Project Kelvin sister sites on leaked US critical list

Three identical sister landing stations to the Project Kelvin facility in Portrush were named as "critical infrastructure" whose loss due to terrorist attack could "critically impact the public health, economic security, and national and homeland security of the United States."

The confidential communique circulated by the US Secretary of State asked the American diplomatic corps to identify critical infrastructure (CI) and key resources (KR) as part of Washington's National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP).

The cable noted the overarching goal of the NIPP was to build "a safer, more secure, and more resilient America by enhancing protection of the nation's CI/KR to prevent, deter, neutralize or mitigate the effects of deliberate efforts by terrorists to destroy, incapacitate or exploit them; and to strengthen national preparedness, timely response, and rapid recovery in the event of an attack, natural disaster or other emergency."

Attached to the cable was a 2008 Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative list which included three cable landing stations in Dublin, Cornwall and Nova Scotia owned by the Project Kelvin developer Hibernia Atlantic.

A few months after the US memo was circulated in February 2009 Hibernia Atlantic established an identical cable landing station at Portrush. In total sixty nine cable landing stations across the globe were named in the 2008 critical list.

The cable from the Office of US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to all US diplomatic posts on February 18, 2009, advised consuls and ambassadors that "the NIPP requires compilation and annual update of a comprehensive inventory of CI/KR that are located outside US borders and whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security, and/or national and homeland security of the United States."

The memo reveals the Department was "surveying posts for their input on critical infrastructure and key resources within their host country which, if destroyed, disrupted or exploited, would likely have an immediate and deleterious effect on the United States."

Cable landing stations such as that established by Hibernia Atlantic at Portrush in the summer of 2009, which links directly to the portable telecommunications house at Fort George, are clearly regarded by the US as of vital importance.

The document advised that three categories should be considered by diplomats when identifying key resources: "1) direct physical linkages (e.g., pipelines, undersea telecommunications cables, and assets located in close enough proximity to the US border their destruction could cause cross-border consequences, such as damage to dams and chemical facilities; 2) sole or predominantly foreign/host-country sourced goods and services (e.g., minerals or chemicals critical to U.S. industry, a critical finished product manufactured in one or only a small number of countries, or a telecom hub whose destruction might seriously disrupt global communications); and 3) critical supply chain nodes (e.g., the Strait of Hormuz and Panama Canal, as well as any ports or shipping lanes in the host-country critical to the functioning of the global supply chain)."

Elsewhere, the cable also lists the Canadian subsidiary of the arms manufacturer Raytheon as key infrastructure due to its production of the Stryker/USMC LAV Vehicle Integration system.

The software manufacturer Raytheon Systems Limited's (RSL) Londonderry plant - was notoriously subject to anti-war protests and a nine man occupation in August 2006 - but did not make the 2008 list. The firm's UK subsidiary pulled out of Londonderry early this year.