ASSESSING THE FUTURE TERRORIST THREAT

"DIRTY BOMBS"

Placing atomic materials, whether gained from medical or industrial waste or from nuclear plants, inside a conventional bomb is possible for bin Laden or other terrorists, some experts including former United Nations Weapons Inspector Richard Butler say. 

Intelligence sources in the war on terrorism now concede there is accumulating proof that Osama bin Laden-related terrorists could be planning an assault on the US (or on US interests in Europe or the Middle East) using a conventional bomb laden with radioactive materials, also called the "dirty" bomb.

There is concern that plans for such a bomb can be found on the Internet (see: Singaporeans for Democracy). It requires the simple placing of radioactive isotope residue in any form inside a small, conventional bomb such as the kind used on the World Trade Center in 1993. 

Such a bomb would have different effects from an atomic explosion. A radiological bomb would have the (smaller) explosive effect of simple TNT but could produce a cloud of radioactive "fallout" that could kill many within a close range and kill or sicken many downwind from the explosion. 

As explained at TheLatest.Net's Assessing the Terrorist Threat page, the threat of "mass destruction" is relatively small with a radiological bomb, especially when compared with even the smallest atomic weapon. However, the psychological effect remains large because of the danger of radioactivity, wherein a several block area could be rendered uninhabitable for months or even decades.

And then there the are slow deaths of -- or health hazards to -- those exposed to such radioactive material when dispersed into the air, possibly numbering in the hundreds of thousands, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Osama bin Laden has said he has "nuclear" capability, but experts around the world don't believe that bil Lanen and/or his al-Qaeda network or other terrorists have access to conventional nuclear weapons, the smallest of which could kill thousands.

Homeland Defense chief Tom Ridge joined the FBI Monday in warning Americans that another terrorist attack could be imminent, though details were decidedly sketchy. 

It was the third such warning since 9/11.  

Previous warnings were made by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The biggest fear now seems to be the radiological bomb. 

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that US intelligence agencies believe terrorists may have made greater inroads in developing such a bomb than previously thought. Information comes from interrogation of suspects in the 9/11 atrocities and from ground inspections of captured terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan.

International concern about whether such a bomb could be pieced together and exploded in a major city is such that some customs agents in the US and Europe -- and Saudi Arabia -- have been equipped with Geiger counters, some of them disguised as pagers to detect radioactivity in visitors, immigrants and even airport workers who could conceivably smuggle radioactive material into and out of countries, as reported recently at TheLatest.Net. 

The White House has noted in the past that worries about such a radiological bomb factor into the Bush administration's decision to place Vice President Dick Cheney at a distant, undisclosed location indefinitely to keep the president and vice president from being together in a predictable situation.

In addition, a Pakistani man arrested in the United States in early October who complained of pain and bleeding gums and was thought to have suffered from gum disease may actually have died of radiation poisoning, according to the intelligence website, DebkaFile.

The unidentified Pakistani man, who was treated with antibiotics for symptoms of gingivitis, is thought by medical experts to have had symptoms identical to radiation poisoning: bleeding gums, pain. 

The man died in a New Jersey jail three weeks after his arrest and treatment, but there have been no further media reports on circumstances surrounding his death.

Another man suffering from the same symptoms is reported to have died after entering Israel a few weeks ago, according to DebkaFile.

Perhaps one of the biggest concerns about the "dirty" bomb: the lack of treatment facilities for those caught in the aftermath. The United States has only a single hospital emergency room dedicated to treating patients exposed to radiation hazards -- and it's in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Radiological weapons cannot be put together and maintained until use is determined, according to Professor John Simpson of England's Mountebatten Center for International Studies. While an atomic or nuclear bomb could stay stable for years, a "dirty bomb" would have to be created and then nursed weekly, which could lead to radioactivity poisoning on the part of the person who handled the bomb. 

But Simpson notes that the availability of radioactive material both in the US and abroad is so high that waste from medical, radiological (X-ray) and nuclear plant locations has been "easily" obtainable because of the lack of security surrounding such waste.

International atomic energy officials say steps have been taken in recent weeks to secure supplies of radioactive waste around the world, but the availability of such materials is still thought, by some experts, to be too easy making a "dirty bomb" much too accessible by potential terrorists for experts and government to ignore the disastrous possibilities. 

Experts say the initial blast would damage, perhaps, the size of a city block. The difference would be the atomic material placed inside the bomb, which would scatter over a wider area as blast material was sent up and out from the explosion. 

The further from the blast, the more diluted would be the threat.

The radiation could kill dozens of people or more (depending upon where the blast occurred), while dozens or perhaps more could be injured both short-term (by radiation poisoning) and long-term (by health effects from the radiation dispersed from the blast).

The major effects of a dirty bomb would, besides the deaths and injury, include the contamination of perhaps a several block area around the area where the blast took place. Researchers say the contaminated area could be uninhabitable for months, perhaps years. 

It would, then, be the psychological effect of losing a large portion of, say, a major city for years that would provide the biggest boost for terrorists should they set off a "dirty bomb."

Terrorism is, after all, an attempt to affect political change by use of psychological scare tactics to wear down the will of a government and/or its people to resist such change.  

See Fox News, "Crude but deadly radiation bomb is most feared nuke."

ALSO SEE: Pakistan intel aids bin Laden's "dirty bomb" nuclear arsenal

-- Mike Shiloh

Contents © copyright 2001 MarketCreative.com and/or Michael Shiloh, unless noted.