CBRNe News March 2007
Gwyn Winfield examines the latest news in the world of CBRNE
Threat Watch
And so it begins…
February saw the first aggressive use of chemical IEDs in Iraq, which were followed in March by a larger, more effective, devices. There has been much speculation in the past about whether intel reports that this was going to become the norm, and it seems like these have been confirmed. CBRNe World currently has a request for information in with CentCom and is awaiting further details, but the fact that the latest attacks resulted in deaths and were more proficient suggests that this is the thin end of the wedge.
Iraq has a wealth of soldiers with experience of deploying chemical weapons from the Iran – Iraq war and this is likely to be the herald of a new low in internecine civil war. Presumably the fact that the latest device was aimed at the Kurdish town of Kirkuk was targeted was greeted with grim satisfaction by elements of the Iraqi population. If these attacks increase, and patrols have to include elements of IPE and a higher MOPP level, then it will be interesting to see what impact this will have on military mobility.
And there was much rejoicing…
Five and a half years after being contaminated with anthrax the American Media Inc building in Boca Raton has been designated ‘free of anthrax.’ This is the last building in the US contaminated with anthrax from the 2001 letters and has had two different teams of decontamination experts working on it. The first, Bio-ONE, split with the building owner after a contract dispute and the remaining work was completed by Marcor Remediation. Considering the endemic nature of anthrax quite how long it will be considered anthrax free after opening is an interesting point…
BioSense and Sensibility
CDC’s disease surveillance system, BioSense, has been ‘realigned’ to deal with budget cuts. The system had to suffer a $200,000 cut from Congress and will now focus mainly on the most populous cities in the US. CDC had asked for $88 million, $10 million more than Congress had approved for the syndromic surveillance system which would pull data from emergency rooms and other sources. Syndromic surveillance seems unpopular with many countries and this lack of support would seem to be prevalent in the US too.
It’s not just ‘rogue states’ that aren’t afraid to use nukes
The UK Secretary of State for Defence, Des Browne, underlined the UK’s support for Trident by commenting on the UK’s readiness to use the nuclear deterrent on a rogue state which attacked British interests. While the British Empire was content to send a gunboat, modern Don Pacificos can look forward to a nuclear Armageddon. With the UK being pressured by the Tories, it is likely that more bullish statements on defence issues such as Trident and ‘star wars’ ballistic missile defence with be forthcoming.
How much!
While the UK reels under the rising cost of the 2012 Olympics (currently £12 billion), President Bush asked Congress for an increase in budget to fight terrorism. The grand total needed for fiscal year 2008 is $249.8 billion. This is made up of $34.3 billion for border scanning and screening, $24.3 billion for DoE for their international efforts to make safe orphan and ‘lost’ sources, $20.2 billion for DoJ for the FBI and National Security Division to dismantle terrorist cells and $395 million for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the bulk of the money goes to the DoD to sustain and improve their counter-terror initiatives.
How inappropriate…
A Pentagon investigation found that Douglas Feith – Donald Rumsfeld’s Under Secretary of State (and interviewed twice by the editor) – had inappropriately produced ‘alternative’ intelligence that linked Saddam with Al Qaeda. While the Inspector General found that nothing illegal or ‘unauthorised’ had been done, this was the information that Dick Chemey, and others, based their invasion of Iraq on. With Robert Gates as the new Secretary of Defense, who knows how many other inappropriate, alternative bits of intelligence might be found – the mobile ‘bio lab’ springs to mind.
Bio What Now?
Various bio experts, including Porton Down’s Dr Ian Lawston have worried about the ability of the US’ Biowatch team to correctly label and store the many samples generated – and it would seem their fears were well grounded.
The Homeland Security Inspector General, Richard Skinner, released that the $1 million per city, per year, programme had suffered from sloppy handling and storage of sensors which could have resulted in cross contamination. Eighty-four per cent of the labs did not transfer filters from field to lab properly, 74 per cent of labs did not decontaminate chain of custody bags and holders properly, 65 per cent of the cities had procedural errors in transferring filters, 53 per cent of labs did not follow quality control on reagents and 32 per cent of labs did the SMS functions in the same room as the lab filter intake. DHS have said that these problems have now been solved, but this does raise two issues.
The first is that, in a covert release, how many of the above problems does it take to complicate matters to an extent that either prosecution of the terrorist is impossible or that the outbreak is now detected. Secondly, bearing in mind that DHS have said that BioWatch has never ‘false alarmed’ this would suggest a high degree of serendipity or a rigid idea of what a false alarm is.
Gulf War syndrome revisited
Bristol University researchers reported in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health suggested that the Gulf War Syndrome was unlikely to be caused by exposure to pesticides sprayed on tents or other equipment. While no veterans were studied, the researchers looked at older women who suffered the same sources without the possible exposure to OP. They found that those individuals that carried the gene PON1 (which inhibits the breakdown of OP) were likely to suffer the same symptoms as the veterans suggesting that the veterans might be affected by a toxin other than an organo phosphate.
Chemical Court
Saddam Hussein’s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, or more commonly Chemical Ali, has been defiant at his genocide trial. He has claimed that the use of CWA against the Kurds in the 1980s was not ethnic but military – because they were rebels rather than Kurds. He also claimed that this was necessary to stop the bloodshed that had plagued Iraq for 25 years. This attempt to accuse all the dead of being rebels is not a new one, and has been used by mass murderers since time immemorial; no doubt he will face the same fate as his cousin.
Slow news day
Post Christmas clearly saw a hiatus in any news with the BBC suddenly ‘breaking’ the story that the Police were going to train extra officers to deal with the ‘dirty bomb’ [sic] threat. The fact that this story was reported by the Editor the previous October cut no ice with the UK national media who, in the absence of anything else, fed off it for two days.
Just when they thought they were passed the worst
The unseasonably warm January brought an unwelcome visitor to the British Isles in the shape of the H5N1 – bird flu – virus. Just when 160,000 turkeys on a farm in Norfolk thought they were safely passed the Christmas period, the death of some of their number from H5N1 brought a Health Protection Agency cull. Quite how this visitor arrived has yet to be ascertained, but the threat to human life has been described as negligible – as opposed to the impact on turkey sales.
Product Watch
Launch success
We were overwhelmed by positive feedback on the first edition of the magazine – many thanks to all who offered their opinions. Perhaps one of the greatest pieces of positive feedback was from FOI who chose CBRNe World to be the Official Media Partner for the CBW Symposium in May www.cbwsymp.foi.se above the competition. Not only does this see the Summer edition of the magazine getting exclusive distribution at the event in the show bag, but will also see us produce a show special, to be part written at the event, for all delegates – consequently any sightings of the editor are likely to be brief! The Christmas period also saw the launch of our website – www.cbrneworld.com. This offers frequent news updates, a searchable database of past editions and will eventually have exclusive web material.
While the Winter edition was at Sispat, the Spring edition will be at Global Security Asia, in Singapore, and CWC, in Brussels. The Summer edition will be found at Gothenburg, Madrid, Ankara, Fort Leonard Wood, Phoenix, and Quantico. If you know of another event we should attend let me know on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Sailing the 4Cs
The Canadian Armed Forces awarded Proengin a contract for 250 AP4C chemical warfare monitors. The AP4C is the improvement on Proengin’s AP2C (having another two channels) and went through a rigorous testing regime using live agents. Proengin interprets this as Canada moving away from IMS to flame spectrophotometry due to its “technical superiority”. Regardless of this opinion, Canada has one of the toughest testing and evaluation regimes, and any win has to be reckoned a major proof of principle even if the numbers are not enormous.
Better than Gold
Ortec announced improvements to its Detective-EX family through the development of new versions, the Detective DX, Detective EX GP, Detective DX GP and some new features – including a ‘Special Nuclear Material’ search mode. Ortec has been working to get the size of the equipment down, but not to gain fragility, for some time and suggest that this is a breakthrough in radiation detection. With improvements in border control, especially in the US, being centred on radiation detection now is a good time to offer improvements.
Shiver me timbers!
December also saw Northrop Grumman/Remotec awarded the next generation UGV – Cutlass – by the UK MoD. Cutlass’ prime role will be in IED/EOD disposal, but its capability will, no doubt, allow it to perform a range of functions – should they be needed. The design has a high degree of modularity built in and will allow a range of sensor and detector packages to be utilised. The UGV will be delivered by 2010 and has been developed by Remotec, Qinetiq and LSC Group. The UK MoD is recognised as one of the world’s authorities on EOD UGV design, and this will undoubtedly be a success for Remotec’s export sales department (should they get clearance, which is also a different matter).
Keep on trucking
The first six of the UK MoD’s latest biodetector, IBDS Version 2, were handed over to the JCBRNR (Joint CBRN Regiment) by Lockeed Martin in January. The IBDS behemoth will be familiar to CBRN aficionados from its Version 1 incarnation, but improvements in bio-detection and power management have increased its capability. With the JCBRNR having included a bio-detection capability in their Light Role Team procurement and the UK having fixed-site bio-detection through the ISMS contract, it is difficult to see a dynamic role for the mobility-restricted IBDS. While the technology inside it is excellent, it still comes with a significant training burden and a large manpower requirement (a crew of four). That said, it provides UK troops with a biological detection capability today, and that has to be better than a suitcase sized bio-detector tomorrow.
Remote control
Allen Vanguard recently announced the development of their Remote RF Initiator for EOD disposal. The system is able to initiate explosive charges or disruptors up to a distance of 1,500 metres. The system allows five initiators to be triggered by a command unit and has a system cut-out to stop any accidental initiation in case of low battery or other faults. IED disposal continues to be a hot issue, and with the US budget for anything IED disposal seemingly being limitless it would seem likely that this will be a period of rapid incremental improvements in all parts of the EOD chain.
Happy birthday
December saw the first birthday of the launch of DIS – Defence Industrial Strategy – the UK MoD’s procurement revamp. The year’s targets have been met – establish a joint team, develop engagement models, identify pros and cons of these models and devise and deliver a mature developmental model. Fifty companies have engaged with Frazer Nash’s baseline study (which would suggest that a lot of companies have yet to do so) and this will allow a potential research funding road map to be developed. Currently the team is lacking in feedback from companies involved in colpro, decontamination, stand-off detection and bio-detection, and any companies that are, and have not done so already, should contact Doug MacMillan This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
ICX expand sampling business
ICX, owners of Griffin Analytical and Mesosystems, to name but two, announced their new, handheld chemical sampler. The device – X-Sorber – has been devised and produced by Griffin Technologies, manufacturers of a range of GC/MS detectors, and is designed to be taken into the hot zone to try and safeguard against the possible need to decontaminate the GC/MS. The sampler only weighs 3lb, has two reusable sorbent tubes that allow information to be recorded and transferred to a host system, and requires a minimum of training. While ICX is not the only manufacturer of sampling systems, its ability to offer a family of systems – Mesosystems for bio and Griffin for chem – will raise their profile.
Czech it out
Bruker Daltonics announced a $4 million contract for their Raid XP chemical and radiological detector. The Czech Army have bought them to be integrated into their generic Steyr vehicle fleet. While the contract value might not be enormous, the Czech Army are seen as the trend-setter for a great deal of Central and Eastern European militaries – in terms of CBRN – and Bruker will be hoping to have a lot of doors opened on the strength of this award.
Watch out! They might Gore…
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service recently put a range of commercially available PPE to the test and decided that for ‘flexibility and durability… [Gore] gets my vote.’ The NI Fire and Rescue Special Response Team tried, among others, Gore’s Multi-Threat garment (also known, via Lion Apparel, as the Tactix MT94). The Team put the suit through USAR-type exercises and also tried out the garments in the SCBA confined spaces container. While this might not be a live agent exercise to test the suits protection under these constraints, fit and comfort are important in high stress environments.
HMS Scandinavia
Hazard Management Solutions (HMS) have expanded their training courses in IED Disposal to include Sweden. HMS, based in Oxford, UK and Washington DC, engage in consultancy services for military and law enforcement agencies. This first foray into Scandinavia apparently attracted interest from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
Please forward any items for consideration in this section to the editor, Gwyn Winfield This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it