Posted on 05/25/2002 1:20:43 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Sad to say, scaring the pants off you soccer moms and mall-rats has become a growth industry in this country, gainfully employing thousands of people, in and out of government. The scare-monger battle cry is that terrorists are planning to use various weapons of mass destruction on each and everyone of you.
Today we will discuss "dirty" nukes.
What is a "dirty" nuke? Well, it's not a nuke at all. The proper name is a radiological dispersal device. An RDD – delivered by your hypothetical terrorist – would consist of a few pounds of powdered radioactive material packed around a few pounds of high-explosive. The terrorist would carry the RDD into your mall and detonate the explosive, dispersing into the air the radioactive material, which would soon "fall-out" to the floor.
Contrary to what the scare-mongers have told you, an RDD is in no sense a weapon of mass destruction. A few people – including the terrorist – might be killed by the high explosive. But essentially no one would be killed on the spot – or die later – from radiation.
An RDD is not a nuke. It does not contain a critical mass of fissile material – such as uranium-235 or plutonium-239. Hence, no uncontrolled chain reaction – no nuclear explosion – is possible. The total amount of radiation emitted per unit time in the mall is the same before, during and after the RDD detonation. Before, however, the radiation-emitting material is concentrated. Afterward, the radiation-emitting material is spread all over the place.
So, suppose some terrorist comes into your mall this weekend and detonates a few pounds of high-explosive. How can you mall-rats tell whether he has detonated an RDD or not? You can't, unless you happen to be carrying – and know how to operate – both a gamma-ray radiation detector and an alpha-particle detector. You can't see radiological contamination. You have to trust your radiation detectors to tell you where the radiation emitters are.
Now, an alpha-emitter is no threat to you unless you ingest it. Alpha-radiation won't even penetrate your outer skin. The range of a typical alpha-particle in air is only an inch or so. That means that if you want to find out whether the terrorist has just contaminated your mall with long-lived alpha-particle emitters, you're going to have to get down on your hands and knees and crawl around, holding your alpha-particle detector about an inch above the floor.
Alpha-emissions per unit time tend to diminish very slowly, so once you've found an area that is contaminated, it's going to stay that way for a thousand years or so. If you want to continue working in that area, be sure you wash your hands and feet every time you come out. It might be simpler to just install wall-to-wall carpet over the contaminated area.
On the other hand, gamma-rays are highly penetrating, so you won't have to get down on your hands and knees to find their emitters. Intense gamma-ray sources are used to treat cancer, but continuous whole-body exposure to gamma-ray radiation levels several orders of magnitude above normal is not good for you.
Fortunately, gamma-ray emissions per unit time of man-made radiological materials tend to diminish fairly rapidly with time. So, if you detect unhealthy gamma-ray levels in some part of your mall, put a rope around the area, and don't spend much time inside the rope for the next 100 years or so. If you absolutely need to use that area, putting down carpet won't help, but you can just hose the area down with about a ton of water, further dispersing that radiological material right down the drain.
But, think about it. Scaremongers to the contrary, why would a terrorist employ an RDD to strike terror into the hearts of you soccer moms and mall-rats if none of you had any way of knowing what he had done? How would you know to be terror-stricken unless you had your handy-dandy gamma-ray detector on you?
That brings us back to the post-Sept. 11 growth industry. Congress is in the process of spending billions and billions of your tax dollars to train and equip hundreds of thousands of policemen, firemen, doctors, nurses, school teachers and crossing-guards to rush to the scene of a suspected terrorist event and start looking for evidence of every imaginable chemical, biological and radiological contamination.
The ones down on their hands and knees will be looking for alpha-emitters.
They are not made to kill. On the contrary. All they are designed to do is to spread fear, and bring all productive activity to a halt. In essence cause the maximum disruption, even if the only destruction they cause is death to the terrorist mule carrying it.
Imagine for example if one went off in the heart of a major city. Whether or not the weapon only emits alpha particles, or whether it has beta and gamma radiation does not matter. What matters is that people will view this as a radiological attack, and will flee. Economic activity will come to a standstill. There will be mass evacuations and widespread panic. And this effect will spread in an ever spreading wave.
And all this can happen even if the bomb is so weak that the only person it kills is just the terrorist. Hence it can be asserted that these weapons were never meant to kill. If that happens it is just a plus. They are intended to create mass panic, wreck financial havoc, and disrupt everything within a huge radius.
Not weapons of mass destruction but weapons of mass disruption. Think of it as a juiced-up anthrax. Something that if you people all sit together and think logically about is not such a big deal, but due to fear and runnign emotions will lead to panic everywhere. It is an emotional weapon that then transmutates into a financial weapon. And it doesn;t need to kill to do that.
How incredibly misleading! Of course, the detonation does not increase the radioactivity within the mall. The insertion of the RDD into the mall increases the radioactivity. Regardless of the mechanism, the mall now contains a source of radioactivity. Would Prather care to shop there?
Prather's response to an RDD is too install carpeting and wash your hands and feet? I can see the TV commercials now. "Visit our Mall. We've got new carpets to make you safe. Be sure and take advantage of our complimentary foot washing devices after visiting JC Penney's now." Does he really expect people would visit this place?" Seriously, the alpha particles would migrate through the carpets and wind currents would spread them and the gamma particles. Note to Prather: "Wind currents are not affected by rope barriers. That is important." Doesn't he realize that everyone, everything that enters and leaves the mall would have to be washed down? Completely? Sure, it might be your feet that are first contaiminated, but did you stop and tie your shoe laces? Did you eat some fries aferwards? Sure, alpha particles only harm after ingestion, but there are many ways to injest them without licking the floor.
This is just one example where Prather intentionally misleads. I remember another instance a few weeks ago where he asserted that Saddam could not have a bomb because the International inspection regime had certified that all Iraqi nuclear sites were in compliance. Prather failed to mention that these inspectors could only inspect those sites acknowledged by the Iraqis. What about the other sites? Then, in the same article, he asserted that Iraq couldn't build a bomb because the Iraqis couldn't make enriched uranium in the future which totally ignored the fact that they could already have it or could buy it somewhere.
One begins to wonder if Prather has spent too much time inside the containment vessel.
Homicide bombing is much easier, cheaper and more effective.
Right. It seems that Muslims like to see big explosions and lots of noise and blood and gore to make them really happy.
• Blow up a dam near a city
• Demolition of key bridges
• Take out key power stations
• Destroy RR tracks en masse.
They do seem to like showmanship and symbolism in their butchery.
When the next attack occurs, it will be so obvious a weapon/target that... whodathunkit.
After reading this, I would have to agree. I don't remember which thread here on FR had a similar account to Prather's explanation above, but it's the second time I've read the same type of account. There seems to be some credence to his explanation, especially the explanation of low-dosage radiation used to treat cancer.
I'm going to start looking for that other thread, and re-post the link here once I find it.
I have read the plutonium is considered a deadly poison. If you inhale it, you die. Lung exposure to plutonium surely causes lung cancer.
I do think 'dirty bombs' are overrated as far as a deadly weapon, but the economic disruption would be disasterous.
Time to round up all student visa holders, green card holders and any other immigrants that fit the 'profile' and deport or detain them.
If we don't, we are allowing the demise of our economy and way of life.
I should have added that the amount needed to set the cancer in motion is minute, micrograms.
I have been saying the same thing. They're after infrastructure, military, power, key bridges, NOT the statue of liberty or people at the mall.
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