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Re: " Scientists Say Dirty Bomb Would Be a Dud "

To: radsafe@list.Vanderbilt.Edu
Subject: Re: " Scientists Say Dirty Bomb Would Be a Dud "
From: "Ian Adam" <Ian.Adam@icr.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:45:54 +0100
Reply-To: "Ian Adam" <Ian.Adam@icr.ac.uk>
Sender: owner-radsafe@list.Vanderbilt.Edu

U doesn't have just one risk. Granted, DU poses a low radiation risk, but it oxidises very readily (hence the dark grey appearance) and this oxide comes off easily on the fingers, possibly ending up in the mouth. It can quite easily burn in air in a similar way to magnesium, causing a plume of inhalable particles. Once in the body it will sit there, gently irradiating everything with alphas.

Dirty bombs cannot be assessed purely on their radioactivity. The last time I was involved with a theoretical physicist who had 'acquired' some slugs of NU, DU and EU and kept them on the shelf at home as curios it resulted in his children being admitted to hospital for detoxification.

Ian

Ian Adam

Radiation Safety Officer

The Institute of Cancer Research

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Surrey

SM2 5NG

Tel: 020 8722 4250

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EMail: Ian.Adam@icr.ac.uk

>>> Raymond A Hoover <ray2hoover@YAHOO.COM> 10/06/2004 14:32:09 >>>

Ok, if a dirty bomb composed of U is no big deal, why are we spending 100's of millions of dollars cleaning up U mill tailings and former Manhatten project sites? It strikes me that the public does not understand the concept of relative risks. They will hear Uranium and think death.

I agree with what the "expert" says about the low risk from such a device, but the true danger of such a device is the public's perception. Such a device will panic the public and that is all a terrorist is worried about. It is still a terrorist weapon. Prof. Zimmerman seems to have missed that.

Jaro <jaro-10kbq@sympatico.ca> wrote:

Kudos to Mr. Hanley for quite a decent media report on a nuclear issue (just

wish we could have this sort of thing all the time, and in a more timely

fashion....)

Jaro

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=753&e=10&u=/ap/2004

0609/ap_on_sc/dirty_bomb_dud

Scientists Say Dirty Bomb Would Be a Dud

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

NEW YORK - The "dirty bomb" allegedly planned by terror suspect Jose Padilla

would have been a dud, not the radiological threat portrayed last week by

federal authorities, scientists say.

At a June 1 news conference, the Justice Department (news - web sites) said

the alleged al-Qaida associate hoped to attack Americans by detonating

"uranium wrapped with explosives" in order to spread radioactivity.

But uranium's extremely low radioactivity is harmless compared with

high-radiation materials * such as cesium and cobalt isotopes used in

medicine and industry that experts see as potential dirty bomb fuels.

"I used a 20-pound brick of uranium as a doorstop in my office," American

nuclear physicist Peter D. Zimmerman, of King's College in London, said to

illustrate the point.

Zimmerman, co-author of an expert analysis of dirty bombs for the U.S.

National Defense University, said last week's government announcement was

"extremely disturbing * because you cannot make a radiological dispersal

device with uranium. There is just no significant radiation hazard."

Other specialists agreed. "It's the equivalent of blowing up lead," said

physicist Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists.

When Padilla was arrested in June 2002, after returning to Chicago from

Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Pakistan, Attorney General John Ashcroft

(news - web sites) said the ex-Chicago gang member and Muslim convert had

planned a dirty bomb that could "cause mass death and injury." Washington,

D.C., was the likely target, his department said.

But it wasn't until Deputy Attorney General James Comey's briefing for

reporters last week that authorities said Padilla had uranium in mind for

his radiological dispersal device, or RDD, the technical term for such a

weapon. Comey said the detainee disclosed he'd also been sent to set off

natural gas explosions in U.S. apartment buildings.

"Just saying the word `uranium,' the public automatically assumes, `Oh, it

sounds bad,'" said physicist Charles Ferguson of the Washington office of

California's Monterey Institute of International Studies. He co-authored one

of the most detailed reports on the dirty-bomb threat.

Those studying the RDD potential envision a combination of explosives with a

lethal radioisotope, such as cesium-137, diverted from use in cancer

radiotherapy, for example, or from machines that irradiate food.

Particularly if in powder form, it could spew intense radioactivity over a

section of a city, making it uninhabitable.

Radiation from uranium, on the other hand, is billions of times less intense

than that of cesium-137, cobalt-60 and other radioisotopes. It's not

radioactivity but another property of uranium * its ability in some forms to

sustain atomic chain reactions * that makes it a fuel for nuclear power and

bombs.

The Justice Department didn't respond directly when asked this week whether

it had consulted with experts and knew that uranium wouldn't make a dirty

bomb.

Instead, spokesman Mark Corallo said Padilla's statements, in view of his

al-Qaida links, made clear that he was "willing to cause devastating harm to

innocent Americans."

Padilla has been held by the U.S. military since 2002 as an enemy combatant,

without charge and with little access to lawyers. The Bush administration

has been criticized for denying a U.S. citizen normal access to the courts.

The Supreme Court is considering whether the government, in defending

against terrorism, has such power.

Padilla's lawyer, Donna Newman, said Wednesday of the dirty-bomb allegation

that U.S. authorities "should have known that this was nonsense."

"When they frightened everybody, what were they trying to do, if they knew

better? To show the administration is on top of things?" she asked.

She wants the government to attempt to indict and try her client. "Maybe the

problem is the evidence is so weak, it's laughable," she said.

Comey said the news conference was called "to help people understand the

nature of the threat" Padilla posed.

Based on what he said were Padilla's admissions to interrogators, he

described a "highly trained al-Qaida soldier" who accepted an assignment to

blow up U.S. apartment buildings, and "planned to do even more by detonating

a radiological device, a dirty bomb, in this country."

Spokesman Corallo reaffirmed this week that it was Padilla who said uranium

would be used.

"If that's what he planned," physicist Oelrich said of Padilla, "it shows he

doesn't know what he's talking about and hasn't done even rudimentary

homework."

He wasn't the only one, according to a Justice Department summary of

interrogations.

It said Abu Zubaydah, a top al-Qaida lieutenant now in U.S. custody, also

envisioned a uranium device when urging Padilla to mount a U.S. attack. At

another point, however, the summary said Zubaydah told Padilla the dirty

bomb was "not as easy to do as they thought."

Padilla claims "he was never really planning to go through with" any of the

terrorist assignment, Comey told reporters.

As a heavy metal, like lead, uranium poses one health risk: If ingested or

inhaled, it can damage kidneys or other organs. But unlike radioisotopes,

byproducts of nuclear reactors, uranium doesn't emit penetrating gamma rays

that cause acute radiation poisoning. Instead, it slowly radiates weak alpha

particles, which don't even penetrate skin.

"Granted, it (uranium) could have a psychological effect" because of

unfounded fears, said physicist Ferguson. But he said a government

information campaign should quell any panic if such a weapon appeared.

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