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Scientists Who Smuggle Radioactive Materials
Lasrick writes: Although the complicity of scientists in the smuggling of radioactive materials has been a long-standing concern, smuggling-prevention efforts have so far failed to recognize a key aspect to the problem: scientists are often sought out to test the quality and level of the material well before it is taken to the black market. Egle Murauskaite of the U.S. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) describes why concentrating on this aspect of the smuggling process, long considered less egregious than the actual selling of the material, could really make a difference in keeping radioactive materials off the black market in the first place.
There is no black market for radionuclides - they are useless for criminals. And terrorists would want either something REALLY hot for a dirty bomb (in which case they don't need to do any tests except standing nearby with a dosimeter) or highly enriched uranium or weapons-grade plutonium. Both require expertise to turn into actual weapons.
We know that it is happening since 1985, there had been at least a case of a scientist (E.Brown, if i'm not mistaken) smuggling plutonium to give it to libyan terrorists, or even doing very dangerous experiments with it.
So I bought some Plutonium-186 from Frederick Hallam. Performed exactly as promised. Used to make Electron Pump. Excellent energy source. Would purchase again.
Unfortunately, there are no more TLAs left so the function will have to be folded into existing agencies.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
The black market for radioactive material is crushingly predominately for military or civilian usage of country which have difficulty of getting the material by normal means for a variety of reason. Not terror. In fact let us count the incidents :
1) two incidents with the Chechen burying something in Russia in both case it was source which were orphaned.
2) 2 counts of some intelligence source pretending al quaeda or similar wanting to do radiological bomb (among them Jose padilla which was not even charged for that ! It tells you how much evidence or even capacity the guy had for that).
3) Russia Killing somebody using polonium. Oh wait that's not terror that's assassination by a major country
That's it. NONE of those involved scientist smuggling radioactive material. So why the heck such story come up on regular basis , when it is quite certain that the black market for radioactive material is NOT for terror.
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visit randi.org
I know of a scientist who smuggled a small amount of plutonium into the US. It was needed for an XRF instrument.
I wonder how much of this goes on for legit scientific investigations simply because the legal channels are so difficult to deal with.
Wow, dude. You need to do real research. You clearly didn't even bother reading the article, which gave incidents much more serious then you mention.
The IAEA keeps a database of incidents. Here's a hit from a quick Google search.
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull461/illicit_nuclear_trafficking_3.html
Between the period 1993 to 2003 alone there were 540 confirmed illicit trafficking incidents. Of those 540, 18 involved highly enriched uranium or plutonium.
And that was 2003. We've had another decade since then.
Most incidents aren't reported in the regular news cycle. By the time an incident becomes public knowledge too much time has past for regular people to care. So the only way to understand the actual threat is by following the research. The 24-hour news cycle and political pundits (scare mongers, peaceniks) aren't going to provide anything even remotely related to the facts.
There's a lot of legitimate uses for elements and isotopes, and I can see people not wanting to get all mixed up with government red tape. Do we have a very good reason to ban trade or ownership of THE BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS OF MATTER? I mean, I could see restrictions on the few isotopes that could be used to make nuclear weapons, but other than that it's just another hazardous material.
The main "legitimate" use of radioactive isotopes is in medical tests and cancer treatments. In the U.S. breast cancer patients with a good prognosis can avoid chemotherapy by using radiation instead, and prostate cancer patients can avoid surgery. It's also used to treat painful metastases.
The U.S./U.N. boycott of Iraq created a lot of problems in Iraq for Iraqi doctors who were trying to treat cancer patients. Iraqi doctors (most of whom were trained in the U.K. and hated Saddam Hussein) were complaining in the British Medical Journal and The Lancet that they couldn't get radioactive isotopes, because the people who were running the embargo didn't know the difference between medical isotopes and weapons isotopes. (The "humanitarian exceptions" to the boycott were a cynical farce. The Wall Street Journal once sent a reporter down to the Iraq border where the embargo inspectors were arbitrarily rejecting things like batteries in childrens' toys.)
So the doctors were writing that they had to give patients much longer exposures because of the short half lives of medical isotopes. With weak isotopes, a breast cancer patient would have to spend an entire day on an operating table, rather than half an hour or an hour as we do in the U.S. Eventually the medical isotopes wouldn't work at all.
A few of the medical journals calculated that the embargo cost about 500,000 Iraqi lives, mostly children. One of the biggest hits was that they weren't allowed to import chemicals for water purification, such as chlorine, at all. So they didn't have clean drinking water and the incidence of infant deaths caused by diarrhea soared to third-world levels, where it's a major cause of infant death. As you may recall. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that the deaths were worth it. http://fair.org/extra-online-a...
Iraq used to have the best health care system in the Arab/Persian middle east, free to Iraqis, and patients used to come from around the Arab world. The Iraq war destroyed it. George W. Bush appointed a right-to-life Republican as head of the Iraqi health care system, and his idea of de-Bathification was to privatize it and charge fees. I think Bush also fired all of the doctors who were members of the Bathist party. Bush's appointee did more harm to the Iraqi health care system than the bombs. After security broke down, the Shiites started killing the Sunni doctors and vice versa.
If there is a just God, Bush will go to Hell for destroying the Iraqi health care system. And his torment will be spending eternity with Bill and Hillary Clinton.
In order to continue the "War On Terror" they need to invent bogey men. Reality does matter to those people, just watch TV "News" every now and again.
A point that you miss is that there are countless beneficial uses for radioactive materials that are not related to terrorism, in fact every time you go near a medical facility pay attention to all of the signs.
When is the last time you ever heard a "3rd world countries only want uranium so that they can terrorize the world" speaking politician mention how they believe those countries can achieve medical procedures we use every day in hospitals and labs (not including Universities and other research facilities) without radioactive isotopes. Things like X-Rays, Chemotherapy, CT scans, and everything else found in a Nuclear Medicine office (which is a pretty long list).
Before you "but that's radioactive Iodine, not Uranium" you hopefully know that production of radioactive Iodine requires Uranium. The difference between weapons grade and medical grade Uranium is how much enrichment is done (much less for Medical use, much more for Military use)
Not to stray from the point, but I'd guess that there really is a black market for radioactive materials. The reason for that would not be for "dirty bombing terrorist acts", but because some nations block production in other countries. Prohibitions don't work, and often have an opposite result from the intention.
Iran for example was the target of a massive amount of espionage and insurgency trying to destroy their production, even though their enrichment was just enough for medical purposes (repeatedly verified by UN inspectors). And if you are one of the "Iran is Evil" believers, pray tell us who that so called aggressive nation hell bent on the destruction of Israel and takeover of the world has attacked in the last 200 years? They had to defend themselves against a US armed Saddam Hussein, but did not start that conflict.
With that much money being spent to stop Iran from production, what do you think a Hospital in Cambodia does? Argue when the US yells "terrorist!" and try to produce their own anyway with incredible cost and risk, or buy it elsewhere. Probably the latter, especially when it's probably cheaper and faster to acquire on a black market without all the red tape.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
"Although the complicity of scientists in the smuggling of radioactive materials has been a long-standing concern"
First I've heard of this, what are the names of these scientists caught smuggling of radioactive materials? I do believe we're in greater danger from nation states selling actual nuclear bombs to other nation states.