Experts fear dirty bomb attack in UK is inevitable

International experts in radiation disasters have taken the unusual step of assuming that a terrorist attack with a "dirty" nuclear bomb will take place on a high-profile civilian target, such as the London Underground.

The scientists assess the risk of such disasters in terms of probability, but the unknown nature of the dirty-bomb threat has forced them to assume that an attempted attack is all but inevitable in the future.

An international team of senior nuclear scientists has been established to assess what would happen if terrorists detonated a crude nuclear device or released radioactive material in a densely populated setting.

SNIP

The ICRP, which meets next month to make recommendations on dirty bombs to its 100 member states, works in parallel to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is responsible for the nuclear safety standards that cover radiological material that could be made into dirty bombs. When the IAEA held a conference on dirty bombs in 1998, most governments dismissed the possibility as too remote.

More: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=452729

the kind of story that a government under siege would release to take the heat off themselves.

David Allen
www.plan9.org

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today.

...if it is done correctly, it *cannot* be stopped. I have thought of a devastating way in which the West may be attacked by terrorists that is indetectable (for all practical purposes), is guaranteed to be successful, and will kill tens of thousands -- at a bare minimum. It is simple and hideous. It is so hideous and easy that I will not reveal the method, type, or details of the attack. We *might* be able to stop the type of attack I am thinking of if we spent the entire national budget. Even then...I don't think so.

Dirty bombs are far more trouble for the attackers than the attacked. I don't waste much time worrying about them.

Agents of the Ministry of Fatherland Security are converging on your location as we speak. Resistance is futile.

...I'm thinking of talking to my Senator, Bob Graham. It's possible (probable) that others have thought of this. I would be delighted to find out that such a scenario has been thought of and a solution found. Can't think of one, though.

It's far more likely that a shoulder-fire missle will be used against an airplane either taking off or leaving an airport, than it is a crude nuclear device will be set off.

If I was in charge of homeland security, or even the governor of NY, I would install a 15-foot wall on either side of the Belt Parkway (a section of road that runs from Staten Island to Long Island) that runs alongside JFK Airport.

I've said this before, but it's just too easy for a terrorist with a missle to pull his car onto the shoulder, roll down his window and fire at an airplane.

I drive on the Belt Parkway every week and it's hard not to notice and think about these things.

Those rockets have a pretty large backblast area. It would effect the rocket itself and would totally toast the guy firing it if he tried to fire it out of a car.

They drove a van down Whitehall and fired a missile into the back garden of No 10 Downing Street.

TV commentary later said that the terrorists had probably been watching too much TV and 'it had given them ideas'....

All that yummy radioactive goodness at Tuwaitha...and the US allowed IAEA inspectors to investigate only one of the seven sites...