Nuke Threat?

[Relbeek Einre]

Hold on a minute. I must hang my head in shame.

If there was a truly credible threat of a rogue party having a nuke we'd see our entire military and intelligence operations diverted to ending that threat by any means necessary. Overnight. This is BS, and if it isn't BS, it's being handled utterly incompetently.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I'm not talking about the tritium in smoke detectors (which is useless as a dirty-bomb material, since it's a low energy beta producer and can't be picked up with the normal contamination meters)

Um, not to second guess a chemist, but many smoke detectors have californium, which is highly radioactive.

My bad Beek. I was thinking exit signs, which use tritium to power the light. But smoke detectors usually use Americium-241. I'm not aware of any that use claifornium. Californium is used in nuclear medicine and in some mositure guages.

[Relbeek Einre]

I see. But would I also be correct in that Americium is also highly radioactive and useful in a dirty bomb?

[Trollbait]

Aren't you the same guy in 2003 who asserted on the board and privately to me that there was definitely WMD in Iraq and that they would be definitely found as soon as US units got over there to inspect?

Very true. I based that on information provided to me at the time. I was wrong as was the information. Analysis based on faulty data tends to be faulty.

Isn't this also the same group that can't even estimate the number of insurgents in Iraq and publicly says they lack human assets in the Mideast making these claims in this article? The same group that also claimed 'we know where Saddam's WMD are' and 'we know Saddam has reconsituted his nuclear program'?

And isn't this the same Al-Qaeda that supposedly purchased an atomic weapon in 2001 for 2 tons of opium and $20 million in cash, according to the Jerusalem Post?

I also have serious credibilty issues with some data comming from our intel community for a variety of reasons. All those reasons for the failure of our intel and misrepresentations by Administration officials have been previously hashed out here on this board so i will not repeat them.

Once again we have an situation where these bits of intel come from a wide variety of sources.....none of which are unimpeachable....so it makes the community a bit gunshy.

I am not stating that Zarqawi does in fact have possesion of any such device. I can only state that the threat is a possibilty, yet unverifiable at this time. Yet we cannot afford to ignore it. I do not think any sensible person would disagree.......yet in your criticism you seem to imply just that.......that we ignore it. You can afford to be skeptical I guess. Those whose job it is to protect the United States cannot.

[Trollbait]

If there was a truly credible threat of a rogue party having a nuke we'd see our entire military and intelligence operations diverted to ending that threat by any means necessary. Overnight. This is BS, and if it isn't BS, it's being handled utterly incompetently.

This is not the movies and it does not work that way. I will reiterate an important distinction. This threat is currently as far as I know unverifiable. This means you cannot go off willy nilly and panic the world without confirmation. The administration made that mistake already. Some type of confirmation must be achieved......lest just pray that the confirmation is not the deaths of innocents.

[Relbeek Einre]

I think any threat we need to take seriously and follow up on it. It's just a matter of how. Invading an entire country based on highly impeachable data = not a good how.

However, Jecks, you lose, because your wounded pride made you pull rank on Partha. Yes, we know you work in intelligence. Quit beating your chest when you get poked in a tender spot -- that shit's probably why we wound up in Iraq in the first place.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I see. But would I also be correct in that Americium is also highly radioactive and useful in a dirty bomb?

As a psychological weapon? Sure, I guess, as would any radioactive isotope. But as something that actually causes some harm? Well, not really. A smoke dectector has about 1/5000th of a gram of Americium in it, so a terrorist would have to break open a lot of smoke dectectors to get a gram of material.

The isotope itself is a low energy gamma producer, so its really not that dangerous if you're not ingesting it or rolling around in it. The isotopes that can really cause some excitement are the high energy gamma producers. The really nasty ones are those that throw neutrons.

[Relbeek Einre]

I thought Americium was a synthesized element and as such had a short half-life, and thus had high energy AND threw neutrons.

[Trollbait]

However, Jecks, you lose, because your wounded pride made you pull rank on Partha. Yes, we know you work in intelligence. Quit beating your chest when you get poked in a tender spot -- that shit's probably why we wound up in Iraq in the first place.

Maybe that is true.....maybe the Presidents ego disrupted his sense of caution......I don't know. Those decisions are made way far above me.

What I do know is that in my case I have no room for that kind of ego. What you perceive as ego is simply an explaination of a dynamic in this particular case. Of course in my arrogance I do like to use cliche.....but it is not intended as a "chest beating" or a "rank pulling"

I am simply trying to get the point across as easily as I know how.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I thought Americium was a synthesized element and as such had a short half-life, and thus had high energy AND threw neutrons.

Americium-241 has a half-live of about 432 years. It tosses alpha particles and low energy gamma. The stuff is produced through beta decay of plutonium-241, so you're correct about the synthesized part, since its a by-product of nuclear reactors using uranium-238 as the initial fuel source.

U-238 + neutron => U-239,
U-239 by beta decay => Np-239,
Np-239 by beta decay =>Pu-239,
Pu-239 + neutron => Pu-240,
Pu-240 + neutron => Pu-241.
Pu-241 by beta decay => Americium-241

[Aabe]

Most proximity highly dangerous nuclear stuff burns out in a couple of weeks, tough fo find that kind of stuff and get it to a blast site and detonate it before it's half life has eaten it up. The longer lasting stuff usually is only leathal if you eat or drink it.

Aabe, you usually post some reasonable stuff.. but the statement above is incredibly ignorant and dangerous.

Radioactive material is kind of like wood, it either burns fast or slow, long half life radioactive material decays SLOWLY. You can put a vial of plutonium in your pocket your whole life and not get a significant dose. Just dont drink it.

Check your old fallout shelter guilds. You can usually leave after a couple of weeks to get thinkgs. The proximity (exteranlly dangerous exposure stuff burns off pretty quickly) ..

The eat and drink stuff strontium, cesium (plants like it better than calcium so ruins farmlands) SP stuff that you grow plants and eat it is the bad stuff. Buit you can work around it pretty well, just dont grow plants in it.

Most radionucliedes are are very heavy which is a good thing if you dont want them to go far.

Bottom line, crashing planes into buildings will cause more deaths IMO. But not more fear.

When you blast material it dilutes as the sqare of the distance from the blast site (actually since most nuke waste is very heavy, much heavier than lead, its probably a much higher dilution factor.). I still think fear and economic paralisis of the area is a far greater effect than the actual casualites. You'll still get more deaths by crashing planes.

[Relbeek Einre]

You didn't need to lay out your dick^H^H^H^Hcredentials on the table to get your point across, Jecks. Pure ego, dude. Sorry.

[Relbeek Einre]

Oh, and smoke detectors do use Californium, Embar.

[Trollbait]

You didn't need to lay out your dick^H^H^H^Hcredentials on the table to get your point across, Jecks. Pure ego, dude. Sorry.

I disagree with your characterazation of my comments.

[Relbeek Einre]

That's OK, intelligent people can disagree. But you're still wrong.

[Trollbait]

This is where I go all Rsak and ask you to prove it...............

nah...........

[Ddrak]

There's nothing new in this thread that I can see. We've hashed out the whole "terrorists with dirty bombs or nukes" thing before. Personally, I'd be far more concerned about domestic terrorism (ie McVeigh) than Al Qaeda with this sort of stuff.

In all, it's a risk/reward question - is the risk of it actually happening worth the manpower to find them, or is that manpower better spent elsewhere.

I will say that Aabe's description of nuclear decay seems somewhat simplistic.

Dd

[Trollbait]

In all, it's a risk/reward question - is the risk of it actually happening worth the manpower to find them, or is that manpower better spent elsewhere

That is correct. Manpower will be spent on this task.....but not the kind of manpower that would be committed if this threat could be confirmed to a greater degree.

[Aabe]

There's nothing new in this thread that I can see. We've hashed out the whole "terrorists with dirty bombs or nukes" thing before. Personally, I'd be far more concerned about domestic terrorism (ie McVeigh) than Al Qaeda with this sort of stuff.

In all, it's a risk/reward question - is the risk of it actually happening worth the manpower to find them, or is that manpower better spent elsewhere.

I will say that Aabe's description of nuclear decay seems somewhat simplistic.

Dd

My take home point is this.

You give a nuke engineer the job of making a dirty bomb and access to anything he wants, yeah he can make a dandy.

Most terroists just want anything they can get their hands on, odds are its not gonna be something that can generate any kind of body count. Really hot stuff is usually fast decaying(low halflife) so probably not gonna be able to acquire it and get it to a blast site fast enough to be very useful.

As a terroist, your job is to inspire fear, not necessarly have big body counts.

So all a terrist needs is something that will set off a geiger counter and have some perceived health threat, no matter how small, associated with it.

He then takes a bunch of the materail (gas lantern mantles for example) and blasts it in grand central station and craps up the whole place.

Government shuts it down when a sweep reveals radiation.

News media frenzy.

Then they discover the radiaition has a low hazard and want to reopen it. Who is up for believing the government saying, "well it is somewhat radioactive, but it's safe."

No they will have to wash it down then spary with polymer, take em a while.

The news media will find some 'expert' to say, "well they say its safe, BUT I sure wouldnt want to breathe or walk near it.

Any reporter with a geiger counter will snoop for any tiny missed spot and scream "they didnt get it all!"

In the end when grand central station reopens and people finally feel safe enough to use it again, they will probably hurry though a little more quickly, wondering if it really is safe.

As a terroist you got lots of inital fear, an economic hit and a nice long term dividend of fear for years to come of everyone that walks through the place.

[Ddrak]

Aabe,

I agree. Except for the part about the lantern mantles - that's just pure fantasy (as is Beek's smoke detector idea).

Dd