LONDON: London's Olympic Games is not threatened by a major security contractor's failure to find enough staff, ministers and the head of the city's organizing committee said yesterday, seeking to quell a political storm ahead of athletes' arrival.
Three days ago, the government announced it would draft in 3,500 extra troops as cover after contractor G4S admitted it was unlikely to train the guards it had promised under its 284 billion pound ($442 billion) contract in time.
The news, two weeks before the start of the Games on July 27, prompted concerns over the safety of athletes and spectators, and raised fears that those trying to get into venues would face long queues to get through security.
"(Security) has not been compromised," Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Olympic organizing committee (LOCOG) said.
Safety has been at the top of organizers' list of concerns ever since four young British extremists killed 52 people in suicide bomb attacks in the capital the day after London was awarded the games in 2005. Last month Jonathan Evans, the head of the MI5 domestic intelligence agency, warned that the Games presented an attractive target. While senior officials say there is nothing to indicate any attack is being planned, holes in the security apparatus have been highlighted before thousands of athletes and officials start arriving today.
The Observer newspaper cited yesterday an unnamed senior border official as saying that suspects on government watch lists were being allowed into Britain without proper checks because inexperienced recruits were being used to man borders.
John Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders, has warned that staff who have only basic training and ask fewer questions have been drafted in to deal with huge queues at passport control at Heathrow airport.
But a Border Force spokesman said Vine's inspection had shown staff were fully aware of the checks they needed to make.
"All contingency staff deployed to the border are fully trained and supported by experienced Border Force officers at all times," he said.
The security operation, the biggest ever conducted in Britain in peacetime, is now in full swing, involving all sections of the armed forces from special services to the navy's biggest warship HMS Ocean which is docked in the River Thames.
Restrictions on the airspace over London and much of south-east England were brought in on Saturday, with Royal Air Force fighter jets on standby to shoot down any rogue aircraft should it be deemed necessary.
But the issue of the venue guards has dominated the headlines in the British media all week, another headache for a coalition government struggling with a raft of public relations disasters and a moribund economy.
UK says no security threat in Olympics despite guards fiasco
