The Upcoming ISIS Dirty Bomb…
June 10th, 2015In other news: Israel Built, Exploded ‘Dirty Bombs’
Via: Independent:
The Isis militant group has seized enough radioactive material from government facilities to suggest it has the capacity to build a large and devastating “dirty” bomb, according to Australian intelligence reports.
Isis declared its ambition to develop weapons of mass destruction in the most recent edition of its propaganda magazine Dabiq, and Indian defence officials have previously warned of the possibility the militants could acquire a nuclear weapon from Pakistan.
According to the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, Nato has expressed deep concerns about the materials seized by Isis from research centres and hospitals that would normally only be available to governments.
I remember Adam Curtis’s great documentary The Power of Nightmares where he makes the case that a dirty bomb really isn’t all that dangerous. Here’s a link to a Guardian piece about The Power of Nightmares where there’s talk about the fear-mongering of dirty bombs:
The making of the terror myth
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/oct/15/broadcasting.bbc
Starting next Wednesday, BBC2 is to broadcast a three-part documentary series that will add further to what could be called the dirty bomb genre. But, as its title suggests, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear takes a different view of the weapon’s potential.
“I don’t think it would kill anybody,” says Dr Theodore Rockwell, an authority on radiation, in an interview for the series. “You’ll have trouble finding a serious report that would claim otherwise.” The American department of energy, Rockwell continues, has simulated a dirty bomb explosion, “and they calculated that the most exposed individual would get a fairly high dose [of radiation], not life-threatening.” And even this minor threat is open to question. The test assumed that no one fled the explosion for one year.