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CBRNe News

October 2007

Gwyn Winfield examines the latest news in the world of CBRNE

Product Watch

Quick don shoe in?
The UK Police’s potential new garment, dubbed quick don, has been going through interesting times. First of all Work and Pension’s Secretary Peter Hain confirmed that Remploy, a division of which Remploy Frontline is the incumbent of the current Police ensemble, the CR1, the military ensemble, Mk4a and bidder for Quick Don, would not suffer compulsory redundancies (which could have been as high as 2,500) and were going to subsidise them by ½ a billion pounds.

This minnow in the annual Labour Party Conference has had a whale of an impact on the UK’s CBRN/NBC industry. The leading question is what form will this subsidy take and whether a portion of it could be delivered through a Quick Don win. Other PPE competitors think so, Cosalt Ballyclare, who were one of the bidders for Quick Don, have since made the decision not only to pull out of Quick Don but out of the whole market. The suspicion is that for all the British Government’s lip service to free and fair competition the reality is that when the political necessity serves then that goes out the window.

This has forced the UK MoD’s Defence Industrial Strategy into a harsh light, where industry will be asked to invest in a procurement process which might be the hostage of political machinery. The UK’s NBC Industry Group, is to write a letter to the government.

Are you Doug?
Dycor held their first user group meeting (Dycor Official User Group) on September the 17th in Den Haag in the Netherlands. They covered a wide variety of subjects in the bio detection field such as mobile detection and test and evaluation. The user attending were from a wide variety of countries and future meetings will span both side of the Atlantic. Interested parties for future meetings should contact Alan Traylor at Dycor.

I am now a better Hazmaster!
Hazmat Link are holding a webinar on the 16th of October at 15.00 (GMT) to provide a greater understanding of the latest version of Hazmaster. Users, or the curious, can find out more via www.hazmatlink.com

JCAD strike two
The JPEO announced that they have down selected for the next generation of JCAD – Increment two. Smiths Detection is one of the bidders, entering two versions of their LCD range – LCD is the current incumbent of JCAD Increment one. As well as an improved version of the current LCD Smiths will also be bidding in a iterative leap – the LCD4.

This will be a modular version of the existing LCD, taking the 3.3 version and putting it into an environmental case – to protect it from some of the problems encountered when changing environment rapidly (ie going inside a building) – and a second IMS. This will apparently give increased sensitivity and a greater range of agents, but a Smiths Detection spokesman could not give an indication of what the cost increase would be. CBRNe World is currently awaiting confirmation from the JPEO of the other bidders.

Smiths news
Not being bitter at the meltdown of the Smiths – GE Wedding, Smiths Detection have been busy winning contracts. The first of these is a research contract from the UK MoD for High Field Assymetric Waveform Spectrometry (HiFAWS). This £1.2 million contract will develop this nascent ion separation technology to try and provide a zero false alarm rate yet high sensitivity – an advanced prototype will be given to DSTL in three years.

While the US is analysing future versions of LCD the German Army have bought 50 of their LCD with an option to purchase further quantities. Meanwhile the Danes have requested that Smiths upgrade their LCDs to the 3.2e version.

Smiths also showed their new ChemAlert Beta version at the show – a spin off from Cyrano, who Smiths purchased in March 2004 – which was far smaller than their LCD technology and utilises nanocomposite sensor arrays and is marketed as a ‘detect to warn’ device.

Bagged and tagged
DSEi in London, 11-14 September – saw Remploy Frontline launch their new CBRN Bodybag. The bag provides 48 hours of containment of bodys contaminated with chemical or toxic agents, as well as having two chemically resistant materials the bag also has a F12 filter to stop the escape of harmful agents. The bag is available in two sizes, adult and, the charmingly entitled, body part.

Integrate this
Bruhn Newtech has been awarded a contract by the Royal Netherlands Navy to provide CBRN sensor integration on a number of their vessels. SensAware will be combined with their NBC Analysis product to pass rad sensor information to the main ship control system and then to ploy any downwind hazard.

All in one neat package
Princeton Gamma-Tech Instruments announced that they have launched their multi-discipline CBR detector. Named the CBRN Kit, it combines the SAM Detector, an isotope identifier, with dosimeters and Environics Chempro – rebadged as Chem IMS. The bio part comes from the bio-reader/assay (ENVI) attachment for the Chempro and Princeton are keen to point out that detectors are only as good as the training on it and offer training packages for all skill level of user.

Water, water everywhere…
Camelbak and BW Technology have a new contender in the shape of Lifesaver systems and their Lifesaver bottle. Using ultra-filtration, rather than iodine or another chemical, the 15nm diameter stops bacteria, viruses, cysts, parasites and fungi, while the carbon filter reduces chemical residues. While it doesn’t require shaking or waiting, it does require pumping on behalf of the individual – to get the water through the filter and carbon block.

Industry? Read this!
The United States Rapid Equipping Force is soliciting (and even encouraging!) enquiries from industry who provide technology that increases mission capability or reduces risk to soldiers. To quote Mike Agogino - the science and technology advisor for REF - “In short, if you have a current product or idea that you believe would be beneficial to the U.S. Army then we would very much like to hear from you!” What are you waiting for? Contact the REF through - ref.industry@belvoir.army.mil or through the PAO – 001 703 704 2286

MSA replace masks
New York Police Dept had to replace 20,000 escape hoods after MSA found a defect in the filter. Their Safe Escape ‘Respirator’ filter was prone to being crushed if handled roughly and had to be recalled. Replacements have now been issued.

A different caliber
Los Alamos lab have created a new forensics ‘gun,’ that has all the devices needed to do forensics at the scene in a small package. The device the size of a nail gun has everything needed to take samples, in variety of states, and automatically logs the information. The gun will eradicate the need for pen and paper logging, cutting down on time and errors, and contains 19 different features including a digital camera and pocket pc. The battery allows 8 hours of continual use and LANL reckon that it allows data to be recorded 10 times faster than traditional methods. LANL are looking for partners to bring the product to market…

Employment Movement
September/October has clearly been a time for new challenges. One of the most earth-shattering changes was the departure from Smiths Detection of Tim Otter to direct Marshall Specialist Vehicles Future CBRN Business. Tim has been at Smiths/Grasesby for 19 years and is usually the first person anyone meets when they try to understand anything about CBRN.

Tim is the latest in a long line of changes within the Smiths team. On the other side of the channel, BG Norbert Fargere of the French DGA has moved from Director of Requirements and the Protection and Safeguarding division of the French DGA to be IC Recruitment and Promotion for the French Ministry of Defence. CBRNe World is also aware of specialists in detection and protection that are after a new challenge – any enquiries to the editor.

Threat Watch

Whatever happened on September 6?
At going to press that is still one of the questions on everyone’s lips. On September 6 Israeli jets entered northern Syria and attacked… well no-one knows really. We all know it happened, both Syria and Israel have admitted it, but they are being rather coy about what it is. US ‘sources’ leapt all over this story to unveil a plot that North Korea had been shipping nuclear material and technology to Syria.

This had been uncovered by Israeli Special Forces which brought samples back to Israel and green lighted the strike. The Syrian version is that the Israelis’ struck and empty military building and were thwarted by air defence. Turkey meanwhile wants to know why their airspace was violated – evidenced by jettisoned fuel tanks. This is all in the same month that Jane’s reported the death of Syrian engineers who were apparently filling a missile with mustard.

The underground nuclear capability has been discussed at length online – Global Security (www.globalsecurity.org) and Armchair Generalist (www.armchairgeneralist.typepad.com/my_weblog/cbrn_defense/index.html) are probably the best - yet the fact still remains that no-one but the Syrian’s know what was bombed. It should come as no surprise that Syria is up to something CBRN – they have publicly reserved their right to retaliate - yet whether Israel managed to effect it will have to be seen.

GAO vs rad detectors
Congress and the DHS are falling out over the GAO’s questioning of the $1.2 billion contract for rad screening. The GAO has questioned the efficacy of the DHS’ testing and this has delayed Congressional funding pending a further review.

Every knee jerk reaction has to have a jerk in there somewhere
Daniel Salchow and his sister Dorothee are now facing a first degree breach of the peace after ‘forcing 100’s of people to evacuate an IKEA… store’ in New Haven, reported the Worcester Telegram. They were part of the well known ‘terrorist’ group the Hash House Harriers - a running club that marks urban routes for their fellow runners to chase. The Salchows made the mistake of thinking they could mark the route through the Ikea car park with flour

Following a call Police arrived at 5pm, evacuated and closed the store and instigated a massive response across the area. The lack of common sense beggars belief – was it a line dispersal system? If you have that much agent, why attack Ikea in New Haven? – and may end in a criminal record for the two.

Do you want that to go?
Reports in Soho, London, of men bring choked is nothing new, but when combined with a report of a noxious cloud, it closed three roads and caused houses to be evacuated. The agent was discovered to be a 9lb pot of chillies that were being cooked at the Thai Cottage restaurant. The chillis were destined for Nam Prik Pao a Thai dip which uses scorched chillis, yet residents and visitors found themselves coughing, crying and calling the police rather than their order.

First up
The death sentence of one of the five Tokyo subway bombers, Masato Yokoyama, has been finalized after his defence that his device killed no people was rejected.

More Tiger C claims
The LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, are in the process of acquiring chemical weapons intelligence sources revealed to the Asian Tribune. During the cease fire period the LTTE has been buying up stocks of cyanide and potassium. As if often the case it is not so much the agent as the dispersal system that will be the stumbling block, but that said any release will form part of a worrying trend and provide operational experience to be shared through the internet. LTTE in a reversal of previous announcements said that using CWA was not in their MO.

Russian demil fun
Senator Richard Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn visited the Russian chemical depot near Schuchye to see the work that is going on at the US funded facility. Currently the project has cost more than $1 billion more than any other Nunn-Lugar effort in Russia and is at least two years behind schedule. Russia and the GAO are also at odds over whether they will meet the CWC timescale of 2012, the GAO says not.

Russian ways of meeting that deadline were revealed through the Russian Info Center announcing that Russia would not destroy any other countries chemical weapons that were on their territory – and would not allow them to be destroyed them on Russian territory. Presumably this will result in some creative accounting (swapping gas for CWA agents?) and bits of the stockpile will go off to former Soviet Republics (expect Trans-Dniester to get a fair share) meaning that Russia will hit its targets but be the proud owner of a lot of other peoples CWA.

Swapping an incapacitating agent for a lethal one
Fears of the terrorist use of chlorine in Iraq has made it difficult to import the chemical needed for water purification into the country. This has resulted in numerous outbreaks of cholera - check out http://www.emro.who.int/iraq for more information on the epidemics - which is proving far more lethal than the Chlorine IEDs ever could be. While trying to avoid politics, it can only be another source of disquiet and anger among the local people which will result in more IED attacks and coalition deaths.

Pick the truth out of that
The Russian security agency, the Federal Security Services, have arrested a Russian scientist from the Gamaleya Inst of Epidemiology and Microbiology at the airport and accused him of trying to smuggle materials out of Russia that could be used to build a biological weapon.

Absolutely pickled.
The Malaysian diplomat has been forced to apologise to the Iraqi government after assuming that their Ramadan present was anthrax. The Iraqi government had sent him a box of sweet pickles which he immediately assumed was anthrax (well, you would, wouldn’t you – weaponised pickles being the distribution method of choice). While the diplomat has apologized the Iraqi government is looking for an official apology for the Malaysian government. Reuters have not reported what happened to the pickles.

Of course they do.
October is clearly the CBRN wacky news month, with the announcement from the Archbishop of Maputo that condoms in Africa are deliberately infected with HIV. At least two countries in Europe are involved with this plot to kill off African people, he averred, despite assertions that the virus could not live inside the condoms for very long. Clearly drug use and unprotected sex have nothing to do with the spread of the virus, instead it’s an evil third party! Everyone as they were then!

Please forward any items for consideration in this section to the editor, Gwyn Winfield gwyn.winfield@cbrneworld.com