Alessandra Bastos
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - Brasília will be the site of the largest security scheme ever mounted in a single Brazilian city, according to the chief commissioner of the General Coordination of Institutional Protection of the Federal Police (PF), Wilson Salles Damázio.

Five hundred members of the Federal Police (PF), a contingent of 100 from the Navy, Army, and Air Force, and around 1,200 members of the Military Police will participate in Operation America, mounted to protect the president of the United States, George W. Bush, in Brazil.

Operation America also includes members of the US Secret Service and the Brazilian Intelligence Department, who are trying to prevent the entry of suspects, potential terrorists, bombs and weapons into the country.

All Brazilian airports are in a state of alert. Moreover, Brazilian air space should be interdicted during Bush's arrival and departure. The heads of the Federal Police and the Air Force will decide exactly how the scheme will work. "The tendency is for it to be interdicted at the two most critical moments," Damázio says.

Two PF helicopters will provide air security, and four boats, two from the police and two from the Navy, will patrol Paranoá Lake in Brasília. The US president and his entourage will occupy 395 apartments in a five-star hotel on the shores of the lake.

Translation: David Silberstein