US to send 500 FBI agents to London Olympics

THE US is to send a squad of 1,000 people, including 500 FBI agents, to the London Olympics next year to guard its competitors, as the organisers of the Games are forced to turn to the Ministry of Defence for help policing the event.

The Guardian reports that the American authorities are increasingly concerned about security levels after the UK Government was forced to relax anti-terrorism stop and search rules.  They now want to send over a large contingent of officers to protect athletes and diplomats.

The paper says: "Washington's need for reassurance is exasperating British officials and anti-terrorism officials, who have privately raised concerns about the meddling, as well as the size of the US 'footprint' in the UK during the Games next year."

One official told the Guardian: "The Americans are risk-averse, with a capital A and underlined. They want to see everything. We are not equal partners in this. They want to be on top of everything - building protection, counter-terrorism strategy and VIP security - everything."

The news comes as the organisers face what the Guardian calls a "potential crisis" over security at the 32 Olympic venues across the country.

Locog, the committee in charge of staging the event, had originally planned to have just 10,000 security guards, but after a review it now believes that it could need as many as 21,000.

The security firm G4S won the contract to provide security, and will launch a recruitment drive this week, but the organisers cannot afford to pay them to provide twice as many security staff as originally planned.
 
Now the MoD has been asked for help, and could provide up to 5,000 soldiers to help police the events. However, some at the cash-strapped ministry are annoyed by the request. "What have they been doing for the last five years?" asked one source. ·