[ RadSafe ] U.S. Plays Down Colombia Uranium Threat

[Geo>K0FF]

Not that we should or would provide details on any public forum, but one 
could imagine any number of scenarios where 66 pounds of DU could be 
fashioned into a device that would *easily* cost the economy 500-1000 
million dollars. No "bomb" would need be involved at all. Dispersion is the 
key word in RDD, not "bomb".

George Dowell
NLNL
New London Nucleonics Lab
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Clayton J Bradt" <cjb01 at health.state.ny.us>
To: <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 8:23 AM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] U.S. Plays Down Colombia Uranium Threat


>
>
> U.S. Plays Down Colombia Uranium Threat
>
> There is little chance that uranium recovered in Colombia could have been
> used to produce a radiological “dirty bomb,” U.S. officials said in a Los
> Angeles Times article published today (see GSN, March 27).
> Colombia’s vice president said earlier this month that laptop computers
> recovered following a strike on a rebel site in Ecuador indicated the
> Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was seeking material that
> could be used in a radiological weapon. The nation’s Defense Ministry
> announced this week that a 66-pound stash of uranium had been found near
> Bogota.
> Colombian officials have indicated that the material was depleted uranium,
> said State Department spokeswoman Heidi Bronke.
> Depleted uranium would not possess the radioactivity needed for a dirty
> bomb, which would use conventional explosives to disperse dangerous
> material, said Charles Ferguson, a nuclear weapons analyst at the Council
> on Foreign Relations.
>
> A depleted uranium weapon could “have panicked people for a little while,
> but the alarm wouldn’t have lasted,” he said.
>
> The information on the computers has not yet been independently verified
> and could be part of a disinformation campaign against the rebel group,
> analysts said. The U.S. intelligence community believes that at least some
> of the information is probably true, a senior official said.
> However, since the recovered material was “depleted, not enriched … what’s
> the use of that other than irritating people?” the official said.
> The rebel group might have been scammed into buying a form of uranium that
> is cheap and easily found, said another U.S. official.
> “The real story is the very fact that FARC is looking for uranium, even if
> they got scammed this time,” the official said. “The very fact that they
> are out there looking for it is troubling” (Los Angeles Times, March 28).
> **************************************************************************
>
> What is the basis for the assertion that a depleted uranium weapon could
> “have panicked people for a little while, but the alarm wouldn’t have
> lasted”? The ALI for U-238 is nearly four orders of magnitude lower than
> for Cs-137 and the panic generated by a Cs-137 RDD is assumed, for planing
> purposes, to create sufficient disruption to close down Wall Street and
> wreck the national economy. Why won’t people be just as panicked by DU as
> Cs-137?
>
> As I have stated previously, what we know of the physics of dirty bombs
> comes from the national labs, but what we know of the psychology comes 
> from
> Dr. Phil.
>
> Clayton J. Bradt
> dutchbradt at hughes.net
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