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Weapons of Mass Destruction First Responders Awareness Seminar

Remarks by Ambassador Michael Klosson
Cyprus International Conference Center
May 17, 2004

I am pleased to have this opportunity to meet with you this morning.  Today, together with professionals in positions like yours around the world, you are at the forefront of the global war on terrorism.  That is a responsibility we in the diplomatic field share with you.   We are all engaged in a global campaign of unprecedented international cooperation.

We have made great progress since the September 11 attacks:  over two thirds of Al Qaida’s senior figures have been captured or killed.  Al Qaida’s sanctuary in Afganistan is gone; the country has been returned to the Afghan people, although much work remains.  Saddam Hussein’s regime – which embraced both weapons of mass destruction and terrorism as instruments of policy – is gone.  Worldwide, over 3,400 terrorist suspects and supporters have been detained in over one hundred countries.  Millions of dollars of terrorist assets have been frozen.  New UN resolutions have been passed and countries across the world have banded together to combat terrorism. 

Sounds promising, doesn’t it?  The war on terrorism, however, is far from over.  Let me name some cities.  New York, Washington, Madrid, Istanbul, Mombasa, Casablanca, Amman, Riyadh, Yanbu, Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Jerusalem, Bali, and Jakarta.  What do they have in common?   All sites of terrorist attacks.  I could name many more in Europe and elsewhere where terrorist plots were foiled by police work.  This will be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts, in many places, with many different tools.  That’s what it will take to defeat a network of terrorists operating in more than 60 countries.

As this war has progressed, those who seek to destroy our freedom and prosperity have adjusted, focusing also on targets that are not as heavily defended as government installations.  Recall my list of cities and the targets – often commercial buildings, hotels or civilian transportation systems.  The threat is real and it is transnational.  It is diffuse.  It is insidious.  No one can claim any longer “it can’t happen here.” So, we must cooperate.

That’s where you and the Department of State’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) training program come in.  Cyprus has participated in the ATA program since 1985.  It has trained over 650 Cypriot officials in fields ranging from investigations and explosive detection to crisis response, airport security, and crisis management. 

This week’s program grew out of a discussion I held with the Minister of Health a while back.   Weapons of Mass Destruction First Responders Awareness.  That’s a mouthful to say, but it is an extraordinarily important concept.  This ATA program was first introduced four years ago following the 1998 attacks on our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.   Since then, much has been discovered about Al Qaida’s interest in developing biological and chemical weapons.  Several production centers were discovered in Afghanistan.  Police have already disrupted numerous attempts by terrorists to acquire this horrific capability.   For example, in the past 2-½ years, equipment used to produce the deadly toxin Ricin has been seized during raids on Al Qaida cells in the U.K., France, Spain, Russia, Georgia, and Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.  In each case, police also found manuals or papers containing instructions for making and using Ricin.  Just last month in Jordan, an Al Qaida cell was disrupted as it was in the advanced stages of planning a chemical weapons attack on several sites in Amman, including the U.S. Embassy. 

In looking back on the origins of this course, however, you may have noticed that weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, were not used in the East Africa embassy bombings.  While much of your material this week will focus on chemical, biological, and radiological terrorism, bomb blasts and their effects are also integral components to the training because terrorist groups continue to use them to inflict mass casualties.

Whether terrorists use WMD or conventional means to attack, you -- the first responder community -- have to cope with a complex set of issues, including site control, communication, organization, resources, personal safety, public safety, and public terror.   As a result, you will spend much time this week focusing on these issues, which are common either to a WMD or conventional terrorist incident.   The training is designed to give you the appropriate tools to formulate an effective response.

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, cooperation among ministries is absolutely critical in dealing with a terrorist incident.   In that regard, I am pleased to see that so many of  your ministries are represented here today.  Lessons learned from several terrorist incidents graphically illustrate that detailed plans and integrated, multi-ministerial exercises will minimize confusion in an actual incident.  As you work through the ATA curriculum, I encourage you to look closely at this question of coordination and consider whether current arrangements are optimal or whether they can be improved.   Which agency or office should have the overall lead in a terrorist incident?  How should resources be mobilized?  These are questions worth examining now. Obviously each country and jurisdiction has special characteristics that will shape the answers, but there are some “best practices” that have emerged as the world has come to grips with this terrorist challenge.

As I noted earlier, Cyprus and the United States have a long history of cooperation in all aspects of security and law enforcement.  This seminar, with its emphasis on WMD, opens a new chapter in our partnership.  We are also working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to expand cooperation in combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. 

I wish you every success in this course.  Thank you again for the opportunity to meet with you and for your contribution to our joint campaign against terrorism.