Given the months of build-up, most businesses with operations in potentially dangerous areas have drawn up plans to evacuate employees threatened by public unrest or terrorist attacks the conflict may incite, corporate security experts said Monday.
"At the first sign of danger, you have to be ready to react," said Jim Francis, senior vice president for Kroll Security Services Group, a consultant that has drawn up the Middle East evacuation plans for several companies.
While removing employees from the war's front lines is a no-brainer, knowing when to recall workers from other countries that might get caught in the crossfire isn't so cut and dried, corporate security consultants said.
That's because many employers try to balance their desire to protect workers with their business commitments in foreign countries whose economies may rely heavily on the operations.
"If you are hasty in your departure, it can turn into a short-term decision that has a long-term impact on your business relationships," said Tim Daniel, chief operating officer for International SOS Online.
Businesses also must be sensitive to the perception that they are rescuing their American and British employees and abandoning local workers.
Many companies want to delay mass evacuations until the war begins and they have a few days to take the political temperature, said Armando Lara, vice president of Control Risks Group. The wait-and-see attitude seems prudent, Lara said, because American businesses faced less backlash than expected from the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan in 2001.
In interviews, security experts declined to identify their corporate clients. But they said the oil, construction and high-tech industries all have significant operations in countries which could be jolted by a war on Iraq.
Companies that haven't made air transportation arrangements probably will have a hard time lining up flights after the war begins because of travel restrictions and the difficulty obtaining insurance, Lara said.
Seats on commercial flights leaving Saudi Arabia are already scarce, largely because of departing Americans and Britons, said Said al-Moussa, marketing manager at al-Seif travel agency in Riyadh.
If speedy evacuations become necessary, most major businesses have already lined up charter jets or made other travel arrangements for their Middle Eastern employees, experts said.
Workers in high-risk areas also are being told to have small bags packed with their passports readily available, said Harry "Skip" Brandon, chief operating officer for corporate security consultants Smith Brandon International.
"You have to be ready to leave within two hours notice," said Brandon, a former FBI agent who specialized in counter terrorism.
American and British companies already have recalled hundreds of "nonessential" employees in Iraq and countries such as Kuwait and Israel. The families of many American and British expatriates working in the Middle East also have left the riskiest countries.
Other danger zones cited by corporate security consultants include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan. A war against Iraq also threatens to stir up anti-American sentiments in Indonesia, experts warned.
"It's going to be really tough to define the battleground in this war," Francis said.
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