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CBRNe News

December 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 Pensions 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 half 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 this subsidy will 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

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 an 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.

RAE of lite
RAE Systems announced the launch of their latest third generation PID instruments, the MiniRAE Lite. At $1,995 this detector is a low cost VOC detector which has a measurement range of 0-5,000 ppm and is aimed at the environmental rememdiation market. That said, the ease of use of PID detectors and the handheld ergonomics has endeared them to both civil and military users.

Smiths news
Rather than 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 has bought 50 of their LCDs 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 DSEi - 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.

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. Cardiff based BCB is now representing Lifesaver.

Industry? Read this!
The United States Rapid Equipping Force is soliciting (and even encouraging!) enquiries from industry players who provide technology that increases mission capability or reduces risk to soldiers. To quote REF science and technology advisor Mike Agogino: “In short, if you have a current product or idea that you believe would be beneficial to the US 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.

Winged wonder
Thermo Fisher Scientific took part in Operation Pegasus, the Dorset Police security operation for the UK’s Labour Party Conference. The Party Conference brings MPs, Ministers and the Prime Minister into contact with party members (ie members of the public). Security is always tight and Thermo provided radiological detection at various points within the county to ensure that they had an early warning of a radiological event. Using the Viewpoint architecture together with rad portals, gamma and neutron probes, radeye and a range of other sensors.

Love and marriage
Dycor Technologies announced they have sold a minority share in their business to Midwest Research Institute (MRI). With the exception of Hank Mottl, who sold his shares to MRI, the same personnel and technology will be maintained, but now with potential synergies from MRI’s research into CBRN technology. The hope is that the research programmes in Dycor and MRI might cross-pollinate, but even failing that it will allows a wider range of products to be offered to customers.

Hey, big boy
German UGV manufacturer Robowatch announced a new NBC Recce and transportation robot, Chrysor. Chrysor, weighing in at 950kg, is an autonomous vehicle that can be used as a recce vehicle, or as a transportation vehicle in a hazardous environment. It can either autonomously follow a pre set route, or be controlled via radio control, and has a telescopic arm for manipulation. Chrysor won’t be available for Christmas, but will hit the shops by Spring.

A different caliber
Los Alamos Lab has created a new forensics “gun” that has all the devices needed to do forensics at the scene in a small package. The device is the size of a nail gun and has everything needed to take samples, in a 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 eight hours of continual use, and LANL reckon it allows data to be recorded ten times faster than traditional methods. LANL are looking for partners to bring the product to market…

Son of Sam
Thermo Fisher Scientific also announced their new SAM12 small article monitor. Uniquely this detects 60CO and natural background radiation to differentiate between man made and natural radiation as well as fixed, smearable, internal and external gamma radiation. While primarily for the nuclear power plant market, the monitor exceeds industry standards for radiation measurement.

Coverage set to rise
AIG has long been involved in CBRN defence insurance, but this has stepped up a gear with their Lexington Insurance Group increasing the capacity of its BioChem Shield product from $10 million to $25 million. BioChem Shield, the Insurance Journal reported, is the coverage for property damage and losses from terrorist attacks using CB devices. Sounds a bit low to CBRNe World…

Teledyne Brown win Joint Material Decontamination System
Teledyne Brown, teamed with Bioquell, were awarded a $14.7 million contract to design, develop, integrate and manufacture the JMDS. JMDS is a sensitive decon project to remove “NBC” contamination from areas where harsh decontamination chemicals might destroy the items. Once there has been a successful demonstration of performance Teledyne Brown will enter into low rate initial production (LRIP) with Bioquell.

I went to the doctor as I had a Radeye
Thermo Fisher Scientific announced two extensions to their range of pocket radiation devices – the Radeye B20 and Radeye N. Both combine neutron radiation, contamination, and dose rate measurement in a lightweight package without any of the cables that might require both hands. The devices are designed to be used as a stand alone or with their ViewPoint network product. The Radeye B20 is a contamination meter, while the Radeye N is a radiation detection pager.

Threat Watch

Whatever happened on 6 September?
On 6 September 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 an empty military building and were thwarted by air defence (a statement compromised by satellite photos). 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 – though this is also suggested to be due to a Scud C fuel leak rather than CWA. The underground nuclear capability has been discussed at length online - Global Security (www.globalsecurity.org) and Armchair eneralist (www.armchairgeneralist.typepad.com/my_weblog/cbrn_defense/index.html) are probably the best – yet the fact still remains no-one but the Syrians 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 affect it will have to be seen.

CBRN COE Opened
The 22nd of November saw the opening of the new CBRN Centre of Excellence (COE) in Vyskov, Czech Republic. The Centre will focus on improving training and analysis of CBRN - more information on page 10.

Every knee jerk reaction has a jerk in there somewhere
Daniel Salchow and his sister Dorothee are now facing a first-degree breach of the peace after “forcing 100s of people to evacuate an IKEA… store” in New Haven, UK, reported the Worcester Telegram. They were part of 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? The threat of criminal prosecution against the two was subsequently dropped.

Do you want that to go?
Reports in Soho, London, of men being 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 chillies were destined for Nam Prik Pao – a Thai dip which uses scorched chillies - yet residents and visitors found themselves coughing, crying and calling the police rather than their order.

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 $1billion 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 Centre announcing that Russia would not destroy any other countries’ chemical weapons that were on their territory - and would not allow them to be destroyed 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 Russia will hit its targets but be the proud owner of a lot of other people’s 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.

First ricin, now chlorine
Following on from pipe bombs filled with ricin and high velocity rounds fired at chlorine tankers, we now have two teenagers that threw “poison gas” into a birthday party and a homecoming dance.

Two Californians teenagers have pleaded guilty to throwing bombs containing chlorine, which they learned how to make by watching YouTube, into the gathering and injuring three people. Clearly a case of “monkey see, monkey do”, it raises the horrible thought of what happens after a proper chemical attack and all the copycats get involved. Who needs terrorists when you have teenagers determined to kill each other in new and imaginative ways.

Who’s going to tell him the bad news?
A Libyan walked into an Accident and Emergency unit in a hospital in Manchester, UK, and asked for an “antidote for mustard gas”. He needed it for a friend who had been affected by the gas - quite how that accident happened unless he was trying to make it is unclear. Unsurprisingly, UK police are treating this as suspicious and released warnings over the fact that a terror cell might have set up a chemical bomb factory. The Daily Telegraph announced that the UK’s Counter Terrorism Police had been aware of al-Qaeda’s ability to make ricin, but had no evidence that they had managed to make mustard gas. As always, it is not making it but disseminating it in a useful way - as our Libyan “friend” would only be too happy to agree - that is the trick.

Phone, car keys, lunch, small explosive device… check
The US’ largest nuclear power plant went into lockdown when a contractor arrived at work with a “small explosive device” in the back of his pickup. Authorities said that it didn’t appear to be an act of terrorism (been hunting with hand grenades?) and put the Palo Verde plant at the lowest form of emergency lockdown - an “unusual” event.

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