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The Netherlands is turning its attention to its preparedness for dealing with the prospect of biological terrorist attacks. The news came in parliament, where Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner answered questions raised by government coalition party D66 and the main opposition Labour Party following on from January’s Atlantic Storm bio-terrorism exercise in Washington, and research by students at Eindhoven’s Technical University into the level of security against biological attacks at public buildings in the Netherlands.
Testing times
The Dutch government has now responded with a resounding ‘yes’ to the question of whether it would be a good thing for the Netherlands to have its own large-scale exercise in dealing with bio-terrorist attacks, along the lines of Atlantic Storm. That exercise - organised by universities in the United States - was aimed at testing how international cooperation would cope with a major attack with smallpox. The Dutch justice minister has now stated that the government will organise a similar exercise in the Netherlands, next year.
Mr Donner also said that a small joint-exercise with Belgium and Germany had been held in the southern province of Limburg last month, to investigate how the exchange of information and policy coordination would work in the event of such an attack.
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The parliamentary questions were raised as a result of a project dubbed ‘the Vertigo Experiment' by students at Eindhoven Technical University, in which they demonstrated the relative ease with which a biological attack could be launched against public buildings in the country. It also showed that such attacks could be made much more difficult to carry out by the introduction of fairly simple structural changes. The research project focussed on attacks using the anthrax virus.
Surveillance cameras
The minister of justice, who is responsible for combating terrorism, says various measures could be taken to deal with the threat. In his written response to parliament, he says these measures vary from structural modifications and changes to installations; camera surveillance; changes to procedures in the way items of post are handled and for physical checks at the entrances to buildings. He also writes that such measures have already been implemented at a number of government buildings, saying “It may be decided to take additional measures for other buildings on the basis of security surveys of those buildings.”
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| Dutch Justice Minister Piet-Hein Donner |
Regarding international cooperation, Mr Donner points to the European Union’s Health Security Committee, set up by the union’s individual member states to deal with potential bio-terrorism attacks. In addition, a ‘Solidarity Programme’ - comprising a number of initiatives aimed at combating bio-terrorism - was adopted during the Netherlands’ EU presidency in the latter part of 2004. The minister says that the Netherlands is actively contributing to both these initiatives; he also says that a joint Dutch-Swiss-NATO initiative was launched recently to support the decision-making process in the event of biological attacks.
The minister also revealed that the ministry of defence is looking into the issue of safeguarding against nuclear, biological and chemical attacks and the detection of biological weapons.