With over 15,000 highly-trained security personnel, backed by a arsenal of military hardware, Vancouver is about to spend $1 billion in security for the Winter Olympics. The original budget for games security was 175 million Canadian dollars in Vancouver's Olympic bid, but has snowballed to about $1 billion, said an AP report.

 

To battle potential threats from terrorism, crime and violent protests at the February 12-28 Games, 15,500 police, military and private security guards have converged on this western Canadian city, said the report.

 

 

In Vancouver, squeezed onto a delta between the U.S. border, rivers, ocean and mountains, security plans call for navy divers, air force helicopters to transport SWAT teams quickly, surveillance cameras, police dogs, snowmobiles and even fighter jets -- which the North American Aerospace Defence Command has said will use "lethal force" if necessary, the report said.

 

 

Everything else remains part of the "urban domain," and will be policed as usual by municipal police officers.