The Fight Against Terrorism

      The UK can quite rightly boast the finest emergency services in the world with our security services obviously protecting us from many potentially catastrophic events. We, the public rest easy knowing that we are protected  and should the worst happen, we will be miraculously saved by blue lights and medicine. This confidence has come at a cost which terrorists have clearly identified. That cost is a national stupidity and slavish belief that it’s always someone else’s responsibility to protect us.

The Madeleine McCann story is a classic example. How many times have you read, “ Madeleine was in our restaurant, on our train, at the market, despite a million pound reward not one  of the people who reported seeing her had the common sense or guts to simply go up to the girl or guardian and ask “Are you Madeleine?
Infantry soldiers are taught to shoot to wound because it takes more resources to look after a wounded casualty than a corpse. The two exceptions are kill commanders and kill medics, both for obvious reasons. The recent Mumbai bombings showed a clear following of this principle because they first attacked the hospital and then hi jacked emergency vehicles, before engaging in their main attacks on the hotel, the head of counter terrorism was shot too.

Imagine a situation where a major city was attacked by terrorists using a variety of CBR agents. Initially attacking transport systems, hospitals, and emergency services the true target may be the workers in key industries such as power or financial districts. With a mix of CBR agents coupled to nail bombs and an unknown capability, emergency services would be hard pressed to provide any advice or information other than “Stay put, & tune in” The obvious questions would be stay put where, at the top or bottom of the building, tune in to who, how long? Phone calls from family at home would relay information gathered by news channels using helicopter camera crews and the worry gets worse. Of course phones may be switched off to “Prevent panic” or improve emergency services communications “ACOL” 

So just how well prepared are you or are you relying on good luck, or emergency services? Can or could you defend your building, or do you rely on insurance cover to pay for catastrophic events. The unfortunate reality about insurance for CBR and likely terrorist events is that it has many caveats which will probably require a court action to decide cover. Typically insurance companies rely on Pool RE to cover the potentially  devastating costs of decontamination. Typical costs of decon have been seen as £90million for the Brentwood facility, a post office sorting office in America.  The UK poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with polonium resulted in the most of the buildings being shut up until the radioactive  polonium decays to safe levels. With the loss of a freehold building asset or the liability for a lease on a building you cannot use could drastically affect a company’s balance sheet. The terms and conditions of any insurance policy should be challenged and the direct question asked, “If my building was contaminated by a CBR (Chemical Biological or Radiological) event from unknown origin or terrorist event. The term unknown origin is required because of typical caveats such as the following quote directly from Pool Re which describes a terrorist event. "Acts of persons acting on behalf of, or in connection with, any organisation which carries out activities directed towards the overthrowing or influencing, by force or violence, of Her Majesty’s government in the United Kingdom or any other government de jure or de facto."

As Al Qaeda doesn’t want to overthrow the Queen or government it appears any event he is involved with may not  be an insured risk?

The protection of employees or visitors is of course a legal obligation ,enshrined in legislation, but just how do you do that? Safe havens and PPE personal Protective Equipment are obvious choices but again legislation can prevent issue of PPE to untrained persons. I am currently involved in Brussels with two CEN standards groups developing new international standards on these issues. Subject to ongoing debate and final group acceptance, the thrust is removing the reliance on Emergency services as first responders and recognising the fact that the victim and those close at hand are actually the “First responders” and they should be aware of issues and capable of making life saving decisions before emergency services arrive.