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Colby Cosh: an actual model of the credible threat please?
This morning's press is abuzz with talk of TATP (acetone peroxide), a liquid explosive favoured by Middle Eastern bombers that is "easy to make and hard to detect." With advantages like that, surely there's some catch? Just so--TATP is easy to make, but far, far easier to blow one's limbs off with in the making. In its high-explosive form it's even less stable than nitroglycerin. And after five years' experience with the New Transport Security, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that the scenes of security officials pouring hand lotion, hair gel, and bottled water into giant waste bins apparently represent a spectacle every bit as irrational as a witch-dunking. It didn't blow up, therefore it was safe all along! Have a nice day!TATP is popular amongst disaffected Arab nihilists because the necessary ingredients are uncontrolled and virtually uncontrollable. It's literally a matter of putting acetone and peroxide together in the presence of any of a number of catalysts (I've seen sulfuric acid mentioned). If you're willing to invest some manpower to cover the risk of accidents, it is "easy" to fabricate. But concealing an amount large enough to bring down an airliner in flight might be another matter. If TATP has been a threat all along, why hasn't it been used to target aircraft before? Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down over Lockerbie with Semtex. Shoe bomber Richard Reid was found with TATP in his shoes, but only as a detonator for Semtex. ABC News is reporting: The suspected terror plotters arrested in Britain had planned to conceal their liquid or gel explosives inside a modified sports beverage drink container and trigger the device with the flash from a disposable camera. ...the plotters planned to leave the top of the bottle sealed and filled with the original beverage but add a false bottom, filled with a liquid or gel explosive. The terrorists planned to dye the explosive mixture red to match the sports drink sealed in the top half of the container. So you tell me: we're talking about maybe 200 or 300 mL of an explosive that's not under serious compression, and that isn't quite TNT-equivalent even when it's not in liquid suspension? I realize airframes are fragile because of the annoying necessity to leave the ground, and that's certainly enough TATP to cause some death and carnage in the cabin. I'm not sure it would reliably breach the skin of the aircraft, let alone guarantee that it crashed. Even assuming you didn't bump into anything on the way through the security inspection. Or attract a whole bunch of attention by carrying a bottle of Gatorade like it was a carton of sparrow's eggs. Or get the dye job not quite right. Obviously there is much more yet to be disclosed about this thwarted plot. What I want to hear is a sensible threat model. I'm not concerned about an advance justification of the current madness going on in American and British airports. A temporary overreaction is perhaps excusable--assuming that the resources diverted to examining carry-ons haven't been taken away from security screening of checked baggage, which all our experience tells us is more dangerous to aircraft. In fact, if I were Osama bin Laden and I wanted to smuggle something dangerous onto an airplane in 2006, I think my exact first step would be to get a couple dozen movement "goofballs" to risk their freedom and hides on the biggest diversionary action imaginable. Posted by: Mike 2006-08-11 |
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