Radioactive Material Stolen In Iraq Raises Security Fears (reuters.com) 93
mdsolar writes with a link to a Reuters report that begins: Iraq is searching for 'highly dangerous' radioactive material stolen last year, according to an environment ministry document and seven security, environmental and provincial officials who fear it could be used as a weapon if acquired by Islamic State. The material, stored in a protective case the size of a laptop computer, went missing in November from a storage facility near the southern city of Basra belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford WFT.N, the document seen by Reuters showed and officials confirmed. A spokesman for Iraq's environment ministry said he could not discuss the issue, citing national security concerns.
a year ago? (Score:2)
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Re:a year ago? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:a year ago? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:a year ago? (Score:5, Informative)
The actual seed source is about as big as a pencil eraser, maybe a little smaller. Thus, it would be hard to repurpose as a dirty bomb - it's a lump and all it would do is fly somewhere else in an explosion.
Radioactive sources are lost all the time. This website from the NRC [nrc.gov] keeps a log of all lost sources. While losing a source like this in Iraq is unfortunate, it's not uncommon.
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You might think that a strong gamma source would be quite visible to appropriate detectors; I have heard from reliable sources that when the radiation detector were installed at the boarder, the Canadians had to seam clean all of the trash trailers, before they could get them through customs, even empty they were too radioactive to be allowed over.
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Just looking at the wiki page for iridium [wikipedia.org] and there appear to be two types of it at element 192. The one with the 73.8 day half life decays by beta emission, the one with a 241 year half life is a gamma emitter. Since they were using it for the gamma emissions, I would guess it has a significant amount of the latter isotope.
Being a gamma emitter, it probably would make a decent dirty bomb. That said, it probably also would cause very few deaths from radiation (dirty bombs are all about the fear, really). Wo
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Long gone, but useful. They can therefore run a "dirty-bomb scare", and justify military operations. You don't want someone scattering radioactive waste on your children, do you?
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Despite the source not wanting to discuss this due to "national security concerns", it's almost certainly a nuclear density gauge [troxlerlabs.com]. If you really wanted one of those, you could steal it from any number of construction or mining firms in whatever country you're in.
It's also far more likely to have been misplaced rather than stolen, it's a generic-looking piece of engineering gear that someone probably set aside and that got lost among the piles of other gear lying around. Think "contractors misplace demolit
Re:Oilfield services company (Score:5, Informative)
They're typically used in wireline logging (real-time collection of down-well data, used for measuring the mineral content of strata being drilled through - this is how they're able to tell there are hydrocarbons present). They also use them to measure flow rate.
This Wikipedia article is reasonably good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"As of 2003 the isotopes Antimony-124, argon-41, cobalt-60, iodine-131, iridium-192, lanthanum-140, manganese-56, scandium-46, sodium-24, silver-110m, technetium-99m, and xenon-133 were most commonly used by the oil and gas industry because they are easily identified and measured.[3][5] Bromine-82, Carbon-14, hydrogen-3, iodine-125 are also used.[3][4]"
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Highly dangerous? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford WFT.N
Going out on a limb here, but that'll likely be a source for pipe inspections or similar jobs? Read: relatively small quantity, and no way that would be bomb-making material. Even if it fell into the wrong hands, then at worst such material could be used as ingredient of a small-scale dirty bomb: a conventional bomb with 'special sauce' to cause a "radioactive!" scare. For that purpose probably more dangerous to anyone trying to do so, than for the people in a target area.
Granted, in terms of victims / environment / health hazards that could still do some damage. But in the greater scheme of things, I'd take "highly dangerous" with a grain of salt here.
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Or you could use it to poison food or water sources etc. Only retarded geeks think nuclear bombs is the only thing that counts when it comes to radioactive materials.
Re:Highly dangerous? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're going to poison the water, I'm sure there are more effective and easier substances you could use than radioactive materials.
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RT is not a source for health physics studies. The Wikipedia article has some decent references, in summary, no causal link [wikipedia.org] was found by reputable researchers.
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I had heard that there might be some causal link - but I did not click your link. I'm deferring to you and not going to argue with Wikipedia.
That said - it's not with the Iraqi people. It was about the folks we sent in, US troops, to clean it up, walk among it, and then go back and clean up the radioactive materials left behind without proper PPE.
It was on NPR quite a while back. I didn't track it down, I didn't follow it up, I have no idea the veracity. If your link doesn't mention that, or doesn't get int
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Like lead?
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As far as bomb building, the bomb itself is what might be deadly, and again, the spread contamination would no likely result in any measurable health impacts to anyone.
Dirty bombs are simply not practical. Those smart enough to make an effective one know that there are much eas
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A spokesman for Iraq's environment ministry said he could not discuss the issue, citing national security concerns.
Hearing the gov't rep from Iran say it kind of brings home the phrase's absurdity.
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The representative you quoted is from Iraq.
What kind of weapon, since the amount is so small? (Score:4, Insightful)
A fear weapon aimed at panicky fools and the media that preys on and inflames their ignorance with hysterical half-truths.
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So what is it here that you think are the "hysterical half-truths"?
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So you basically have a difficult time understanding risk factors.
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He doesn't. Unless you are scared of background radiation, you shouldn't be scared of this.
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Even if you think it is safe, it won't stop your property being massively devalued. Dirty bombs will hit you where it hurts - in the wallet.
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Not for long. The first land developer who realizes that the land is cheap just because of pointless fear will redevelop it on the cheap, probably even begging for some money out of the government to "help" them.
We nuked the shit out of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They're not ghost towns today, they're cities with significant populations. You'd need an output like Chernobyl to really cause area denial like this, and this isn't even close to the sort of material you'd need for that effect.
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So, like, every terrorist weapon?
At least those used so far. I hope it never moves beyond that.
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So, like, every terrorist weapon?
That's the most ignorant thing I've read this month (and there's a lot of ignorance on YT).
At least those used so far.
Suicide vests and truck bombs (which actually kill and maim people) spring instantly to mind.
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Suicide vests and truck bombs do kill people occasionally. The cost of dealing with the fear of suicide vests and truck bombs outweigh the actual consequences. I mean, it's always ghoulish to compare someone's death to thousands of people inconvenienced. But, as a society, we kinda have to figure out how much to spend to save someone's life.
And, with terrorism, we always overspend. We could provide free healthca
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None of what you just wrote has anything to do with the stupidity that you previously wrote: At least those used so far. I hope it never moves beyond that.
35 years ago, truck bombs went beyond just fear. Suicide vests... 25 years ago? Bombs in British postal boxes 40+ years ago.
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Truck bombs didn't move beyond "just fear" "Just fear" is the larger consequence of then the deaths that actually happened. The US left Beruit over 283 deaths? No, the US left over fear.
Moving beyond that means that the actual deathtoll is worse than the fear it engenders. Given the news coverage nowadays, that's likely going to be the result of a WMD.
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So there's only terrorism and WMDs?
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Umm... no. Terrorist's biggest weapon is fear. The only weapon I can think of more effective than that is a WMD.
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But "OMG!! Terrorists with a WMD!!" is the whole purpose of this article.
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But the whole purpose of the conversation thread you're participating in is that they only have enough for a relatively weak dirty bomb, explicitly not a WMD. The whole thread is about how the weapon is a lot more fear than real.
Yay, context.
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I didn't write that *I* believe it. I wrote that the *article* said it.
Boo, lack of reading comprehension.
Time for a media freak out! (Score:5, Insightful)
The security failure is a bit worrying but I doubt this is really that big a threat. If it was so radioactive that it could kill lots of people from acute radiation sickness, then it will be very hard to smuggle anywhere without being detected. Certainly much harder than just a big cache of conventional weapons/explosives. On the other hand, a radiation weapon where ISIS then announces that those exposed may have a 50% increased chance of dying from cancer in the next 30 years seems rather preferable to a bunch of nutters unloading assault rifles into a crowd.
This is really just a continuation of the 'OMG freak out about nuclear thing' that has been with us since the 60s. Nuclear can be bad, but there is also radiation all around us, and we do know how to detect and manage radiation risks. People still live next to Chernobyl and Fukushima did actually melt down, yet Japan was still there when I visited last year.
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(...) radiation all around us, and we do know how to detect and manage radiation risks.
Wrong! Most people still refuse to wear sunscreen.
(...) and Fukushima did actually melt down, yet Japan was still there when I visited last year.
Good to know, thanks!
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Sunscreen is overrated. Sure it prevents you from radiation burns from too much UV-B, but you're also out in the sun too long exposed to other radiation, some of which is more likely to cause cancer than UV-B. I'd rather be out in the sun less time and collect the Vitamin-D I get from UV-B radiation, personally. Also some of it is toxic and may cause cancer on its own. Not to mention it kills the reefs, so you're not supposed to go into the water near reefs until it soaks into your skin.
Timeline of the November 2015 isotope theft (Score:2)
This is really just a continuation of the 'OMG freak out about nuclear thing' that has been with us since the 60s. Nuclear can be bad, but there is also radiation all around us, and we do know how to detect and manage radiation risks.
Small package of radioactive tracer material left unattended.
Dude walks past and notices,hey, this shit isn't nailed down.
Dude thinks, maybe I can score some bucks off of this.
Dude takes it and stashes it somewhere.
Dude starts asking around, who wants to buy [this thing?]
Everyone says, "Don't let the Americans know you got that. They're fucking crazy!"
Dude just gives up.
Company searches for the thing. It's gone.
Company believes in responsible (wince) disclosure.
Company is wincing because Americans shrug at
no way, totally wrong (Score:2)
> $ perl -pni.bak -e 's/Bin Laden/ISIS/sgi'
Nah, these are morons we're dealing with. They did ctrl-f, not Perl.
Otherwise, spot-on.
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Combine equal parts radioactive, missing, and Iraq.
That's all you do. It stirs itself.
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Don't you realize that this is the sum of all fears?!
mdsolar again (Score:1)
Once again user "mdsolar" is back to spread FUD about alternatives to his solar energy business. In this case the "logic" is particularly absurd: some radioactive material is unaccounted for -> terrorists could make a radioactive bomb -> all radiation is bad -> nuclear energy also involves radiation -> you should use solar.
Perhaps it's time for user "mdnuclear" to post about how the sun is dangerous because some people in Australia got skin cancer?
got an anonymous tip... (Score:3)
... about a certain Emmett L Brown.
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The story was about Iraq - not Iran.
It is the usual mdedia/DHS scare mongering (Score:3)
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They said in the article this stuff is a gamma emitter (which also means it's a different isotope of iridium than most people know about), so no, you don't have to ingest it. A dirty bomb made with an alpha emitter would need to be ingested to be most effective (because dead skin stops it). Beta is a mixed bag. In any case, you are correct that dirty bombs definitely don't have the range or killing power of a nuke by a long shot.
WMD's in iraq !!! (Score:2)
It was just a matter of time until they found them... er, i mean, lost them.
Re:WMD's in iraq !!! - Operation Avarice (Score:2)
http://www.breitbart.com/natio... [breitbart.com]
The CIA, working in coordination with U.S. troops, bought and destroyed hundreds of nerve agent rockets during the occupation of Iraq.
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Hundreds of rockets, most of which were empty or with dummy warheads. The nerve agents found in a few were massively degraded (due to their shelf life being greatly exceeded). So we're still waiting for the WMDs we were promised.
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Yea, dang that Sadam lied to us before the war started about having those things and being willing to use them, never mind that he had used them before on his own people... BTW, he is dead now... Keep grinding that political ax, it's been more than a decade now.
Nike Free Running 2016 Pas Cher (Score:1)
Half-life 73 days (Score:3)
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Was it handled by a British spy? (Score:1)