Pope pushes security to the limit

Pope Francis’s visit to the United States will ensnarl traffic in three different cities, clog the streets with tens of thousands of tourists and strain the government’s security capacity like perhaps never before.

Officials have been planning for the pontiff’s landmark visit to Washington, Philadelphia and New York for months, with the Secret Service, the FBI and a handful of other federal, state and local agencies all involved in keeping him safe.

{mosads}But Francis’s stay in Washington, beginning Tuesday, isn’t the only security challenge facing law enforcement agencies.

The pope’s visit also bumps up against the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as the United Nations General Assembly, which begins early next week.

All together, it could represent the largest domestic security deployment the country has ever seen, stretching the government’s limits months after slip-ups at the Secret Service forced its director to step down. 

“If the Secret Service were the Avengers I’d be worried about this — I’m only half kidding,” said Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who served while Pope Benedict XVI visited the U.S. in 2008. Bongino unsuccessfully ran for the House in 2014 and the Senate in 2012 as a Republican from Maryland.

“It’s the equivalent of multiple presidential inaugurations occurring in multiple cities all at the same time.”

Francis arrives in Washington for a three-day stay on Tuesday, fresh off the heels of a trip to Cuba.

On Thursday, he heads to New York, where he will celebrate Mass in Madison Square Garden and meet with U.N. officials. On Saturday morning, he’ll go to Philadelphia and hold a prayer vigil with the World Meeting of Families — a global meeting of Catholic families — before heading back to Rome on Sunday. 

More than 1 million people are expected to attend Francis’s outdoor Mass in Philadelphia alone.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has labeled Francis’s visit a “national special security event,” putting it with the rare company of global summits, state funerals and the Olympics.

The White House insists the Secret Service is well prepared for the whirlwind week, which will culminate in Obama’s trip to New York for the U.N. General Assembly on Sunday.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that the United States Secret Service has been planning for these activities for months and if not years,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday. “They are well aware of the significant challenges.”

Yet Earnest recognized the “unique confluence of events here” that make Francis’s trip more complex than it would be under normal circumstances — if there were such a thing.

Mere hours after Francis gives his Thursday speech to a joint session of Congress — and to thousands of people watching via screens on the National Mall — Xi will make his way to the White House for the first time as president of China.

Those few hours in the afternoon will be “a nice buffer” for shifting the government’s focus from one target of protection to another, Secret Service spokeswoman Nicole Mainor said.

The Secret Service is playing a major role during the pope’s tour, with agents stationed in New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

In addition to the Secret Service, 23 subcommittees have been convened to coordinate the planning of transportation, crowd management, oversight of airspace and other factors. 

The DHS will also have access to response teams at the Transportation Security Administration, inspections from Customs and Border Patrol and maritime security provided by the Coast Guard. Other offices will be in charge of monitoring biological weapons and nuclear threats.

Nothing is being left to chance.

“The Secret Service planning effort has been 110 percent, and that we have tried to plan in advance for multiple scenarios to keep the pope and the public safe,” Mainor said.

One of the biggest challenges is balancing the pope’s security concerns with his desire to interact with the public. Francis is known for an exuberant style, and his tendency to veer into crowds could complicate the security fence kept around him.

“Striking that right balance is the constant challenge of the Secret Service,” Earnest said. “But these are professionals and there’s been significant planning that has gone into this and we’re confident that they have what it takes to do this job right.”

The stakes are high for the Secret Service, which is emerging from a trying year that put the agency’s competence in doubt. It suffered a number of security lapses, including a man with a knife who successfully made it through the White House’s front door, reports that an armed man with a criminal record rode in an elevator with Obama and that officials botched the initial response after a gunman fired shots at the White House in 2011.

The security misfires led to the resignation of Director Julia Pierson less than one year ago. She was replaced by Joseph Clancy, who has been at the forefront of the agency’s preparations for the pope’s visit.  

“I think a lot of positive changes were put into place,” said Bongino, the former agent. “If you were asking me would you rather have this visit happen before or after the fence-jumping incident, I’d rather it happen afterward.”

In recent days, Clancy and other top officials have been doing their best to reassure the public that the security is merely precautionary.

“We know of no specific, credible threat directed at the pope’s visit to this city,” DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson told reporters in Philadelphia on Friday.

“You have to have structure,” added Clancy, who appeared alongside Johnson. “If you don’t have structure you have mayhem.”