dirty bomb (Page 2)

It turns out that the manufacturer of a dirty bomb will probably be killed long before he gets a chance to detonate it. This means that a dirty bomb may be more of a threat than a reality.

Getting the radioactive material together and making it into a bomb is a lethal occupation. To make an effective bomb, you need a lot of radioactive material. This means you need to shield it so it doesn?t kill you first. But a shield that would protect you against enough radioactive material to make an effective bomb would be too heavy to move, so you would have to detonate the bomb at the same place you built it. If a bomb maker didn?t use a shield, it would mean almost instant death from radiation poisoning.
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The United Nations is searching the former Soviet Republic of Georgia for radioactive equipment they know was abandoned there after the break-up of the Soviet Union. This material could be sold on the Russian black market to terrorists and used to build a dirty bomb.

Radiation experts from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are searching for two Strontium 90 generators. Six Strontium 90 generators have been recovered from Georgia since 1998, but 2 are still missing. In February, 2002, two woodsmen stumbled across 2 of them, which had been discarded in a forest. The men are still being treated for radiation sickness and burns in France and Russia. An IAEA spokeswoman says, “Strontium 90 is probably one of the most potent radioactive sources.?
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In our June 11 news story ?FBI Prevented Dirty Bombing of D.C.,? we said, ?This FBI announcement comes just in time to save their reputation, after weeks of revelations that the FBI ignored the many warnings they received about September 11. We hope this is a real story and not just a face-saving puff piece and that the FBI is becoming productive and efficient once again.? Now it looks like other news organizations are having the same kinds of reservations.

The June 11 New York Times says, ?Some Democrats and civil liberties advocates have questioned whether the disclosure was timed to help counter criticism that the authorities, especially those at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had mishandled signals that might have uncovered the Sept. 11 plot.?
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The FBI have captured Abdullah Al Muhajir, a U.S. citizen with ties to al-Quaeda, who planned to explode a radioactive ?dirty bomb? in Washington, D.C. FBI Director Robert Mueller says the bomb plot was still in the “discussion stage.”

Al Muhajir (who changed his name from Jose Padilla when he joined al-Quaeda) was captured on May 8 as he flew into O’Hare International Airport in Chicago from Pakistan. The FBI was tracking him as he flew back and forth between Pakistan, Egypt and Switzerland.
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