‘Integrated field exercise enhances inspectors’ experience, skills’

MADABA – For Omar El Samad, the Integrated Field Exercise 2014 (IFE14) is a great opportunity to enhance his experience. 

The Lebanese inspector is among some 200 international experts taking part in a full-scale exercise of an on-site inspection under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Samad said the exercise is giving him the chance to learn and gain vast experience in several fields, due to the participation of experts. 

“We employ different kinds of techniques and this is the kind of exercise which depends on team work,” he told The Jordan Times during a media tour of one of the exercises in Madaba on Sunday.

Organised by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), the on-site inspection “is the ultimate verification measure under the CTBT to establish whether or not a nuclear explosion has taken place”. 

“The five-week exercise in Jordan is based on a purely fictional but technically realistic and challenging scenario,” a CTBTO statement said. 

“The Integrated Field Exercise 2014 (IFE14) in Jordan will prove that CTBT on-site inspections are a viable deterrent against would-be treaty violators. With a range of new techniques envisaged by the CTBT but never used before in on-site inspection-related tests and exercises, IFE14 will take our capabilities to a new level,” the statement quoted Oleg Rozhkov, director of the On-Site Inspection Division and IFE14 project executive, as saying. 

The exercise is testing “state-of-the-art techniques, including instruments to detect traces of relevant radionuclides on and beneath the ground as well as from the air. Other techniques will scan the ground in frequencies invisible to the human eye,” the statement said. 

Matjaz Prah, CTBTO’s OSI coordinator, said several field teams are sent out every day to collect data from the field.

He noted that the whole exercise is expected to cover between 60 and 100 small locations. 

During the opening ceremony on Saturday attended by HRH Prince Feisal, CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo said this year’s field exercise is the largest since the inception of the organisation in 1996.

“Why Jordan… because we know that we are in a region where we often talk about instability… where Jordan is a hub of peace and stability,” Zerbo noted.  

In a competitive process, the CTBTO’s member states selected Jordan from a number of other countries offering to host the exercise, according to organisers. 

The rich variety of geological features in the Dead Sea area allow for realistic and challenging conditions. Jordan has been able to provide an area of approximately 1,000 square kilometres, which is the maximum size allowed for an on-site inspection, and has proven to be a dedicated and most hospitable host, the CTBTO said.

Zerbo thanked the government for the support they received at all levels, including support from civil society.

“This would have not happened if the population were not supportive. You cannot come and conduct such an exercise in a country if you do not have the support of the population,” he noted.