Olympic securityU.S. working closely with U.K. to secure 2012 Olympics

Yesterday U.S. and U.K. officials met in Washington, D.C. to discuss security plans for the upcoming 2012 Olympic Games in London.

The United States will have more than 500 federal agents on hand at the event and is working closely with British authorities.

Yesterday’s meeting between the two countries was only the latest in a long series that began more than a year ago, but reports have suggested that British security officials objected to heavy-handed U.S. involvement, and according to the Guardian, one official said the United Kingdom did not feel like an “equal partner.”

Meanwhile the United States has reportedly expressed “repeated concerns” about British preparations and “deep unease” about limits on stop-and-search powers.

In response to the rumors, senior British officials said the Guardian report was “inaccurate, and that the U.S. has expressed no such unease or concerns.”

“Clearly the U.S. is a fundamental relationship and our Ministers are mindful of this, but the assertion that questions from the U.S. dominate is wrong,” said a spokesperson for the Olympic Security Directorate. “We haven’t had such concerns/questions voiced to us in the first place.”

Security for the seventeen day event will involve a small army with as many as 40,000 police, military personnel, intelligence officers, firefighters, and private guards on duty.

The United Kingdom plans on calling in 20,000 private security guards, 5,000 British troops, and officers from MI5 and MI6, the U.K.’s intelligence agencies, to bolster the 31,000 police officers pulled from Scotland Yard and major police departments around London.

According to Philip Hammond, the U.K. defense secretary, security measures might even include surface- to-air missiles.