Dirty Bombs
Nova Dirty Bombs Video
NOVA Dirty Bombs Video
3 minutes 42 seconds
Definition of a Dirty Bomb
The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) defines a dirty bomb as, "type of a “radiological dispersal device” (RDD) that combines a conventional explosive, such as dynamite, with radioactive material." Simply put, a terrorist can obtain a regular explosive, such as TNT or dynamite and attach radioactive material to it. Making a dirty bomb is relatively inexpensive and easy. The figure below from CNN, outlines the main points.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the primary dangers of a dirty bomb are the physical danger of the immediate blast with the danger of diseases related to radiation exposure being secondary. The CDC speculates that a dirty bomb would only contain enough radiation to cause 'immediate serious illness' in individuals in the immediate vicinity of the blast (CDC, 2006).
There are two main components:
Conventional Explosive
The conventional explosive can be anything that explodes, instructions on how to make just an explosive are readily available. For those who like to read books The Anarchists Cookbook contains instructions on how to make TNT and dynamite. As for those who like the internet, a simple google search will yield many results on how to make explosives from household chemicals. In fact, a simple search on Google for "how to make a bomb" will turn up 34,100,000 hits in .10 seconds.
Examples of a conventional explosive include: TNT, dynamite, C-4, and plastic explosive.
Radioactive Material
The second part of a dirty bomb is the radioactive material. This is more difficult to obtain. It can typically be some kind of radioactive waste, because it is easy to steal. Radioactive garbage is typically under less security then weapons grade Plutonium. There are many residential, commercial and industrial uses for radioactive materials. For example, nuclear medicine, smoke detectors, etc... However, this is not the real threat, Susan Combs, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts writes in her Fiscal Notes, "These materials vary greatly in the potential danger they represent. Smoke detectors, for instance, contain only tiny amounts of nuclear material, and many radioactive sources used in medicine lose their potency within days or even minutes” (Combs, 1).
One way to acquire nuclear material for a dirty bomb, as pointed out by the Chicago Tribune, is from the former Soviet Union. The satellite states of the former Soviet Union are in complete economic disarray. "Jobless for two years, Gagik Tovmasyan believed escape from poverty lay in a cardboard box on his kitchen floor. Inside the box, a blue, lead-lined vessel held the right type and amount of radioactive cesium to make a "dirty bomb." The material was given to him by an unemployed Armenian Catholic priest who promised a cut if Tovmasyan could find a buyer."
The collapse of the Soviet Union came as a big sigh of relief for the United States. But with that collapse came the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good news was that an ideological opponent was wiped out. The bad news was that there was some economic instability which led to disorder. The ugly, is the fact that there are lots of weapons and material that are unaccounted for. Materials that can be very deadly if they were to find themselves in the wrong hands. For example, the suitcase nuclear warheads that the Soviets developed, it appears that a few are lost (do not confuse the suitcase nuclear bomb with a dirty bomb, the suitcase bomb is an actual thermonuclear weapon that is small enough to fit in a suitcase).
In the case of Mr. Gagik Tovmasyan, his problem was that he was poor, without a job, and had some Cesium-137. His solution: sell it to make some money. Luckily, Mr. Tovmasyan tried to sell the Cesium to an agent, and ended up in prison. However, nobody is out of the danger, the radioactive material needed is readily available at poorly protected or unprotected bases all over Russia.
Lots of radioactive materials disappear and go unaccounted for. Any of them could wind up as part of a dirty bomb. A few examples of acceptable radioactive sources are radioisotopes of: Cesium, Cobalt, or Americium. Americium-241 is found in some household smoke detectors, but it is in a tiny insignificant amount.
Below is a selection of possible dirty bomb radioisotopes. However, every element in the periodic table has one or more radioactive isotopes, any radioactive isotope can be used in a dirty bomb. The shortened list below has been carefully chosen because these particular isotopes bear an importance due to their commercial and industrial uses.
| Radioisotope | Radiation Type | Half Life | Accumulates in |
| Americium (Am-241) | alpha | 458 years | Lungs, liver, bones, bone marrow |
| Cesium (Cs-137) | alpha, gamma | 30 years | Renal excretion |
| Cobalt (Co-60) | beta, gamma | 5.26 years | Liver |
| Polonium (Po-210) | alpha | 138.4 days | Spleen, kidneys, lymph nodes, bone marrow, liver, lungs |
| Iodine (I-131) | beta, gamma | 8.1 days | Thyroid |
How it all comes together
The conventional explosive detonates, spreading the radioactive material around.
The immediate impact of the bomb is felt through the explosion. A slight gust of wind would be enough to disperse the radioactive material into the air (most scientists agree this will have a negliable effect on health). The problem is that
fear and mass panic will ensue. Imagine the number of car accidents and stampedes a bomb, never the less a bomb with "nuclear tendencies", would cause. People would flee cities clogging highways and bridges, money would be pulled from banks, people would not go to work. This is "terrorism" at its height.
Myths of Dirty Bombs
General Misinformation
There is no thermonuclear explosion, such as that of an atomic bomb. What you see in the picture below cannot happen with a dirty bomb. In fact, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not classify a dirty bomb as a weapon of mass destruction, they refer to it as a "weapon of mass disruption" (USNRC:1). A thermonuclear explosion is the result of a mass of Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239 reaching super criticality. The least powerful thermonuclear bomb can do much more devastation then the most powerful dirty bomb.
A dirty bomb explosion is only as powerful as the strength of the conventional explosive. According to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "in most instances the conventional explosive, such as would have more immediate lethality than the radioactive material. At the levels created by most probable sources, not enough radiation would be present in a dirty bomb to kill people or cause severe illness" (USNRC:1).
Government and Media
Sometimes the government can add to the panic to the idea of the dirty bomb attack. When trying to educate people to try and take away some of the fear and confusion away from the dirty bomb they can unintentionally add panic. Sometime after 9/11 the government setup a website to help inform people about radiological disasters. The website in question was created by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The website is intended for doctors and medical professionals. A link to the site in question is below:
http://remm.nlm.gov/
Shortly after, articles started appearing in newspapers. "Preparing for Impending Disaster", in bold letters, read a section of an article.
The website itself can make some uneasy. Especially the section on "Management of the Deceased", http://remm.nlm.gov/deceased.htm (Fixed link)
Then come the questions about whether or not the United States is ready and prepared for a dirty bomb attack.
Sometimes the media paints a distorted image of what a dirty bomb is. In some cases it is flat out wrong. For instance, the Chicago Tribune published a story with the headline, "Dirty bomb kills three in Baghdad while rape scandal erupts". If you read the article closely it said, "At least three people were killed and dozens injured when a truck carrying canisters of chlorine gas exploded at a fuel station in the Bayaa neighborhood of western Baghdad." Chlorine gas was the culprit, not radiation. If you look at the USNRC defenition, it explicitly states that dirty bombs contain NUCLEAR material spread with a conventional explosive. The media only adds to the confusion. While they have the right idea, that a dirty bomb spreads material, the material must be radioactive. This was just a simple act of sabotage. Bombing a truck carrying chlorine, and as a result, the chlorine spread. That would fall under the category of a chemical attack Jump to chemicalweapons
, yet the media called it a dirty bomb.
Dirty Bombers
The primary driving mechanism behind dirty bombs are the fear and panic they will produce. The ideal candidate would be a terrorist. Terrorists operate by using fear in order to coerce governments or politicians into doing something. Therefore, terrorism and dirty bombs go together.
Jose Padilla
Also known as Adham Amin Hassoun aka Al Muhajir
Jose Padilla has been in the news recently,portrayed as being synonymous with the term "enemy combatant". To some he is a traitor, to others he is a victim, and to the Bush administration he is a terrorist who was plotting a dirty bomb attack.
According to a CNN article, "Officials said that when Al Muhajir arrived in Chicago, he ... was found to have more than $10,000 in his possession...Al Muhajir was working with someone in Pakistan on plans to build a dirty bomb". Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a press conference, "he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and met with senior al Qaeda officials". He goes on to say, "Al Qaeda officials knew that as a citizen of the United States, as a citizen of the United States holding a valid U.S. passport, Al Muhajir would be able to travel freely in the United States without drawing attention to himself".
It is the theory of the FBI that Padilla traveled to Pakistan to conspire to build a dirty bomb with an associate there. On his way back from Pakistan he was arrested. The Department of Justice is treating him as an "enemy combatant", meaning that he can be detained indefinitely without being officially charged with a crime or even having a trial. A Department of Defense press release reads, "The government's No. 1 priority is to defend the American people from future attacks, [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said] 'to do that, we must root out those who are planning such attacks. We must find them, we must stop them and when we have them in our control, we must be able to question them about plans for future attacks" (DoD, 2)
The evidence is a bit thin, but he was caught with money and supposedly associated with senior al Qaeda officials. The $10,000 could have been used to gather materials to build a dirty bomb and detonate it. In addition, he has a long criminal record which shows violence towards others. If you have been following the news recently, Padilla is going to be put on trial but there is no mention of any dirty bomb plot in the list of charges.
Chechen Militants
Another group likely to use Dirty Bombs are the Chechen Militants against Russia. The Chechen have their own country and declare themselves independent. But Russia does not want to let go, and does not recognize their right to sovereignty. Since no country recognizes Chechnya as independent they are not on any atlas. But they are on the news occasionally. Chechnya is located at the South East tip of Russia, next to Georgia. In order to get their independence, the Chechen resort to violence.
If any group ever came close to detonating a dirty bomb, then the award would go to the Chechen. In November 1995 a group of extremists planted a dirty bomb in Izmailovo Park in Moscow and buried it. Sometime later, Shamil Basayev who is one of the rebels called in the threat to a Russian news agency and alerted them to what they have done. The news agency dug up the material and called the police (the video clip shows the package they dug up with the Geiger counter responding to the materials inside). The picture below shows the package with the Geiger counter which is a still shot from the video.
The materials for the bomb consisted of Cesium-137 and dynamite. The exact source of the radioactive material is under some debate. One newspaper article claims it came from a Russian nuclear facility.
The most probable reason for the Chechen using a dirty bomb is due to the fact that there are many nuclear research facilities left over from the Soviet Union that are unsecured. This gives the rebels a perfect opportunity to acquire all the materials they need.
Al Qaeda
Al Qaeda has a lesser dirty bomb capability then the Chechen rebels. The best US intelligence could come up with was blueprints for dirty bombs. If anyone wanted to use a dirty bomb on the United States, Terrorists Al Qaeda would be extremely interested. It is important to note that Al Qaeda is just as interested in acquiring its own weapons of mass destruction as they are a dirty bomb. Plans for dirty bombs were found in Afghanistan, below is a small sample of them.
There is some evidence to show that Al Queida actually built a dirty bomb. The evidence consists of captured Al Qaeida official Abu Zubaydah saying that they have assembled a dirty bomb. There is no sure way to confirm this since the official may be lying. The blue prints prove they put thought into building a dirty bomb.
Dirty Bomb Incidents
There are no incidents of any dirty bomb ever detonating anywhere in the world. However, there have been a few close calls, such as the Izmailovo Park incident in Moscow.
The Real Dirty Bomb
What would happen if a terrorist were to detonate a dirty bomb in Manhattan? At the bottom tip of Manhattan a terrorist detonates a dirty bomb containing radioactive Cobalt. The Journal for the American Federation of Scientists published a study depicting several scenarios. This is a worst case scenario since the radioactive Cobalt would be one inch in diameter and a foot long.
Obviously mass panic would ensue since the detonation. Getting anywhere in Manhattan is difficult enough. And then there is the problem of the clean up. According to the report, "...one-thousand square kilometers, extending over three states,would be contaminated." The Environmental Protection Agency standards for cleaning up radioactive contamination are such that the cancer death rate must be reduced to 1 in 10,000. Most of the buildings in Manhattan would have to be demolished to help with the cleanup.
Health effects
"The entire borough of Manhattan would be so contaminated that anyone living there would have a one-in-a-hundred chance of dying from cancer caused by the residual radiation." There is,however, much debate about the truth of these consequences. A New York Times article entitled, "Nuclear Nightmares" takes a very different approach. It says that a bomb of the same size as listed above, detonated at Union Square would contaminate three different states and "anyone living in Manhattan would have at least a 1 - in - 100 chance of dying from cancer caused by the radiation. An area reaching deep into the Hudson Valley, would, under current Environmental Protection Agency standards, have to be decontaminated or destroyed" (Keller, 2). However, the article goes on to state, "Frank von Hippel, the Princeton physicist, has reviewed the data, and he pointed out that this is a bit less alarming than it sounds. "Your probability of dying of cancer in your lifetime is already about 20 percent...This would increase it to 20.1 percent. Would you abandon a city for that? I doubt it" (Keller, 2).
Long Term Side Effects
"It would be decades before the city was inhabitable again, and demolition might be necessary." three hundred typical city blocks, there would be a one-in-ten risk of death from cancer for residents living in the contaminated area
SO WHAT CAN WE DO?
There is no doubt that the panic ensuing the explosion of a dirty bomb would be enough to cripple a city. People will flee and in a city like New York, the panic would be enough to disturb the economy, not just in the United States, but through out the world. So, the question remains: what can we do?
At first glance, it would be appear that the situation is not controllable: as repeatedly stated in class, it is not possible to deter a terrorist. If a terrorist wants to construct a dirty bomb the materials are more than available, and the bomb can be so small, it can fit into a backpack and detonated virtually anywhere. Therefore, the International Community has two choices: do nothing and hope to avoid such an attack or to work effectively at making sure radioactive materials are closely monitored, no easy task.
The main problem facing policy makers regarding dirty bombs is the mass availability of the materials. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that, “radioactive sources have been widely used for decades to benefit humankind—to diagnose and treat illnesses, to monitor oil wells and water aquifers, to irradiate food to eliminate microbes, and for many other uses (Washington Post, 1). It is widely known that these materials are available to everyday civilians: doctors, scientists, oil mongers. How much do you really trust your doctor? Would he be willing to take a bribe worth millions of dollars to sell the materials, not knowing what the consequence could be? Additionally, how do you eliminate such a threat?
The IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei says there are already measures in place to help prevent this problem. He says in the IAEA Press Release: Innadequate Control of World’s Radioactive Sources:
What is needed is cradle – to – grave control of powerful radioactive sources to protect them against terrorism of theft…One of our priorities is to assist States in creating and strengthening national regulatory infrastructures to ensure that these radioactive sources are appropriately regulated and adequately secured at all times (IAEA, 1).
This is a necessary first step towards ensuring radioactive materials stay put, which is entirely necessary; however, another misconception about illegal radioactive trafficking is that it is a problem only in rouge countries. It seems impossible that the United States and Europe, with of its technology and huge nuclear arsenal and advance medical technology could ever loose track of this potentially lethal material. Not true, in fact the European Union estimates that it looses regulatory control of about 70 sources of the materials and about 30,000 sources which are no longer in use and kept in storage are at risk of being “lost” (IAEA, PR, 2).
Another problem resides in the aftermath of the Cold War and the Arms Race, which gripped the USSR and the United States. The United and the USSR worked relentlessly at building the largest nuclear arsenal, and then as if overnight, the Soviet Union collapsed. Newly Independent States had sprung up across Eastern Europe, many of which had formerly been sites for nuclear build up. What happens in both the United States and the new states of the former USSR, and Russia, all of which have many nuclear storage facilities? The IAEA report states, “...the United States Regulatory Commission reports that U.S. companies have lost track of nearly 1,500 radioactive sources within the country since 1996, and more than half were never recovered” (IAEA, PR,2). Additionally to help both states manage their radioactive materials,
the IAEA, working in collaboration with the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and the Russian Federation’s Ministry for Atomic Energy (MINATOM), have established a tripartite working group on ‘Securing and Managing Radioactive Sources’. On June 12, 2002, officials representing the three sides agreed to develop a coordinated and proactive strategy to locate, recover, secure and recycle orphan sources throughout the Former Soviet Union (IAEA, 2).
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is a key document in preventing such a bomb from being constructed and/or detonating. However, “its effectiveness is substantially undermined…by the refusal of the existing nuclear weapons states to fulfill their obligations under article VI to move to complete elimination of their nuclear weapons” (British Medical Journal, 356). The British Medical Journal hosted an education campaign regarding the threat of dirty bombs and instructions about how to cope with the catastrophe that, which would ensue. They delivered some scary numbers, “the large Russian arsenal contains tens of thousands of tactical nuclear warheads and 603 metric tonnes of weapons grade nuclear material stored at 53 different sites” (BMJ, 356).
So how do we prevent dirty bombs? One answer is obvious but also wholly idealistic: eliminate nuclear arsenals. The world seems to contend it is in full cooperation with this answer; however, it is obvious cooperation is not the case. Additionally, nuclear arsenals are not the only way to acquire nuclear materials: do we ignore the strides made in radiation treatment for cancer patients and the benefits of nuclear energy? The moral answer would appear to be of course not. The best way to prevent such an attack from ever happening would be close vigilance and new technology, not to develop nuclear devices, but to watch the ones we already have.
Propositions
Proposition 1:
Securing the borders of the United States is an effective way to prevent a dirty bomb attack on American soil.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 are something that it is said the world will never forget. For Americans, this attack was especially shocking because it managed to send a dagger through what we thought was our impenetrable American borders. For years, airport security checks have been seen as more of a nuisance than anything else by a majority of Americans, yet somehow even these did not manage to catch the group of hijackers who managed to take control of three planes leaving from and American airport and launch a Kamikaze style attack into the World Trade Center. Looking at the history of dirty bombs, these were not truly seen as a threat before 9/11, but in its wake managed to take on a whole new life.
If we could somehow manage to fully secure our borders, it would follow that a dirty bomb attack would be prevented. Dirty bombs combine common dynamite with radioactive material and are not commonly thought to have a launching mechanism (NRC 2007). Detonation then must occur in the immediate vicinity of the target; unlike a nuclear weapon, it is first necessary to get into the US to then detonate this weapon. Because of this fact, fully comprehensive border security should be able to prevent an individual or organization from entering the United States with a dirty bomb and therefore prevent Americans from this threat.
It is commonly thought that the greatest risks regarding Dirty Bombs result from inadequate security of radioactive materials, specifically those in ex-Soviet states. According to a recent report, after the Bosnian war, Croatia reported 23 units of radioactive material as merely ‘missing’. With the strength of the black market in these areas far away from the US geographically, it is assumed that the radioactive materials for a dirty bomb will come from overseas. If we are able to eliminate the materials needed for this weapon, it is likely that it will never come into existence and can therefore never be detonated on US soil.
Despite these facts, completely securing all US borders is seen as impossible. Doing so would require an amount of financial resources and manpower far exponentially larger than what we now have in place. As it has been demonstrated by the controversies surrounding the flood of illegal immigrants into the country and the Dubai Ports World issue, our borders are not now fully secure. It is unreasonable to assume that we will build a giant metal dome around the entire US to keep everyone in or out, beyond that terrorist organizations, those most likely to use a dirty bomb, operate as individuals not as a state-sized unit. Detection of an individual with a small amount of radioactive material is much harder than rooting out an entire nuclear system of a country.
In addition, Nuclear material exists in the United States and despite current high security levels, it is possible that this material could get into the wrong hands. Acquiring nuclear materials from a domestic source would eliminate a need to transport this weapon across any borders, making border security a non-issue.
What do you think?
Proposition 2:
A dirty bomb is not a viable threat, if it is that easy to build then someone would of done it by now.
Critics may sometimes say that if these materials are so easy to find and relatively inexpensive then we should have already been attacked. A global terrorist network such as Al Qaeda should be able to scrape together the resources needed to assemble a bomb without too much trouble. It seems that a terrorist's goal is to inflict the maximum amount of damage at the minimum cost. Since conventional nuclear weapons are unavailable a dirty bomb would be the next best thing, a "step up" from regular explosives such as TNT, it would seem to be the ideal weapon, the next logical choice.
The fact of the matter is that Al Qaeda wants a dirty bomb. According to a January 31, 2003 BBC News online article, "Their conclusion (British intelligence) was that al-Qaeda had a small dirty bomb but probably not a full blown nuclear device." Although the existence of their dirty bomb cannot be confirmed, it is agreed upon that they can build conventional explosives and, "He (Osama Bin Laden) had acquired radioactive isotopes from the Taliban." So if Al Qaeda has this bomb and the resources, why not use it?
Just because something didn't happen doesn't mean that there is a direct causal relationship. Using that logic we can say that the USA Patriot Act is working, before the USA Patriot Act terrorists were able to fly a plane into the pentagon and two into the World Trade Center. After the USA Patriot Act there have been no terrorist attacks on American soil. Therefore, we can conclude that more terrorist attacks didn't occur because of the passing of the Patriot Act.
Every time you read the news you hear of a new terror bomb plot being foiled. Perhaps the system is working perfectly, and all the attacks are being stopped in their planning stage before they reach potential to do damage. More likely, Al Qaeda is plotting something more sinister or is trying to obtain nuclear weapons and scrapped any plan of a dirty bomb attack.
Proposition 3:
Offer Russia incentives to secure or dispose of radioactive materials which can be used for dirty bombs.
There are people who are literally willing to sell either knowledge or materials to build a dirty bomb or worse nuclear weapons. For example, A. Q. Khan, the man in charge of Pakistan's nuclear program was selling nuclear secrets and materials for more then 20 years. According to an article, "Khan's people sold the equipment and expertise needed to produce nuclear weapons to major U.S. enemies including Iran, Libya, and North Korea"(Albright and Hinderstein 111). Most astonishing of all, he escaped detection for over 20 years. In addition, Russian nuclear facilities are notorious for being poorly guarded or not guarded at all. "The complex of approximately 150 research institutes and production facilities, which is managed by the Ministry of Atomic Energy, is oversized and not sustainable ... the main threat to nuclear materials in Russia is their theft by impoverished and desperate nuclear workers"(Bukharin 127). Clearly, there is a threat.
The possibility of material being stolen from poorly guarded Soviet era facilities is well founded. There have been with Chechen rebels who acquired the necessary materials but did not assemble the bomb or detonate it, the Izmailovo Park incident in Moscow was a close call. The incident was mainly a publicity stunt to get some attention from Russian officials and the media.
There have been attempts by the United States to control Russian nuclear weapons. United States Code: Title 22, Chapter 68: Demilitarization of the former Soviet Union. The United States government recognized that weapons from ex-Soviet Union could pose a major threat to security if they end up in the wrong hands. As a result, the ex-Soviet states received $125 million in aid to disarm and destroy its nuclear weapons, as well to "establishing science and technology centers in the independent states of the former Soviet Union for the purpose of engaging weapons scientists, engineers, and other experts previously involved with nuclear, chemical, and other weapons in productive, nonmilitary undertakings" (22USC, chapter 68, sub chapter I, section 5902, b5). Also important is, "the prevention of diversion of weapons-related scientific expertise of the former Soviet Union to terrorist groups or third countries" (22USC, chapter 68, sub chapter I, section 5901, 1c). The enforcement component allows the United States to verify the destruction (22USC, chapter 68, sub chapter I, section 5901, d4).
The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction of 1991 and its 2003 expansion has been credited with: deactivating 6,934 nuclear warheads, destroyed 637 intercontinental ballistic missiles, eliminating 485 intercontinental ballistic missile silos, destroying 81 mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, eliminating 155 bombers, destroying 906 nuclear air-to-surface missiles... the list goes on (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:2:./temp/~c110HYZLQY::). Something is being done to control Russia's nuclear arsenal.
However, what if Cesium-137 is stolen from a hospital in the United States? What good would securing half of the ex-Soviet facilities do to prevent that, or giving a Russian weapons scientist a job at a newly built technology center so he doesn't begin working for a terrorist organization in order to feed his family.
Russia is only a small piece of the puzzle, the spotlight is not all on Russia. There are other nations such as North Korea and Iran that are supporters of terrorism with active nuclear programs that could give nuclear materials to terrorists. It is also very possible that the material for a dirty bomb could come from one of the hundreds of commercial uses for radioisotopes. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission there are over 300 cases of missing radioactive sources a year. Which means that about approximately every 30 hours radioactive material goes missing in the United States (NRC Factsheet).
Proposition 4:
The United States is justified in being able to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects who plan dirty bomb attacks.
In 2002 the Guantanamo prison opened its doors to captured Al Qaeda terrorist suspects. Of course, those detained have not been officially charged or placed on trial in a court of law. Jose Padilla is one such suspect who was detained as an enemy combatant who was planning a dirty bomb attack. In fairness, the dirty bomb attack "had not advanced beyond the initial planning stages" (Wilke 642). He was detained because he had useful intelligence. "Our interest really in this case is not law enforcement, it is not punishment because he was a terrorist or working with the terrorists. Our interest at the moment is to try and find out everything he knows so that hopefully we can stop other terrorist acts." (Donald Rumsfeld)
Having a terrorist suspect in custody may be beneficial in gathering intelligence since he can have valuable information, which may save lives. If a person attempting to steal Cesium-137 from a hospital is caught, it would be worth while to determine what he was planning. Chances are that he probably won't share his plan with officials right away. Being able to isolate a suspect would be the first step in getting him to talk.
The 5th amendment guarantees a right to "due process of law", which means that no citizen can be deprived of a trial. Jose Padilla is an American citizen, as such, he is guaranteed the right to a trial. Most of the terrorists captured in Afghanistan or Iraq are not American citizens, therefore these special protections do not apply to them.
As the torture convention group pointed out, "terrorist groups, and even militaries have trained their fighters to be resistant to torture techniques".
Proposition 5:
America is not prepared for a dirty bomb attack.
In general, this truly represents the underlying fear of the average American. The nightly news flashes a clip implying that dirty bombs represent a very real fear to soccer Moms and Dads of Suburban Anytown, USA that their families could be the next to fall victim to an attack like this that would cause a Hiroshima-level destructive force. In truth, the Department of Homeland Security and overall public health system in the United States have taken a very real look at how to take current disaster protocols and implement them in the relatively new scenario involving a dirty bomb.
We have discussed the controversies surrounding the threat posed by a dirty bomb; varying estimates of the overall health impact vary from an impact in the billions of dollars with millions of deaths to a health impact equivalent to the damage of smoking a few packs of cigarettes. With such varying estimates of the overall threat, it follows that a variety of different approaches to overall situation management would be present. In a recent article from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, a commonly used emergency management system known as the ‘Haddon Matrix’ was used to handle a theoretical dirty bomb (Barnett, 2005). This system lays out the elements of an attack in an easy to read and understand chart, eliminating many of the administrative errors that became so evident in the aftermath of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. This study, co-sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows just one of many plans already constructed to help manage a dirty bomb attack.
On a larger scale, International Organizations like the G-8 have seen Dirty Bombs as a threat and have moved towards handing this on a global scale. In a 2003 Press release from the White House entitled ‘Countering Dirty Bombs’, several key points were outlined as being central to combating the threat of a dirty bomb. In the release, it stated that:
The G-8 will:
• Recommend practices and standards for national measures to track and recover sources, control exports, and penalize theft or misuse of sources;
• Encourage international activities to locate, recover, and secure high-risk radioactive sources;
• Promote adherence to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources; and
• Consider assistance and technical support to the IAEA and other countries.
Additionally, as the hegemon, the US took on the additional roles of helping former Soviet states track down missing materials that could be used to construct a dirty bomb and raising global awareness of this threat.
What is the current plan in place for dealing with a dirty bomb in the United States?
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) consistently reports that a multi-agency coordination plan is already at work. The DHS suggests that families have a family action plan, with guidelines found at www.dhs.gov. Among the overall plan is an emphasis on treating the immediate after effects as well as the long term health impact on citizens affected by a dirty bomb.
Although the initial argument conveyed by the media implies that the United States is completely unprepared for a dirty bomb attack, these examples show that although one can never truly be ready for something like this, careful planning and consideration has gone into the overall construction of a system for managing a dirty bomb attack.
Proposition 6:
The threat of a dirty bomb is reason enough to launch a preventative war.
As with so many other terrorist threats, the main objective of a ‘dirty bomb’ is not just the physical attack as much as it is the overall climate of fear that this attack spurs. When John Ashcroft announced the capture of suspected dirty bomber Jose Padilla (Abdullah Al Muhajir), he referred to dirty bombs as ‘weapons of mass destructions’ (CNN 2002). As it has been seen before, WMD’s carry a heavy load of political and military complications along with them.
The threat of WMD’s in Iraq was one of the primary reasons cited for going into Iraq as a preemptive war. This distinction is important, because as discussed in Preventative and Preemptive War, preventative wars are illegal in the anarchic global system while preemptive wars are seen at times as necessary to provide a sovereign state with adequate security. Following this train of thought, if a dirty bomb is defined as a weapon of mass destruction as Ashcroft did indeed define it and a reasonable suspicion that a nation possessed WMD’s existed as it was believed in 2003, it would follow that current American policy would agree with the statement that the threat of a dirty bomb is enough to launch a preemptive war.
As a report published by the National Security University states, the security of relatively potent sources of radiation is not always secure, in particular in former Soviet states. As this report notes, in the aftermath of the Croatian war, approximately 23 radioactive units are still unaccounted for. Even with the G-8 agreement and the United States’ commitment to helping these states ensure the security of these materials (White House, 2003), it remains that the materials for these bombs are far more available than one would hope. It is also speculated that terrorist groups like the infamous Al Quaeda have both the resources necessary to build a dirty bomb but also ‘willing martyrs’ to carry out such an attack.
Conversely, speculation regarding WMD’s in Iraq has seen us standing at the four year mark of an unpopular war with thousands dead and even more returning with debilitating injuries. Both the financial and human toll of this war have been far beyond what was predicted. Although it is said that hindsight is twenty-twenty, many now say that it was a mistake to attack Iraq to begin with and that a terrorist organization with no direct state ties should not be equated with a single state seen as ‘the enemy’. As of now, dirty bombs remain a terrorist tool beyond a popular state-level utilization of force. Going along with this, we have seen that it is nearly impossible to launch a war on something with no distinct boundries. The case of Iraq itself is a rather compelling counterargument for launching a preventative or preemptive war based on merely the threat of a dirty bomb.
Another facet of this counterargument is that a dirty bomb is not a threat to the magnitude that a full-out nuclear strike would be. Victims in the immediate vicinity would be impacted most severely, with nuclear fallout providing a health risk for many in the surrounding areas, but many scientists state that the impact would be rather small over the course of a lifetime. We are exposed to radiation every day: it is in our environment, our x-ray at the dentist and a good deal of exposure occurs when we fly closer to the sun. One scientist put it in these terms: if there were to be a dirty bomb attack in midtown Manhattan, yes the people in New York City would be affected but not to the degree that we think. Currently, a person has a 20% chance that they will develop cancer over the course of their lifetime. Exposure to this kind of a dirty bomb attack, assuming that they were not in the direct vicinity, would increase their lifetime risk to something along the lines of 20.1%. With such a small overall impact, a dirty bomb can not be truly defined as a weapon of mass destruction, thereby nullifying the above argument.
Instead, we can think of dirty bombs as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (2007) identifies them: as a "Weapon of Mass Disruption". While both sides of this argument have been laid out, considerable speculation still exists. One of the primary goals of terrorists are to promote a ‘climate of fear’, pushing average Americans to open their mail wearing rubber gloves and convincing many people that riding an airplane is akin to walking around with a target on your chest. Even so, what is the true answer to this? How would American Foreign Policy be shaped by a dirty bomb attack?
Questions
- What makes a dirty bomb different from a conventional bomb?
- Why would a terrorist detonate a dirty bomb as opposed to a conventional bomb?
- What is the common misconception about dirty bombs?
- Do you feel that the threat of a dirty bomb is reason enough to launch an attack?
- What do you feel is the appropriate response to a terrorist organization with a suspected dirty bomb?
- Are dirty bombs something we should be afraid of?
- Do you consider a dirty bomb a weapon of mass destruction?
- The goal of terrorism is not just the attack itself, it is also the creation of a 'climate of fear' around the actual event. Are terrorists succeeding in their ultimate goal by making people truly fear events like the explosion of a 'dirty bomb' or other RDD?
- Do you believe Al Quaeda has a dirty bomb?
- Do you believe that it is right to hold Jose Padilla indefinitely based on the speculation that he is a potential dirty bomber?
Group members
E-mail Group 5
Sources
- http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dirty-bombs.html
- http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=sci_tech&id=5116298
- Janega, James. Dirty bomb kills three in Baghdad while rape scandal erupts." Chicago Tribune 22 February 2007
- Rodriguez, Alex. Soviet-era nuclear material is a target for smugglers willing to sell to anyone." Chicago Tribune 15 February 2007: International News.
- http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/06/10/dirty.bomb.suspect/
- Wallace, Bill . Terrorists shop in Russia for nuclear 'dirty bombs'." The San Francisco Chronicle 10 December 2001: A1.
- British Medical Journal, "Education and Debate". Februrary 9, 2002: pgs 356 - 359
- United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. FACT SHEET "Dirty Bombs" http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dirty-bombs-bg.html
- International Atomic Energy Agency. "IAEA Press Release: Innadequate COntrol of World's Radioactive Sources" September, 2002.
- Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei. The Washington Post "Statements of the Director General", July 2, 2002
- http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/2002/ebWP2002.shtml
- Keller, Bill. "Nuclear Nightmares". NY TIMES ONLINE. May 26, 2002 http://www.faughnan.com/scans/020525_NuclearInevitableReviewNYT.pdf
- Reuter, Peter, Mark Kleiman, and Jonathan Kaulkins. "Dirty Bombs: Response to a Threat." Journal of the Federation of American Scientists 55(2002): 7-8.
- Christiane, Wilke. "War v. Justice: Terrorism Cases, Enemy Combatants, and Political Justice in U.S. Courts." Politics Society 33(2005): 637-669.
- Albright, David, and Corey Hinderstein. "Unraveling the A. Q. Khan." The Washington Quarterly 28(2005): 111-128.
- Bukharin, Oleg. "The Future of Russia's Plutonium Cities." International Security 21(1997): 126-158.
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2711645.stm
- American Forces Press Service. "Alleged Al Qaeda 'Dirty Bomb' Operative in U.S. Military Custody". Department of Defense Newslink, June 10, 2002.
- Susan combs. "Radioactive Waste: Whose backyard?" http://www.window.state.tx.us/comptrol/fnotes/fn0209/radioactive.html
Photo Credits
In order from top to bottom.
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/mobilephones/images/radiation_sign.gif
- http://www.freedomszone.com/archives/dirty%20bomb.jpg
- http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/06/10/dirty.bomb.suspect/call.dirty.bomb.facts.gif
- http://sightsonics.cf.huffingtonpost.com/nuclear-explosion.jpg
- http://images.usatoday.com/news/_photos/2006/04/03/padilla.jpg
- http://www.hooah4health.com/deployment/images/chechnya.gif
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/dirtybomb/images/chro-199511.jpg
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/dirtybomb/images/chro-200301.jpg
Video Clip Credit
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/preview/media/3007_ref.mov
Links
- Globalization
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12038958/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Bomb
- http://science.howstuffworks.com/dirty-bomb.htm
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/dirtybomb/
- http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/dirtybombs.asp
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