CBC March 9, 2004
Embassy bomb buffers: 'Where is this going to end?'
OTTAWA - News of the British plan to add security barricades around its embassy has irritated Ottawa residents and local politicians, and has raised the question of locating diplomatic missions in the urban core.
"Where is this going to end?" asked Coun. Alex Cullen, who also opposed similar crash barriers around the U.S. Embassy. "Do we do it for the Chinese Embassy? Do we do it for the Iranian Embassy?
"It's mind-boggling that we're going to have these walled fortresses dotting the downtown."
A neighbour of the British High Commission, store manager Lucien Cousineau, would rather see an iron fence, not more concrete blocking downtown roads.
"We have a hard time now finding parking for our customers, and that's going to make it worse," said Cousineau.
But the problem for downtown missions is that fences aren't likely to stop the determined suicide bomber, according to security expert Tim Brown.
"The main threat to embassies today is basically the truck bomb, or the car bomb," said Brown, an expert on diplomatic security with GlobalSecurity.org in Washington.
That was the method used to destroy U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, as well as the British Consulate in Istanbul last year.
Walls alone can do little to protect against such a blast, said Brown. The only real defence is space-placing a perimeter far enough from the main structure to weaken the force of the blast.
As a result, the trend in diplomatic security is to build new facilities in the suburbs, said Brown, where there's enough space to provide the necessary buffer to protect against a bomb blast.
The British High Commission is refusing to comment on reports it wants to take over some downtown street lanes to increase its security.
© Copyright 2004, CBC
