Speeches
WMD Criminal Investigations Seminar
Remarks by Ambassador Patricia L. Herbold
Monday, April 10, 2006
Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to participate in this seminar on WMD Criminal Investigations. I’d especially like to thank Superintendent of Police Gerald Lim, head of the Singapore Police Forces Bomb and Explosive Division, and Colonel Ho Kong Wai, head of the Explosive Ordinance Disposal Group of Singapore’s Armed Forces, for helping to make this program possible.
Singapore is an important partner in the global fight against terrorism, and the close cooperation between our two nations has contributed substantially to the disruption of terrorist activity in the region. However, even as we succeed in these efforts, we are increasingly conscious that weapons of mass destruction have become easier to acquire, to build, and to transport. One WMD in the hands of a single terrorist would be devastating.
Like the war on terror, countering the threat of WMD proliferation cannot be done by any one country alone. It requires that all responsible nations work together to accomplish four things: first, prevent these weapons from being built and transported; second, detect them and neutralize them if they are transported; third, deal with their effects if they are used; and finally, catch the people who used them or seek to use them against us.
Singapore is one of the world’s busiest, largest, and most strategically located ports. It therefore has a key role to play in this effort. With the enactment of the Strategic Goods Control Law, and its active participation in multilateral initiatives such as the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), Singapore has sent a strong signal to the world that it will not allow proliferators and terrorists to exploit its commitment to free trade. Just last summer, Singapore and the United States agreed in our Strategic Framework Agreement to step up our cooperative efforts against this emerging threat.
And so we are excited to be expanding our cooperative relationship with Singapore by holding seminars such as this one. This type of exchange is a key part of our joint efforts to counter the spread of WMD and deal with the threat they present. Bringing our experts together and expanding our ability to counter these weapons builds upon the close ties between our agencies and the people who are at the heart of our partnership. I hope that you and our experts from the FBI and Department of Defense will have a very productive week here. We look forward to having many more such opportunities in the future.