Military, technical and defence-security standards on industrial facilities protection in case of terrorism and military attack

Abstract

Industrial facilities, which use toxic chemicals in their production processes, are tempting targets for military and terrorist strategists. They know that these facilities when attacked could produce effects not realizable with conventional weapons. The resulting legal, policy and political consequences would be minimal as compared to that of disseminating toxic chemicals or chemical agents as weapons on enemy territory. At this time there is no clear definition of the legality or illegality of these types of actions used against specific industrial targets for the purpose of mass destruction or disruption. Without clearly defined international regulations covering these actions, we must depend solely on national defense systems. Not only are these regulation not defined, there are no implementation tools, which would be available if the various treaties (CWC/BWC) etc., were able to incorporate needed legislative action. Consequently we must depend on and put into practice technical and defense security standards for industrial facilities for protection against both possible terrorist and military attacks. In this paper and presentation we will show the results of 15-years of study concerning all military and non-military attacks on industrial facilities in the ex-Yugoslavia territory. The analyses include all of the most important mistakes that took place at the factory level, local community level and on the regional and international levels in processes of technical, defense-security and rescue measures. Likewise, we will propose military, technical, and defense-security standards for protection of industrial facilities and their people at the factory and in the local community. These standards can be considered part of the disaster management plans for the industry, facility, and community. Finally, we will discuss many useful and important conclusions, and the information they are based on, for national and international institutions responsible for protection and response in case of terrorist attacks on chemical, oil, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries. © 2009 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.