Project Metropolis brings urban wars to U.S. cities.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.

The ability to disable a city's critical infrastructure, such as communications and transportation grids, is just one example of some of the new skills that Marines are learning in urban-warfare exercises.

During a recent live exercise in North Little Rock, Ark., Marines from the 4th Expeditionary Brigade headquarters conducted what is known as a "staff ride," visiting key infrastructure sites--telecommunications, water, power, rail transport and nuclear-power facilities. Their goal was to help develop "tactics and techniques to protect and destroy key infrastructure ... or rake the control of it from the hands of terrorists," said Brig. Gen. Douglas O'Dell, commander of the brigade, which is the Corps' elite anti-terrorism unit. O'Dell spoke to National Defense during the exercise in North Little Rock, which was part of a larger Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory urban warfare training initiative called Project Metropolis. The drill involved about 300 Marines.

"We're looking at how to protect these critical vulnerabilities from subtle or not-so-subtle attacks by those who would do us ill," said O'Dell. "In the United Stares and in major European cities, transmitting towers are in the heart of major cities, like the space needle in Seattle," O'Dell said.

As the United States seeks to broaden its global campaign against terrorism, it's important for the Marines to learn how to control the communications channels typically used by terrorists, O'Dell explained. "The real intent of terrorists in seizing and exploiting radio and television communication is to broadcast their message, and to create uncertainty and fear in the populace," O'Dell said. If terrorists seized control of a local radio station and broadcast a message that the water supply had been contaminated with chemicals, the ensuing panic, "whether real or imagined, could be devastating." O'Dell said. "The thing you really want to seize, if you're bent on controlling local telecommunications, is not the radio station, but the transmitting tower."

The 4th MEB was designated as the Corps' main anti-terrorism unit last October. O'Dell noted that the brigade originally dates back to 1917, but was deactivated in 1991 after the Gulf War. In the weeks following the September 11 attacks, the commandant decided to reactivate the unit.

The tactics, techniques and procedures that the Marines were learning in North Little Rock easily could be applied to missions such as guarding the U.S...