CBRN in the time of Covid

Brigadier General Mahmood Delli, Iraqi CBRN Department Manager at the Department of Civil Defence in Iraq talks about their experience on the front lines

GW: When last we spoke (December 2018) there were 15 CBRN civil defence teams in Iraq, how many are there now and how has the capability improved? What is the CBRN incident response department doing these days? MD: Yes, there are still 15 teams distributed across the Iraqi provinces, apart from the Kurdistan region, where there are three teams in the region’s interior ministry, in addition to the chemical division in the peshmerga. We are looking for more cooperation and coordination between the federal administration and regional administration regarding the work of these teams, in the hope that an exercise will be conducted throughout Iraq to put the relevant emergency plans into practice.

We have developed our teams’ capabilities through continuous daily training and by conducting exercises using virtual scenarios determined in advance according to the threats for each province, the specificity of that province and potential incidents. Good strides have been made in this area, and we are now in the second phase of this work, preparing a database of institutions in these provinces, which deal with chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials and preparing a special map for that. We’re also activating their self-defence teams, training them to work with our teams in responding to likely accidents, working out the right ways to deal with them and address the gaps that exist at the same time, and of course coordinating with the relevant authorities. The campaigns carried out by our

Civil defence have been training fire, rescue, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and the department of operations and environmental police in CBRN ©Civil Defence

teams in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic have given us a lot of momentum through 10 months of field experience and 810 hours of hard work daily .

The CBRN Department has a lot of tasks to accomplish especially at present, as we are now working to improve coordination with the rest of the departments in the civil defence directorate and the ministry of interior directorates as well as other institutions. There’s work for the members of the response teams and others in the support agencies as well as awareness raising lectures. We have also been planning advanced training courses for the response teams in Baghdad and the provinces.

GW: What has happened in the rest of the civil defence directorate, away from CBRN? Have you seen an increase in interest and/or expertise in other departments, which means you can call on them more? MD: Those other departments comprise, fire, rescue, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and the department of operations and environmental police. A plan was prepared by the CBRN department at the end of 2018 to train and qualify teams from these departments and conduct field exercises on supporting response teams in the field. Implementation began with teaching them the concepts of responding to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear accidents. That meant explaining what these incidents are and the ways of responding to them. They needed to know what are the roles of each team in supporting the main, CBRN, response teams. They also learnt about the support available from the health departments, security forces, evidence and explosives experts, and representatives of veterinary departments in the ministry of agriculture and other relevant entities. GW: How are you building on your EOD and forensics capability? Have you had any missions where you have needed to use them? MD: One important and effective section within the directorate of civil defence is the EOD department, which is highly experienced in its field, including dealing with mines and explosives dropped from the air, however it lacks expertise in dealing with improvised explosive devices. Currently we are working on developing expertise to deal with explosive charges among its operatives so they can be involved with the CBRN response teams, but due to the coronavirus pandemic this project has been postponed until further notice. Even so, the response teams in Baghdad and the provinces have experts from the directorates of criminal evidence and explosives, who have been trained and prepared to work with the CBRN response teams.

They have participated in many incidents to which our teams responded, especially during the liberation of Nineveh province, where explosives experts dealt with a car bomb carrying a 1,000l (220gallon) container of chlorine gas. The situation was controlled and the necessary action was taken.

GW: Are you working with the new environmental police, especially in the post-Daesh north? What kind of cases are you finding, and how is this affecting the training and capability of the team? MD: The environmental police in the directorate of civil defence work in direct coordination with the Ministry of Environment in Baghdad and the provinces. This police department has 16 environmental police stations in Baghdad and the provinces, which is one more than the number of CBRN response teams, as in this case Baghdad is considered as two provinces, Al-Karkh and AlRusafa, whereas the national response team covers all the province of Baghdad.

The environmental police played a good role in the success of the campaign carried out by the directorate of civil defence in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. They were assigned to work with the response teams, especially in the northern provinces of Kirkuk, Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Anbar, and in coordination with the ministries of health, and environment, the security services and related authorities to follow up on the remnants of ISIS's use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas. In normal business we also work with these agencies to sustain the database of chemical materials.

GW: A variety of international agencies have been keen to support you, like Interpol and the US state department. Has that continued, what have you found useful? MD: International support from Interpol and the US state department continues, but it is also affected by the issue of coronavirus as are the directorate of civil defence and the CBRN department. We are working to implement many plans with the support of partners, and have good and successful relations with these friendly entities. Coordination continues to reach better stages and we are investing all efforts in raising the level of Iraq’s response teams.

GW: Two years ago you were already worried about biological incidents. Had you managed to get anything ready in preparation by the time Covid landed? MD: The seriousness of biological weapons and the obstacles we face in responding to them are no secret to anyone interested in CBRN, and ISIS has continued to promote its message about the use of silent death, referring to biological weapons. One of the most important points we face is the means of detecting biological factors, and the laboratories to deal with such agents. The detections kits we use have a shelf-life not exceeding two years, which causes a continuous deficit in their availability, especially in light of the financial crisis that we are going through. As for coronavirus, we have prepared for this by purchasing personal protection equipment (PPE) and the appropriate disinfectant solutions with international specifications and the approval of the ministry of health and the veterinary department of the ministry of agriculture for the sterilisation and preparation of trucks used by the directorate of civil defence.

GW: How has your decon capability been improved by the Covid crisis? You have bought a lot of commercial equipment, will that be replaced like for like, or will you start to order specialised kit? MD: This equipment is still ready for operation and is very effective. If finance is available, it will certainly be purchased according to lists prepared to meet the specific needs of the CBRN department.

GW: The civil defence directorate was heavily involved in public education campaigns for Covid. Has that been re-examined for a CBRN incident, and what lessons have you taken from it?

MD: More than one analytical conference has been held about the incidents to which the CBRN teams responded, and the lessons learned and the gaps that have been identified have been discussed. The need to expand the CBRN culture has been taken into account at various levels and for all institutions, but the awareness campaigns for coronavirus have given our teams the opportunity to meet with the largest number of citizens. Campaigns have spread the message in the streets, markets, malls, and demonstration yards, as well as prisons, and it can be said that we were able to reach the farthest possible point in this field by using various means including audio, video and print. In my opinion we have gained great experience in the process of spreading awareness and communicating the necessary information.

GW: What have been your lessons from the fogging/ fumigating missions? Is this going to continue into the Spring, or have you started to step down these missions as more is known about the agent? MD: I can confirm that the fogging campaigns carried out by our teams in Baghdad and the provinces were difficult and tiring tasks where we were working around the clock. My opinion is that the lessons we learned are to break the fear barrier among the The coronavirus could amount to free lessons for terrorists on the usefulness of biological weapons ©Civil Defence

staff in the response teams and other teams in the face of such incidents. [It is important to have] high confidence in our ability to driving what works into the command, and [trust] the effectiveness of the equipment, and PPE we use. At the same time we have [gained] further field experience in responding to such incidents and ways to manage them, and have invested all available resources to make the mission a success.

In addition, the necessary updates have been made to our plans relating to the work of the civil defence directorate, and in particular service resolution one for the medical service and service resolution eight for reconnaissance and disinfection, which are contingency plans included in the civil defence law 44 of 2013. A plan was adopted to support the teams of neighbouring governorates, whereby all three neighbouring governorates support the team of one governorate in the event of an accident.

GW: What do you see as the major challenges to the force in the next two to five years and how are you preparing to meet them? MD: In my opinion as a CBRN specialist and expert, I consider that repercussions from the coronavirus pandemic amount to free lessons for terrorists and terrorist organisations on the usefulness of biological weapons by informing them of the weaknesses in all official and informal facilities and in all institutions.

I think the biological threat is continuing and I'm afraid will get worse. For the first time, I hope I'm wrong.