33 thoughts on “So What Was Found In San Diego?”

  2. Given the government’s definitions, a weapon of mass effect could be anything from a jackknife to a cup of coffee.

  4. I wouldn’t necessarily make too much of this. In the government’s eyes any explosive can be construed as a WMD. It’s distressing that there is so much opacity about this event though.

  5. He could be referring to the Padilla affair. Jose Padilla was accused of plotting to bring radiological weapons into the US, but didn’t actually do that.

    I think that it’s likely that if this guy had heard of a real WMD plot, it would have already been common knowledge (the possibility remains open that he’s the first leak, in which case, we’ll hear more). Instead, my suspicion is that he’s probably just repeating poorly recalled gossip.

  6. I’ve never heard a credible account of what would make a “dirty bomb” so hard to clean up.. I mean, yeah, it’s radiation and you have a lot of workers to limit the exposure of any one team but those processes have been understood since the 50s.

    The most credible thing I’ve heard is something along the lines of “if there was a dirty bomb in time square we’d have to close it down for a week and that’d be devastating to the local economy”. Honestly, I think you’d have to do the same for a mail truck full of tnt.. so what?

    I know, I know. People are irrational when it comes to radiation. News at 11.

  7. I can’t put a lot of stock in the story. The guy says he never found one. So if he had answered the next question, it would be 2nd or 3rd hand knowledge at best. The fact that the guy didn’t close his trap on getting such questions, though he was indeed not the most knowledgeable person about the topic, is a great reason for the PIO to shut him off.

    And whats this crap about WME? Didn’t someone sue for acronym use of WMD? Is “Destruction” to negative, so they chose to use “Effect”? Or is it some commentary on the exactness of words, in which a biological or dirty bomb weapon wouldn’t necessarily destroy as much as effect via terrorism; even though it is indeed effective quite a bit of destructive damage will be done?

  10. WME obviously refers to the fact that terrorist have a hard time getting weapons grade material but it’s rather simple to get radioactive material otherwise. What’s amazing is they haven’t actually succeeded [yet] in setting off a dirty bomb somewhere.

    Our reaction is going to be subdued until we get another mass death toll after which we will react but without the focus we need to deal with the threat.

    Until we face the fact that we are considered the great satan and they will continue until we eradicate all those teaching this view this will continue indefinitely. We need to clean house internally then deal with belligerent countries appropriately. Anything less means we live with it.

  11. Trent Waddington Says:

    I’ve never heard a credible account of what would make a “dirty bomb” so hard to clean up.. I mean, yeah, it’s radiation and you have a lot of workers to limit the exposure of any one team but those processes have been understood since the 50s.

    Trent, you’re looking at cleaning up a dirty bomb attack from a rational perspective. That will not do. We’ve been bombarded with the evils and dangers of radiation for decades by the anti-nuke crowd. The hysteria following a dirty bomb attack is likely to be so severe that people would demand the cleanup to result in “lower than background” radiation levels. And that’s before the hoards of environmental lawyers and other assorted lowlife bog down the process for years with multiple class action lawsuits. Just getting the environmental impact statements through the bureaucracy will likely take years.

    America used to be the country where we did big things but those days are largely over. Look at the big projects of the past (e.g. constructing the Empire State Building in less than 2 years during the Great Depression) and compare them to how long it’s taking to replace the World Trade Center buildings following 9/11.

  12. Just put biobags over the discharge pipes of the storm drains and start with high-pressure hoses and blast it down the drain.

    Why make decon harder than it has to be?

  13. I’ve never heard a credible account of what would make a “dirty bomb” so hard to clean up.. I mean, yeah, it’s radiation and you have a lot of workers to limit the exposure of any one team but those processes have been understood since the 50s.

    I think it’s probably just that, Trent. Unlike chemical spills, you can’t stop the stuff with good clothing, which means you can train a few responders intensively (which is expensive). In principle you need to train a lot of responders intensively, which is very expensive. Alternatively you can do what the Soviets do, which is just use amateurs and lie to them about their risks, but then they might make an expensive mistake.

  14. Carl,

    The difference is you can take your time and work it toward the center, no need to rush into the hot zone. No Chernobyl urgency here.

  15. Maybe, Mike. I’m not fully convinced. Obviously if you’re a terrorist with a brain, or rather with brains back home directing the operation, you’re going to pick a target that is vital, something where either it has to be fixed very quickly or else duplicated very expensively. I mean, to pick a random example, how about LAX? Or even worse, the port of Long Beach? Without the use of the port, half the western United States would grind to a halt within weeks. And how do you duplicate a port and its associated rail transport nexus? All you’d really need would be a low airburst that showered a thin layer of plutonium dust all over the quays and loading cranes.

  16. What Carl said. Also, hitting something irreplaceable that would be completely destroyed by decontamination procedures, like the contents of a museum, would be devastating in a way that did not directly involve mass casualties.

    Having said that, I am also in sympathy with the argument that official overreaction is one of the greatest risks of a radiological attack. I can imagine an entire state coming under draconian regulation, up to and including permanent evacuation, over an event that seriously contaminated 1% or less of its total area.

  17. Even if there is a plan on the shelf, there might not be sufficient training or personnel to implement it correctly. HAZMAT teams are highly trained but their training mostly focuses on chemical spills from trains and trucking.

    The hardest part of training for a dirty bomb or other big event, is not the training of an individual but the coordination between the 20+ agencies that will be responding. One of the big problems with the Katrina response was that all of the firefighters and policemen that came from all over the country did not share common procedures or vernacular.

    California and other states on the West coast have do have an advantage. Every summer they get practice organizing emergency services from multiple states on a large scale. Fighting forest fires isn’t the same a cleaning up a dirty bomb but they get practice with logistics and coordination with ground crews and close air support. Many of the people organizing firefighting efforts will be responsible for the response to a dirty bomb.

    So, I guess my point would be don’t expect a perfect response and that California is in a better position to respond to a dirty bomb type event than some other states.

  18. I consider the threat of a dirty bomb to be completely nonexistent. Does anyone consider how difficult it is to transport, completely concealed, the radioactive material for a dirty bomb?

    If I were to worry about a terrorist attack, I would worry about something much more mundane and imminently doable like a vanload of homemade explosives being driven into an office building. But I don’t even worry about that, because the likelihood of such a mundane event, as that, impacting me, anyone I know, or anyone on this blog or anyone who they know is almost completely nil. You will likely increase your lifespan more years by not worrying about a terrorist attack than by preparing for one.

    Yes there are crazies in the world who want to kill you and or destroy the USA. So what, there always have been. Does the current set of crazies possess the education, talent, mores, and wherewithal to follow through? Not a chance. Are they from a culture which will ever develop the educational base, talents, mores and wherewithal to follow through? Even less of a chance.

  19. Larry J – “Look at the big projects of the past (e.g. constructing the Empire State Building in less than 2 years during the Great Depression) …”

    Oh the Irony!

    “Hottest” background radiation in the U.S. – Base of the Statue of Liberty, Grand Central Station and the Empire State Building garage. Granite and uranium have an affinity, ya know.

  20. Jard, I don’t think the police are routinely outfitted with Geiger counters, and even if they were, I doubt they randomly scan vans they pull over for traffic violations while they run the plates. So I’m not sure why you think it’s hard to transport radioisotopes.

    But on the larger point, I agree with you. I don’t think the threat of a “dirty bomb” is particularly acute. Heck, I’m on record (here) as being relatively unworried about the Iranian nuclear bomb program.

  21. ““Hottest” background radiation in the U.S. – Base of the Statue of Liberty, Grand Central Station and the Empire State Building garage. Granite and uranium have an affinity, ya know.”

    A lot of concern about granite counter tops these days.

  22. Carl you are right, the police don’t; but the Border Patrol does. When you drive through the checkpoints your car goes through a battery of sensors. At the same time, your auto, the license plates and all the passengers are photographed day or night.

    I don’t worry about terrorists but I am paranoid about the government. My pet theory is that DHS is amassing a huge database of every auto and face driving near any part of the border as well as a database of every face and name going through airport security. I figure one could troll through those two databases and find patterns. Whether those patterns could help to predict or stop a potential violent crime, I don’t know.

  23. Carl,

    There are detectors along roadways. Please don’t ask me anymore.

    PS, don’t try driving into a major city with a densometer unless you have the apropriate hazmat placard on the outside of your truck. Wasn’t me but I know the can tell and this was 20 years ago.

  24. I see, Jard. Well, let us hope none of the would-be importers have heard of the alpha-stopping powers of, say, lead. Maybe they keep an eye out for unusually strongly-sprung trucks carrying strangely heavy loads…

    Please don’t ask me anymore.

    Why not, Mike? If it was secret, you’ve already screwed the pooch. If not, why not share interesting details?

  25. Why not, Mike? If it was secret, you’ve already screwed the pooch. If not, why not share interesting details?

    It’s probably “sensitive security information”. That is, it’s publicly available knowledge, but illegal for knowledgeable people with a security clearance to discuss.

  27. Jardinero 1 is dead on. The border check points have been sniffing for chemical and radioactive cargoes for years and years. When I started hauling trailers in and out of Canada in the early 90’s they had systems in place and well up to speed.

    You’d get caught at a checkpoint. But MILLIONS of people just walk across, in between those ‘official’ crossings. How easy would it be to carry 20 or 30 pounds of lead wrapped around 10 pounds of radioactive materials? Seems easy enough, they smuggle 100 lb bales of pot daily.

  28. For a dirty bomb, you don’t need high-grade radioactive materials. You can find a considerable amount of low-level radioactive materials inside the US. Remember, a dirty bomb attack would be part psychological and part legal as environmental lawyers dragging out the process of determining how clean is “clean enough.”

  29. Thus my earlier comment. The entire town of Times Beach was bulldozed in ’83 over a 1-in-1,000 possibility that one of its 2,000+ residents might get cancer if the dioxin exposure continued for another 30 years. The regulatory environment is much worse now.

    On the subject of radioactivity and detectors, there have been several instances of people being arrested after getting 137I thyroid treatments and inadvertently tripping detectors, including (I believe) one case of a cat owner being cited after improperly attempting to dispose of his cat’s waste after the animal was treated with radioactive material by a veterinarian. It is my understanding that various sensitve locations, including entrances to the NYC subway system and the National Mall, are equipped with hidden detectors.

  31. Supposing one could obtain the material for a dirty bomb. It would induce substantially more terror and panic to drop it into the water supplies of a big city like LA or NYC or Houston which require groundwater from nearby reservoirs. Remember the panic back in the seventies back when just a couple of bottles Tylenol were laced with cyanide?

  32. The entire town of Times Beach was bulldozed in ’83 over a 1-in-1,000 possibility that one of its 2,000+ residents might get cancer if the dioxin exposure continued for another 30 years. The regulatory environment is much worse now.

    That’s my thought in regards to “destruction” vs “effect”. If we really treated a WME (whatever that means) as a terror weapon the affects a large area, is effective in creating fear, but otherwise is ineffective in damage because it was easy to clean up; then I get “effect”.

    Unfortunately, I think the reaction to any weapon that has a radius of effect greater than a 100 yards will be rather destructive. As many have noted here and previously, 9/11 was far more destructive than it should have been, and the weapon there was initially just box cutters.

  33. Grimly amusing: I was once treated in a rather unusual way in a hospital, for about 36 hours. For reasons I won’t go into I needed a PET bone scan, which requires the injection of technetium with a half life of a few hours IIRC. The unusual thing? All bodily wastes were treated as radioactive waste – which they were. 🙂

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