[ RadSafe ] How tough is it to build a dirty bomb?

[Strickert, Rick]

As noted by John Dixon, in the movie, Broken Arrow, the Special Forces squad died from some serious lead poisoning in an ambush, rather than from radiation (about 32 seconds into this abbreviated version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuLbs6BbaKU).  However, shortly later, bad guy Howie Long, in a radio message back to HQ, did pretend to be suffering from radiation sickness caused by an exposed plutonium core, using the sound of an electric shaver to simulate a survey meter going crazy; the ruse fooled HQ.   Later a NEST helicopter sent in to handle the situation is brought down with the EMP from an underground nuclear blast.   

And speaking of "dirty bombs", there is the final scene at the church in New York in the 1997 movie, The Peacemaker, with George Clooney as the Army action hero and Nicole Kidman as a nuclear physicist... yeah, that's what I thought, too.

Rick Strickert
Austin, TX