Category Archives: Challenge Inspection Field Exercise

Disturbing discoveries

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On Wednesday, 2 November, the OPCW inspectors separate into three sub-teams to undertake parallel activities at different locations of the chemical plant site.

The day before, inspectors conducting exit monitoring at the main gate offloaded a drum with unidentified chemicals from a flatbed truck that was leaving the plant site. The drum was set aside for examination, and Calid paper applied to the lid indicated the possible presence of chemical agent. So on Wednesday morning, a sub-team comprised of OPCW specialists in sampling and analysis collect wipe samples from the drum for analysis at the on-site OPCW laboratory.

Acting on additional information provided by the Requestng State Party observer (RSO), another sub-team returns to the laboratory that was visited the day before to conduct a more thorough sweep of the equipment, instruments, shelves, cabinets and documents. In a drawer of the laboratory, a black unmarked notebook is found that contains copious handwritten notations in Thai script and diagrams of chemical formulas. The location is carefully photographed and the drawer sealed.

In the presence of the Thai escort team leader and RSO, laboratory staff members are questioned about the origin of the notebook. Who kept it and recorded the notations? How did it come to be in the drawer? Were they aware of its presence? The discovery is communicated to the OPCW on-site command post for further instructions.

A third sub-team meanwhile returns to the phosgene plant to continue physical inspection and collect potentially relevant documents as part of the fact-finding to support the Requesting State Party’s allegations. Afterward they visit a warehouse in the plant that stores equipment and spare parts.

While these activities are underway, inspectors continue to perform exit monitoring at the main gate to screen vehicles leaving the plant site and their cargo manifests. For the first time in an OPCW Challenge Inspection exercise, the CI inspection team for this exercise is conducting 24-hour exit and perimeter monitoring to mimic actual conditions.

At the end of the afternoon, the inspection team leader meets with his sub-team leaders to review activities and findings during the day, what corrective actions to take, and the next days’ plan.

Getting Started

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The inspection team arrives at the chemical industry site just before 9am on Tuesday 1 November. The OPCW team leader and Thai escort team leader have agreed that the inspection will officially start at 12 noon; under the Art IX provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the inspectors will have 84 hours from that time to complete their on-site activities and depart the facility.

On arrival, one group of inspectors immediately begins a 3-hour pre-inspection briefing (PIB) by the company’s on-site manager and his staff, which should orient the inspectors to the site’s layout and production processes. The request for the Challenge Inspection alleges that the site is secretly developing a chemical weapons programme, but without specifying what kinds of precursors or agents. So the inspectors must try to narrow the focus of their efforts to those areas of the sprawling industrial site where such illicit activities could most likely occur, and how.

Questions from the inspectors hone in on the company’s staff organizational chart and responsibilities, its on-site laboratories, and on a plant where phosgene is made in line with BPA to produce polycarbonate. Phosgene is classed by the Convention as a Schedule 3 (dual use) chemical: a lethal “choking agent” that was used extensively in World War I but which also has widespread and legitimate industrial applications.

While the PIB is in progress, other members of the inspection team tour the site and the agreed-upon perimeter, and establish a static post at the main gate for exit monitoring of vehicles and personnel. Inspectors unpack the equipment that was delivered the previous day and quickly set up a command post for the operation. By day’s end they’ve also installed and tested an on-site laboratory for sample analysis.

In the afternoon, acting on information contained in the Challenge Inspection request, one team of inspectors searches through two of the company’s laboratories, while a second group visits the phosgene plant and its control room.

Meanwhile, inspectors are conducting exit monitoring at the main gate. They stop a large flatbed truck leaving the site with drums of chemicals, one of which has no label or information of any kind about its contents. The suspicious drum is offloaded from the truck with a forklift, and inspectors apply Calid paper to the lid that will give a preliminary indication if it contains a banned chemical warfare agent.

When the initial inspection activities are concluded for the day, the requesting State Party observer (RSO) from Australia who is on-site to monitor the Challenge Inspection asks for a meeting with the OPCW team leader. They discuss the progress made by the inspectors, who found no indications thus far to substantiate the allegations contained in the CI request. The RSO forcefully reiterates the allegations and provides additional information to inform the inspection going forward.

In response to a series of inflammatory news articles that have appeared in local and international media about the inspection, an OPCW spokesman has arrived and joined the inspection team to manage the situation.

Enter the Inspectors

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The exercise, based on an entirely fictitious scenario, begins when Australia – a State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention – exercises its right under Art IX by requesting the OPCW to undertake a Challenge Inspection in Thailand, another State Party. Australia provides information to the OPCW with the name and location of an industrial facility in Thailand where it believes that activities in breach of the Convention are taking place – possibly, the illicit production of chemical weapons agents.

When the OPCW Executive Council does not block the request, the Director-General – within 24 hours of receiving it – finalises a formal mandate under Art IX to deploy 25 inspectors to Thailand to conduct an inspection of the identified site. He duly notifies Thailand’s National Authority in Bangkok of the request and of the pending arrival of the OPCW inspection team. A representative of Australia, the requesting State Party, has asked to observe the inspection.

The inspection team arrives at Bangkok’s international airport as scheduled at 06.30 hrs on Monday, 31 October (nominally, within 48 hours after OPCW received the CI request) and are ushered into a VIP room designated as the official Point of Entry (POE). There, the Thai escort team leader, Lt. Gen. (ret) Chalermsuk Yugala, cordially welcomes the team and is given the mandate for the inspection signed by the OPCW Director-General. The OPCW inspection team leader also gives Gen. Yugala printouts of a satellite image of the inspection site, with a demarcated perimeter indicating the area within which Australia, the Requesting State Party, wants the inspection to be conducted.

The two sides decide to adjourn the meeting at the POE to allow the Thai authorities to review the mandate and perimeter, and agree to proceed to the hotel where the inspectors will put up and continue the perimeter negotiations there. Before closing the meeting, the General reads a formal statement [PDF] expressing Thailand’s indignation at being subjected to a Challenge Inspection on the basis of a “rather flimsy allegation”- in the middle of a national flooding emergency – and that “the challenge is on you, the inspectors.”

“But let me be very clear and blunt,” he adds. “We are going to defend to the very end, first and foremost, our country’s integrity, secondly the integrity of the firm that owns and operates the alleged facility, and thirdly my country’s rights under the Convention.”

When the meeting reconvenes after lunch, the General quickly raises an issue with the inspectors’ equipment. The truck and driver have other commitments to meet that day and are in a hurry to unload it. But if the equipment is taken to the plant site accompanied by OPCW personnel, under the provisions of Art IX they will trigger the start of the inspection by crossing the perimeter – before an agreement between the two sides on the perimeter itself is reached.

Protracted wrangling follows on the matter, resulting in an agreement that inspectors will go with the equipment but offloading it will not constitute an inspection activity that triggers the clock on the inspection. This agreement allows the equipment to be dispatched to the plant site while the two sides negotiate on the perimeter.

The General continues by noting that “the situation has changed” at the chemical plant since Thailand originally declared it to the OPCW as an “inspectable” site. He explains that the plant is now a state-owned enterprise. With the afternoon drawing to a close and the need to agree on the perimeter becoming urgent, the OPCW team leader consults with headquarters in The Hague on the General’s latest offer, which he is authorized to accept. The two sides finally agree on the perimeter and that the inspection team will arrive at the chemical site at 9am the following morning to unpack their equipment, set up a command post, and begin acivities.

On leaving the meeting room, the OPCW team leader is ambushed by an excited pack of local journalists with camera and microphones, who have heard about the arrival of the inspection team and rumors about chemical weapons. The inspection team leader says he is not in a position to comment, but promises to have statements available the following day.

High and dry

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Sunday 30 October 2011

Bangkok – Banner headline in this morning’s issue of The Nation, a Thai English-language newspaper: WE’RE NEARLY THROUGH IT: PM

After breathless, daylong, hour-to-hour coverage by rotating correspondents on BBC World Television the last few days, there is no mention of the floods anywhere on its website homepage this morning. Stian Holen, who heads the OPCW’s organizing team for the CI exercise, punctured this soufflé of a news story in a lighthearted situation report to HQ yesterday:

TV headline :  “Floods converging on central Bangkok”

Alternate headline : Bangkok – an area half the size of Zuid Holland – remains bone dry.

TV news headline :  “Most of Bangkok could be underwater in the next few days”

Alternate headline :  To inundate the entire city would require an additional 10 cubic kilometers of water

TV headline :  “Bangkok being evacuated”

Alternate headline : Residents of only 4 of Bangkok’s 60 administrative districts have been told to go to higher ground

TV news headline  :  “Food shortages in Bangkok”

Alternate headline : All types of food are available in the city despite logistical challenges in some areas

But as the old saying goes, no news is good news. Barring some other unforeseen development, Challenge Inspection Exercise 2011 will progress as planned, on schedule – thanks in great measure to the commitment and extraordinary efforts of Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Escort Team, National Authority, and the management and staff of the chemical plant site hosting the exercise.

For an overview of the work that’s gone into preparing this exercise, watch the video to be posted on OPCW’s exercise webpage Monday morning, the first in a series of daily clips that will be posted throughout the exercise.

 

Water at the gates

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Saturday 29 October 11

Bangkok – The advance OPCW planning team, which arrived here earlier this week, is now finalizing preparations for the Challenge Inspection Exercise 2011 – quite literally – in the middle of a national emergency.

Bangkok is surrounded by a rising swell of flood waters to the north, west and east, and authorities and residents alike are praying that the embankments and dykes protecting the city center will hold. The government prudently declared three days of holiday through Monday to allow workers in affected areas to evacuate the city, and our hotel has procured inflatable rubber rafts to shuttle guests back and forth to the nearest sky train station, just in case. The massive rush of monsoon runoff and the lunar tide will peak together this weekend so we should know on Monday if disaster has been avoided, or not.

Meanwhile, there is a marked surreality to the situation. Here in the environs of our hotel in the city centre, and shuttling between various ministries and the international airport, streets and runways are high and dry and traffic is normal. But turn on CNN or the BBC and there’s water, water everywhere, with long-faced correspondents gravely intoning that doom may be imminent.

Remarkably, despite the emergency, there’s been no suggestion whatever from our Thai counterparts to cancel the exercise. A number of them live in or near the flood zone and say they leave for the office in the morning unsure whether they’ll get back home at night. But no matter – the show must go on. It’s pretty amazing.

Fortunately the chemical plant site where the field portion of the exercise will take place is well outside the flood zone and accessible from Bangkok by a highway that traverses high ground. So if the international airport remains open there should be no logistical problems in getting the inspectors to the plant site and conducting the exercise as planned. Fingers crossed!