An exclusive word with Major General Christopher Elliott who has joined Arup Security Consulting as a security strategist.
Security measures aimed against crime are not enough to counter terrorism, according to Major General Christopher Elliott. He argues that it’s in the interest of the organisation to the highest level to put in measures against terror, where there is such a threat. Those measures, however, cannot be thought about too soon during construction of a building. He concludes: ‘Retro-fitting security is certainly possible, but it’s expensive, it’s intrusive and it is less effective overall.’
<br><br>
Professional Security: In what ways do counter-terror measures differ from the security measures against ‘normal’, non-terror threats (like theft), such as access control and CCTV ‘Is there overlap?
<br><br>
Major General Christopher Elliott: Three things here. The first thing is that terrorism is generally much more violent. Secondly, terrorist attacks tend to be prosecuted with a much grater conviction. A suicide bomber is even prepared to risk his own life; very few criminals would contemplate that. (They may do it if caught in a corner.) The third thing about terrorism is very important: it is seeking a psychological advantage.
<br><br>
Professional Security: What is the mix of physical, electronic and what you might call intelligence (staff checks, security awareness training) measures’ Indeed, is that classification a fair one’
<br><br>
CE: I would say here that it’s a trinity, which cannot be split. All elements are required and all required in balance. A deficit in one area of the trinity will annul a good effort in another. A deficit will show up somewhere else, and compromise it. It is no good having electronic access control if the entry cards are issued without proper intelligence checks.
<br><br>
Professional Security: How do you ‘sell’ counter-terrorism measures to a board, made up of non-security people’ By explaining that even if you are not a target, you could be hit by being in the vicinity of an attack’
<br><br>
CE: Good question. Increasingly important is duty of care, both moral and legal. Quite a lot of companies are morally-based, and have their ethos values, which they try and live by. But there is a very stonrg legal requirement of duty of care, under the Health and Safety at Work Act. But there is a self-interest part to the board as well, which is business continuity. If you want the business to continue, you have to make sure your people, your records and your comptuers in particular can survive what life can throw against them. Often underplayed is the pscyhological impact of a possible second [terrorist] attack. What do I mean by that? First of all, people are very tender towards catastrophic loss, whereas they accept the same carnage on the roads without blinking. And the terrorist exploits this. [CE gives the example of the Bishopsgate bomb in central London in 1992: a second bomb at lunch-time as City workers left their offices would have killed many more people. If the terrorists had said that the bomb was only the first, it would have taken time and persuasion for workers to re-occupy their buildings.] Any sensible business would want to demonstrate that it had a way of protecting its people in their place of work. However well they build the World Trade Center, unless they show it is safe, nobody is going to occupy it – and it is quite irrational, there is a much greater chance ot being killed on the way to work in a car than a terrorist shooting you. But that’s not how people think. People are extremely tender to what is called catastrophic loss. [Here PS asked if that is why the media makes so much of catastrophes, such as train crashes. CE replied that the terrorist is using a psychological advantage, to show that a government cannot govern; and the terrorist ‘will use the media in a most remorseless and cynical way’.] It is often said that the terrorist is not interested in casualties per se; they are interested in prosecution of fear. If it takes casualties to achieve that end, they will do that.
<br><br>
Professional Security: Does counter-terror have to happen at the drawing board, architect stage, rather than the security or building manager who merely inhabits the building?
<br><br>
Counter-terrorism can be implemented at any time, but it is so much more cost-effective to do it from the start, incredibly more cost-effective. To get the building arragnement right at the beginning, it should be considered in outline even before the architect begins. If you believe you are in a situation where a vehicle bomb is a threat, you must have a stand-off distance from what you wish to protect and where the vehicle can get to. Ergo, you have your deliveries to a satellite site, even 50m away; you don’t have a car park under the World Trade Center [a reference to the 1993 bomb in an underground car park at the WTC. The disruption to business – hundreds of firms scrambling to find alternative office space – cost untold millions]. And if you are worried because it’s a prestigious building, which may be subject to a public riot or terrorism, you need distance between where people can get and the building itself. A water moat is a marvellous way, as the Ministry of Defence did at Abbey Wood [the offices of the Defence Procurement Agency on the outskirts of Bristol. According to the MoD website: ‘The site is largely surrounded by a lake which has become home to a variety of natural wildlife.’]
