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| GAO demonstrates border crossings at risk for smuggling dirty bomb radioactives |
| 2006-03-31 |
| From yesterday's Opinionjournal.com's Political Diary. "While Congress was engaged in the hysterical debate over foreign ownership of U.S. ports, something much more dangerous was taking place in America's vulnerable ports of entry. As disclosed yesterday at a congressional hearing, federal investigators were able to smuggle enough radioactive material into the United States last year to make two dirty bombs.... The Government Accountability Office is the investigative arm of Congress. In a test in December, undercover GAO teams managed to sneak small amounts of cesium-137 across U.S. border crossing points in Washington State and Texas. Radiation alarms went off, but security inspectors were fooled by phony documents and allowed the material through" -- editorial in yesterday's Miami Herald. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 Does this mean we first smuggled the material into Canada and Mexico? |
| Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2006-03-31 22:37 |
| #1 I'm not impressed by this. That is, it is virtually impossible to interdict smuggling of something so relatively small across international borders. That being said, radiological bombs are inherently flawed as a terrorist weapon. You have three choices of isotopes to use: light, medium and heavy. Light isotopes have very short half-lifes, so cannot be transported and distance and must be used immediately. Heavy isotopes do not disperse readily, the fall to the ground (think lead dust). This leaves about one common isotope to use, Cesium, which has a half-life of 30 years, and which is readily available. It is also very dangerous to people as it is uptaken by the bone marrow. It is very dangerous to handle, has to be heavily shielded, and about the most a man can carry with its container is 30 grams. It is still a fairly heavy element, and would need to be ground to an ultrafine powder before being used in such a bomb. Such a bomb would have to be designed to disperse the powder up into the air, and the bomb would have to be detonated on top of a tall building. Even so, it would be problematic to get enough isotopes into a particular person enough to make them sick. So the purpose of such a bomb is to contaminate an important place, and for propaganda effect--hoping to create a public panic. Both of these are reliant on the government and media reporting the event instead of being discreet. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-03-31 20:31 |