to the building's exterior and inner courtyard--were made of blast-resistant material. "These windows are an inch and a half thick," he said. "Each pane weighs 500 pounds. An entire window weighs a ton. During 9/11, these windows saved thousalads of lives."

Renovation of Wedge I also included steel beams that run, from top to bottom to strengthen building support, Eaton said. In addition, he noted, Kevlar panels were inserted between the windows to catch fragments from explosions.

While these measures apparently did reduce casualties, the attack devastated Wedge 1. Four days after the attack, the Defense Department announced that Hensel Phelps Construction Co., of Chantilly, Va., was awarded a contract, initially worth $145 million, to rebuild Wedge 1 and to continue renovating the remainder of the Pentagon. If all of the contract's options are exercised, the contract has a potential value of up to $758 million, plus inflation, and will result in the renovation of approximately four million square feet of building space.

With a vengeance, construction workers plunged into the effort, which was named the Phoenix Project, after the mythical bird that rose from the ashes of its own funeral pyre. Nine months after the attack, the exterior of the Pentagon was whole again. By February of this year, all of the tenants of the impacted area had returned.

Work on Wedge 2 is now well along. After 9/11 , Eaton said, the Pentagon renovation team ordered some changes in construction plans to prevent recurrence of problems encountered as a result of the attack. For example:

* Radial corridors, elevator shafts, stairwells and other mission-critical areas are being reinforced to create fire-safe zones and provide additional stability to the building.

* Additional stand-pipes are being included to provide maximum water pressure.

* Photoluminescent signage and directional strips are being installed on corridor walls. These signs glow for about four hours after 15 minutes of exposure to fluorescent lighting.

* These "glow-in the-dark" signs and arrows are being posted low on walls to help people trying to crawl darough dark, smoke-filled corridors to exits.

* Every Pentagon employee has received an "escape mask" to keep in his or her desk for use in feep emergency. Thousands of additional masks are available in dispensers located throughout the building.

Other security-related changes are occurring throughout the 583-acre Pentagon Reservation. After 9/11 , for example, the Pentagon and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or Metro, restructured mass transit connections to the facility, which are used by perhaps 35,000 commuters per day.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, all bus and subway service to tire Pentagon was suspended temporarily. Then, it was restored gradually--with big changes. In December 2001, defense and Metro officials opened a $36 million Pentagon Transit Center, with bus bays no closer than 280 feet to the building. Previously, buses picking up and dropping off passengers came as close as 10 feet to the structure.

Then, in the following July, a rebuilt subway entrance, also located further from the building, opened its doors. Originally subway escalators and elevators fed ditectly into the structure.

The final phase came in November 2002, with a new Pentagon Entrance Facility, featuring covered walkways to provide shelter from the weather, closed-circuit television, emergency call stations, better lighting and multiple security checks, which begin before entering the building.

To provide a consolidated, secure and safely distant location to receive and screen the thousands of items shipped into the Pentagon every day, officials in 2000 opened a 250,000 square-foot Remote Delivery Facility. Built on a former parking lot, the RDF features 38 loading docks capable of accommodating an average of 250 trucks per day.

Once a vehicle is cleared to enter the facility, it receives a thorough security inspection. Canine teams sniff for explosives. Security personnel use mirrors to check tire vehicle's under carriage. Drivers without building passes must pass through metal detectors before opening vehicle cargo doors. Materials being unloaded are x-rayed and subjected to other security inspections. Only then can the material be transported, via a tunnel, to the Pentagon itself.

Two major highways pass so close to the building that Virginia state troopers have been stationed along them to bolster security. The renovation program includes moving them further away from the building. Virginia's State Route 27, which passes directly west of the Pentagon, is being rebuilt to improve secure access for trucks to the RDF. Route 110, which now cuts within feet of the northeast side of the building, is being rerouted toward the Pentagon Lagoon, an offshoot of the Potomac River that was created during construction of the facility.

In the aftermath of 9/11, it became clear that the Pentagon police force, then known as the Defense Protective Service, needed to be strengthened, said Jester.

Before 9/11, DPS focused primarily on controlling access to the building, preventing theft of physical property and classified material, and keeping antiwar demonstrations from getting out of hand. "When I look back now on those days, I think how easy it was," he said.

In 2002, DPS was replaced by the Pentagon Force Protection Agency. The new unit's functions included all of those performed by DPS, plus expanded force protection, anriterrorist and weapons of mass destruction preparedness, detection, prevention and response missions.

To fulfill these added responsibilities, the agency has more than doubled the size of its organization. "The challenge that we've had--and we've been under some duress--is providing security while building a new organization," Jester said. "We have more than 800 people now, and we're still hiring." The agency "is actively recruiting high-quality, physically fit" individuals, he said.

Military personnel leaving active service are prime candidates, Jester said. "We spend a lot of time recruiting at military bases."

Recruits attend a 10.5-week basic course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, in Brunswick, Ga., followed by eight additional weeks of schooling at tim Pentagon, Jester explained. They study standard police tactics, plus force protection, coping with weapons of mass destruction and antiterrorism.

Traditionally, Pentagon police officers have been armed with 9 mm automatic pistols, but "we're transitioning to .40 calibers," Jester said. "A lot of departments are looking at dealing with people wearing ammred vests. If a .40 caliber can't penetrate one of those vests, it can at least knock down the person wearing it."

To fend off serious assaults, the agency has an Emergency Response Team, called Team Cobra. "It's a SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team," Jester explained. These black-uniformed officers are schooled in the use of shotguns, automatic weapons and non-lethal devices. Another team specializes in responding to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidences.

Jester's agency is responsible, in addition to the Pentagon Reservation, for all Defense Department activities in the national capital region not under the jurisdiction of a military department, including many offices in Crystal City and Rosslyn.

To get quickly to these locations, the agency maintains a fleet of patrol cars. In addition, BMW of North America this summer donated six BMW R 1100 RT-P authority motorcycles, enabling the Pentagon police to create their first motorcycle unit. Jester said he expects the motorcycles to be especially useful navigating around the congested Pentagon campus and nearby city streets.

To help Pentagon employees prepare to cope with disasters such as 9/11, the department is staging increasing numbers of CBRN training exercises. They range from "tabletop" simulations to live scenarios conducted both inside the bulding and on surrounding grounds.

One of the largest in recent years--dubbed "Gallant Fox"--was held in July. Pentagon police, along with hazardous materials units and fire engine units from nearby Alexandria, Arlington and the District of Columbia, were asked to respond to a simulated truck explosion that released a chemical agent.

As the Pentagon's ability to provide its own security improves, Jester said, the department is "phasing out" its reliance on the Army reserve and National Guard military police personnel, in armored humvees with automatic weapons, who have been guarding the building since 9/11.

"At one point, we probably had 300 MPs here," Jester said "Those people are needed elsewhere."