Security officials seek lessons from Iraq's chlorine attacks

Homeland Security Department officials are ramping up their efforts to prevent attacks that involve deadly chemicals, especially because insurgents in Iraq have increased their use of bombs laced with chlorine gas.

"We see the use of chlorine gas and perhaps other lethal chemicals being used in attacks in Iraq [by] insurgents over there," Bob Stephan, the Homeland Security Department's assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, told members of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council Tuesday.

"We are literally analyzing the living daylights out of these attacks -- the people that are executing them, the agents that are used, the methods that are being used to detonate them and the impacts that they are having," he added. "And we are building lessons learned and case studies as these attacks continue to evolve."

The council, which is comprised of members from private industry, academic institutions and state and local governments, has also made it a priority to complete a study on how the United States can prepare for and respond to chemical, biological or radiological attacks.

The study and associated recommendations are expected to be complete by October, council members said.

Stephan called the increased use of lethal chemicals in Iraq "a very troubling phenomenon."

For example, a suicide bomber exploded a truck loaded with explosives and chlorine gas near a police checkpoint in Ramadi over the weekend, killing at least 27 people. Three near-simultaneous attacks last month using chlorine gas sickened about 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops, according to news reports.

"A [chemical, biological or radiological] event is something that none of us likes to think about but is something that we absolutely have to plan for," Stephan said.

He added that the Homeland Security Department is implementing new rules for regulating security at U.S. chemical facilities.

For the first time, the department will require chemical plant operators to adopt security plans and make security improvements.

Council members on Tuesday, however, noted some of the challenges they face in completing their study. The council is seeking experts who know what kinds of threats and vulnerabilities the chemical industry faces. The council also wants to ensure that information submitted by chemical facility owners and operators is protected from public disclosure.

"There's a general mistrust in industry of this kind of disclosure," said Erle Nye, the council's chairman emeritus.

Stephan assured the council that information can be protected from public disclosure under departmental rules.

He said the department has already received "thousands and thousands of actual bytes of data" related to critical infrastructure threats and vulnerabilities that is protected from being disclosed.

The council is also working on a second study that will examine how industry and government can protect critical infrastructure from "insider threats," which generally refers to employees bent on carrying out attacks.

Council members said they hope to complete the first phase of that study by October, which will seek to define the insider threat and make recommendations for addressing it.

The second phase will address legal issues, including personal privacy protections associated with screening employees.