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Undercover Police Buy Toxic Chlorine In Terror Demonstration

13:37 pm EST February 13, 2008

Undercover Police Buy Toxic Chlorine In Terror Demonstration

NEW YORK -- Undercover NYPD investigators secretly set up a fake water-purification company last year to demonstrate how easily and anonymously a terrorist could purchase toxic chlorine on the Internet for a deadly chemical strike against the city.

A videotape -- showed at a counterterrorism briefing for private security executives on Wednesday -- discusses the threat and for the first time discloses the results of "Operation Green Cloud" -- a reference to the yellow-green color of chlorine gas.

The purpose was "to assess the ease or difficulty with which a terrorist in the United States could acquire large quantities of chlorine without being detected by law enforcement or intelligence agencies," a narrator says on a copy of the video obtained by The Associated Press.

The conclusion: "At the present time, few if any barriers stand in his way."

There has been no specific terror threat against the city involving chemicals, but the NYPD recently put more emphasis on screening shipments of chlorine after learning that it has become a favored component of homemade bombs in Iraq. A 2007 United Nations report found that at least 10 attacks there involved explosives attached to chlorine canisters.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said that while there were no places to obtain chlorine in New York, there are several locations in neighboring New Jersey.

"It's something we have to be concerned about," he said of the potential of an attack using chlorine. "We think the whole area needs a lot of regulation."

Chlorine typically is used as a disinfectant or purifier, and as an ingredient in plastics and other products. While routinely transported in liquid form, it can turn into a deadly toxic gas when exposed to air.

Kelly said that the NYPD has been lobbying the Department of Homeland Security to draft stricter regulations requiring chlorine vendors to verify the legitimacy of their customers.

The department sent federal officials a copy of the videotape and "asked them to include strict 'know-your-customer' rules," Kelly said...

Story source/continues: http://www.wnbc.com/news/15291083/detail.html?rss=ny&psp=news

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Additional reference:

Chlorine Shown As Terror Hazard

Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008 By AP/TOM HAYS: Undercover police secretly set up a fake company to demonstrate how easily and anonymously a terrorist could purchase chlorine on the Internet for a deadly chemical strike against the city. Can be found in Time magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1713016,00.html