Lt.Gen. Kresimir Cosic
Dear Participants of CBMTS Industry I,
Allow me to extend to each of you my warmest best wishes, and my personal as well as an official welcome on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Croatia. Croatia was very pleased to host this exceptionally important gathering of professionals from a range of fields including: science, medicine, engineering, legal and industry. This gathering has been made possible by your direct interest, also the interest, and sometimes substantial financial support, of all Ministries within the Government of Croatia and numerous national and international organizations, industries and institutes. We were very pleased and grateful for this extended support.
I would like to take this oportunity to point out a very important and special organization, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons - the OPCW. The OPCW provided the CBMTS - Industry I with direct support, of which many of you have been recipients. Dr. Brian Davey, M.D. was here to directly represent the OPCW and its Director General - Jose Bustani and also to participate as a CBMTS member. The thesis for this symposium - “Terrorism - Chemical and Biological Warfare without Chemical and Biological Weapons” - was developed by our military experts with experience gained from actual attacks on petrochemical and other industries that use potentially dangerous and highly toxic products.
As an example, we selected for a demonstration exercise, the fertilizer production complex "Petrokemija" in Kutina. This complex was attacked several times during the period 1991 - 1995. Had certain portions of the facilities been directly hit, the results could have been catastrophic, the lethal effects would have been felt in not only Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, but also as far as Hungary, Austria, Slovenia and Italy. Additional demonstrations on this primary theme of terrorism and warfare included CROSCO, our oil industry service company, who used their proprietary oil fire suppression system to quickly eliminate a "mini Kuwait" situation. Also, Canada's Irvin Aerospace demonstrated a process aimed at quickly eliminating a terrorist CBW situation.
In Dubrovnik, as a group, you developed and shared knowledge on this very important problem - that of terrorism and its impact on industry, the state, the community and public health. At this CBMTS Industry I meeting, we did not expect to get the answers to these constantly emerging and evolving problems, however we did anticipate pertinent questions to arise which would permit us to further define the problems we face together.
With this, I would like to wish each of you individually, and as a group, the very best. My staff is now ready and prepared to assist you for CBMTS Industry II.
Sincerely yours,
Lt.Gen. Krešimir Ćosić, Prof.Dr.
Deputy Minister of Defense of the Republic of Croatia