Americas

Americas

UN lacks single agency to respond to biological, chemical terror threats

11 November 2011 00:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The United Nations on Thursday told its 193-member states that on the international level "there is no single lead agency that bears the responsibility" to respond to chemical or biological terror threats, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

An 85-page report from the Working Group on Preventing and Responding to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) attacks tells nations to get familiar with and cooperate with the 31 UN entities and other international organizations dealing with chemical and biological threats. Radiological and nuclear threats were dealt with in an earlier report..

"I think people are aware there are some very real issues here, " said Assistant UN Secretary-General Robert Orr, chairman of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF), formed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2005.

At the launch, just outside UN Headquarters in New York, at the International Peace Institute, and co-sponsored by the Polish Mission to the United Nations, Orr voiced his greatest concern, bio-terror.

"All too often I think our sources on WMD terrorism threats come from Hollywood," he said. "It’s kind of the work of science fiction that people have in their head. But, unfortunately the drama is all too real and that the real threats are out there and the international system is not fully a system on some of these issues."

Referring to one of a series of sessions leading up to the report, Orr said, "We started one meeting by talking about ’What keeps you awake at night?’ By that night I don’t think any of us were sleeping."

While the world organization provides a place for "various actors" to get together to discuss with experts on terror threats the effort is "very fragmented," he said.

"The UN family came together around an issue that was not a natural," Orr said. "It’s not easy for some of the agencies, funds and programs to take a deep dive in this area because their mandate takes one piece of it."

"One observation on the substance: biological and chemical threats are often the step child, or the orphan, after nuclear and radiological and I think its a function of the human experience that when we think about really what would keep us up at night, it ’s a mushroom cloud," he said. "You know, the idea that civilization changes overnight."

"Yet, if you look at the pound for pound or ounce for ounce threat, you look at the biological or chemical side of the equation, we are probably in many ways much more threatened by threats that come from the biological or chemical world," he continued.

"The pace of change in the natural sciences in particular on the biological side is breathtaking," Orr said. "What can be produced in anyone’s garage, anyone’s bathroom, anywhere in the world today is fundamentally different than what could be produced 10 years ago. So, the fact is that the context of this report is a very fast-changing, science-based shift, tectonic shift, in particular, on the biological side."

"Chemical threats are many but I would underscore the biological side because I don’t think that policy makers at the national level, at the international level, fully appreciate you just need to sit in a room with some scientists, from the natural sciences, for a few hours to realize that this world is moving so fast that any attempts to govern this space properly are challenged simply by the pace of change," he added.

Among the report’s conclusions, other than encouraging coordination and sharing of information and experience, it suggested measures be developed for preparedness against chemical and biological terror threats, accidents and deliberate actions by criminals.

"Interagency Coordination in the Event of a Terrorist Attack Using Chemical or Biological Weapons of Materials" also suggested entities to aid in legal assistance, for technical program assistance to aid in regional approaches and that the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) mechanism be formally adopted for coordinating relief efforts.

The report called for better international coordination in training and exercise to respond to chemical and biological attacks, early warning and detection of chemical or biological releases and human, animal and disease surveillance improvement and protection of the food chain.

It called for attention to the recovery phase after an attack and decontamination and, "Finally, better preparation and coordination are needed in managing public information in crisis situations," explaining that the complexity of such situation and "the absence of a single lead agency are all factors that pose challenges for an authoritative, accurate, consistent and timeless release of information to the public by the different agencies concerned."

In that regard, the report called for setting up a Crisis Communications Group to agree on information modalities "in advance and to review its operation."