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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 7/18/12

Olympiad Readiness: Militarized London Total Policing

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Nearly 50,000 uniformed and covert forces will keep London on lock down. The scale of the operation is unprecedented. It's three times the size of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics five months post-9/11 and four months after George Bush attacked Afghanistan.

Costing nearly $9 billion, it way exceeds the $1.2 billion for Athens 2004 and $300 million for Beijing 2008. Ordinary Londoners will pick up much of the tab.

In January, Sky Sports estimated a total Olympiad cost exceeding $19 billion. It said it may approach double that amount with all related expenses included.

Its investigation used figures obtained from freedom of information requests and other public documents.

When London bid for the games, it estimated less than $4 billion in total costs. If spending reaches $38 billion, it'll be nearly ten times the original figure. It comes at a time public needs go begging.

Sky Sports said no one ever accurately predicts final costs. Only months later will they be known. According to Taxpayer Alliance campaign director Emma Boon:

"In some cases it is very difficult to pick apart Olympic spending and separate it out."

"For example, if you look at things like police budgets particularly, it's very difficult to say (whether) those officers would have been on duty that day anyway and whether they are specifically doing Olympic duties or not....To a degree we will never know."

Surface-to-air missiles are installed on residential neighborhood apartment rooftops. Instead of providing security, they threaten it. 

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