Much less to Padilla `dirty bomb' than meets feds' eyes, scientistssay

[Susan Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

Much less to Padilla `dirty bomb' than meets feds' eyes, scientists say



- CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

Wednesday, June 9, 2004

(06-09) 10:45 PDT NEW YORK (AP) --



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 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 and Pakistan, Attorney General John Ashcroft 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.



URL: 

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/06/09/international1345EDT0610.DTL 





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