Pentagon Builds HQ to Protect Capital

September 20, 2004

WASHINGTON � The Pentagon has established a new military headquarters whose mission is to defend the nation's capital and to assist civil authorities in responding to a terrorist attack here.

The Joint Forces Headquarters for the National Capital Region is based at Fort McNair, a small Army post in Washington on the banks of the Anacostia River whose fortifications did not stop the British from invading in 1814 and burning the White House and Capitol.

The idea of the new Joint Forces Headquarters is not to fend off foreign armies but to prevent if possible � and respond to, if not � surprise attack by terrorists using nuclear, chemical, biological or other unconventional means, Army Maj. Gen. Galen B. Jackson said Monday.

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