A letter intended to reassure sports leaders around the world that the 2002 Winter Games will be safe is being sent out by the International Olympic Committee.
The two-page letter dated Wednesday expresses "full confidence in the preparations and readiness" in the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and is signed by both IOC President Jacques Rogge and SLOC President Mitt Romney.
"While confident, we would be remiss if, in the aftermath of the terrible tragedy of 11 September, we did not address the issue of security of the Games," the letter states, calling the security of athletes and other participants "Priority Number One."
Even before the terrorist attacks against targets in New York City and Washington, D.C., security plans by the U.S. government were comprehensive and impressive, according to the letter.
Now those plans include "extraordinary measures for combating threats from the air, more restrictive politics and procedures to gain access to a venue, and high levels of security at non-competition sites, among other provisions for other contingencies we cannot detail."
Hundreds of copies were faxed Wednesday from the IOC's headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, to all IOC members, national Olympic committees and international sports federations.
The latest letter won't be the last communication about Games security between Olympic officials and the sports world, Romney said. He said officials recently spent about two hours on a conference call with some 200 representatives of Olympic sponsors around the world.
Romney had already corresponded with SLOC staff and some sports officials just days after the terrorist attacks, but the IOC asked him to hold off on a more extensive mailing until after this week's IOC oversight commission meetings.
The commission, which ended three days of meetings in Salt Lake City Wednesday, reviewed security plans for the 2002 Games with Romney and other SLOC officials as well as representatives of the FBI and Secret Service. The Games are scheduled for Feb. 8-24.
Organizers received high praise from the commission chairman, Marc Hodler, a senior IOC member from Switzerland. "No worries. No problems," Hodler told reporters. "This is an outstanding group of experts" who could offer lessons to future organizing committees.
Romney stressed that security for the Games, however, is "in the hands of the professionals" including the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command as well as federal authorities.
"Everything conceivable is being done to ensure the safety of the Games," Romney said.
The letter promises that between 5,000 and 7,000 federal, state and local agents will be on hand during the Games, plus several thousand additional personnel from the U.S. military and notes the nearly $300 million security budget.
Romney said organizers will attempt to answer any specific questions raised by sports leaders about, for example, what would be done in the event of an anthrax outbreak. He and other Olympic officials have been careful not to detail security plans in public.
"We have no other alternative," Hodler said of the effort to keep the security plans under wraps. "We can't go into details because I think the most dangerous weapon against terrorism is secrecy."
The letter closes by telling the sports leaders that "the Games will go and should go on. . . . We fully believe the Olympic Winter Games, the celebration of the athletic pursuits and achievements of the world's youth, should be an answer to violence, not a victim to it."
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