VIENNA — A top Interpol official said Tuesday that funding for the global police organization’s CBRNE subdirectorate is a matter of concern given its work in building the capacity of international law enforcement to prevent acts of nuclear or radiological terrorism.
Doug Ledingham, acting assistant director of Interpol’s CBRNE defense office – which focuses on the threat posed by chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive materials – told NS&D Monitor here that Interpol seeks to conduct more “operational activity” in the near future, or training of law enforcement in its more than 190 member countries.
Future activities of the directorate, however, hinge heavily on financial contributions by those member states; the CBRNE unit is externally funded, and that money could be scaled back if funders face domestic budget issues. “There’s constantly a worry about funding,” Ledingham said on the sidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s International Conference on Nuclear Security.
Ledingham said the United States has been a close partner for Interpol, which frequently draws on the expertise of the U.S. Energy Department (DOE), namely its Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Washington state. This partnership is used to offer training courses in other countries, which often involve demonstrations of radiation detection devices and other mobile sensor gear.
“Most recently we were in Bogotá [Colombia], we’re going to Mexico next month [for training], and PNNL provides two or three experts to provide training to us,” Ledingham said. “We’ve also got somebody from DOE who’s embedded within our team as a resource who feeds back to DOE, assists us in getting funding, assists in identifying the people from the labs that can come and show us how to use the detection equipment, etc.”
