Dirty bomb called 'all but inevitable'

Dirty bomb called 'all but inevitable'

By KEAY DAVIDSON
San Francisco Chronicle
06-SEP-04

A flood of radioactive sources, from discarded cancer treatment machines advertised on the Internet to misplaced industrial gadgets that turn up in junkyards, have yet to be corralled by U.S. authorities three years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, experts say _ and could easily be exploited by terrorists seeking to make a dirty bomb.

The material is so abundant and easy to obtain, the experts say, that it is almost inevitable that a U.S. city will be the target of a bomb salted with radioactive waste.
And if a terrorist attaches ordinary chemical explosives to stolen radioactive sources, then detonates the bomb in or over a city _ spreading a "hot" plume over a huge urban area _ the consequences could be devastating.

Despite valiant efforts by emergency preparedness and military agencies to prepare for such an attack _ including a simulated dirty bomb "attack" in Los Angeles on Aug. 5-6 _ a real-life, devastating attack could cause property losses far in excess of Sept. 11 and have unforeseeable health effects, analysts warn.

The list of woe includes:

_ "There are more than 2 million radioactive sources in the U.S. (that are) used for medical procedures, research and industrial processes," noted Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., in a statement late last year. "In the past five years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported that nearly 1,500 radioactive sources have been reported lost or stolen in the U.S., but less than half of them have been found." .......cont'd

http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=DIRTYBOMB-09-06-04

Couldn't be inevitable because of our imperialist foreign policy, could it?

I heard that in a certain movie once.

as well as the Solomon Islands--sure can sleep easier knowing *they're* watching out for us!

from those 2 million odd radioactive devices amongst us? (actually, methinks the number should be much higher, if all the camping lanterns, smoke detectors, and 747's were properly counted)

The Commies are coming!
Oops! I meant to say, The Terrorists are coming! The Terrorists are coming!

I'm real scared now! Whatever the govt says is OK with me!

from around the time of the DNC? Seems like I've heard this before.

against civilian populations.

All of our depleted Uranium shells and bombs are in effect dirty nuclear devices, and have been in use for years: GW1, Kosovo, Afghanistan, & now GWII. Every one of those places has incredible cancer & birth defect rates compliments of the good ol' US of A and our dirty arsenal.

And oh, yeah. Our own troops, although exposed to less DU than the people in the places we blew up, are carrying the same cancer & birth defect curses.