KUALA LUMPUR: A FULL-FLEDGED United States Secret Service team will accompany President Barack Obama around the clock as he sets foot here on Saturday.
The three-day visit is part of his Asia tour to three other Asian countries: Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.
The New Straits Times takes a glimpse of the lengths to which the Secret Service will go to protect its head of state in his overseas trips.
When the Obama family was scheduled to visit Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, from June 26 to July 3 last year, hundreds of US Secret Service agents arrived ahead of time to secure facilities in the places, The Washington Post reported on June 14.
The security measures were outlined in a “confidential internal planning document” obtained by The Washington Post.
Among the measures were:
A NAVY aircraft carrier with a fully staffed medical trauma centre, stationed offshore;
MILITARY cargo planes airlifted 56 support vehicles, including 14 limousines, a specialised communications vehicle to provide secure telephone, a truck that jammed radio frequencies around the presidential motorcade;
THREE trucks loaded with sheets of bulletproof glass to cover the windows of the hotels;
A FULLY loaded ambulance that can handle biological or chemical contaminants and a truck for X-ray equipment; and,
FIGHTER planes to patrol the president’s airspace for 24 hours.
Meanwhile, news.com.au on Nov 12 reported that Obama’s aides immediately set up a tent with opaque sides and noisemaking devices inside in a room near his hotel suite to be used if he needed to read a classified document or have a sensitive conversation.
When the presidential couple travelled to Mumbai, India on Nov 6, 2010, a bomb-proof tunnel was erected for Obama ahead of his visit to Mani Bhavan — the Gandhi museum, the Dailymail.co.uk reported on Nov 6.
It said US secret service agents while inspecting the route and the buildings on the path to the museum, noticed a skyscraper in the highly populated area that could pose a threat.
They decided to erect a kilometre long bomb-proof over-ground tunnel, which would be installed by US military engineers in an hour.
The air-conditioned tunnel would be fitted with closed-circuit television cameras and heavily guarded. It would be dismantled immediately after Obama leaves the area.
Besides that, Obama would travel on ‘The Beast’, the Presidential state car which security experts say is probably the “safest road vehicle on the planet”.
Meanwhile, hours before Obama’s arrival in Japan yesterday, Haneda Airport authorities launched a frantic scramble to change security pass codes, after a Skymark airline employee dropped a memo containing the details.
A Transport Ministry official said the note was found on the floor of the departure lobby 30 minutes later. AFP said 16,000 police officers were deployed for Obama’s two-night visit.
“Left luggage lockers and rubbish bins have been sealed in some stations and thousands of security cameras have been put into operation,” it said.
NHK World on April 19 reported that dogs trained to detect explosives were deployed around the US embassy in Tokyo.
It said the police had begun inspecting vehicles traveling on roads to Haneda Airport and main streets in the city centre around the clock.
-NST
