Dirty bomb
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The term dirty bomb is primarily used to refer to a radiological dispersal device (RDD), a radiological weapon which combines radioactive material with conventional explosives. Though an RDD is designed to disperse radioactive material over a large area, a bomb that uses conventional explosives would likely have more immediate lethal effect than the radioactive material. At levels created from most probable sources, not enough radiation would be present to cause severe illness or death. A test explosion and subsequent calculations done by the United States Department of Energy found that assuming nothing is done to clean up the affected area and everyone stays in the affected area for one year, the radiation exposure would be "fairly high", but not fatal. Recent analysis of the Chernobyl accident fallout confirms this, showing that the effect on many people in the surrounding area, although not those in close proximity, was almost negligible.[1]
Because a terrorist dirty bomb is unlikely to cause many deaths, many do not consider this to be a weapon of mass destruction. Its purpose would presumably be to create psychological, not physical, harm through ignorance, mass panic, and terror. For this reason dirty bombs are sometimes called "weapons of mass disruption". Additionally, decontamination of the affected area might require considerable time and expense, rendering affected areas partly unusable and causing economic damage.
It is thought that during the 1960s the UK Ministry of Defence evaluated RDDs, deciding that a far better effect was achievable by simply using more high explosive in place of the radioactive material.[citation needed] Any form of weapon designed to provoke any kind of biological damage—short of killing a person outright—is banned under the Geneva Protocol, making the development, deployment and use by any signatory state an illegal activity.
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[edit] Other uses of the term
The term has also been used historically to refer to certain types of nuclear weapons. Due to the inefficiency of early nuclear weapons, only a small amount of the nuclear material would be consumed during the explosion. Little Boy had an efficiency of only 1.4%. Fat Man, which used a different design and a different fissile material, had an efficiency of 14%. Thus, they tended to disperse large amounts of unused fissile material, and the fission products, which are on average much more dangerous, in the form of nuclear fallout. During the 1950s, there was considerable debate over whether "clean" bombs could be produced and these were often contrasted with "dirty" bombs. "Clean" bombs were often a stated goal and scientists and administrators said that high-efficiency nuclear weapon design could create explosions which generated almost all of their energy in the form of nuclear fusion, which does not create harmful fission products.
But the Castle Bravo accident of 1954, in which a thermonuclear weapon produced a large amount of fallout which was dispersed among human populations, suggested that this was not what was actually being used in modern thermonuclear weapons, which derive around half of their yield from a final fission stage. While some proposed producing "clean" weapons, other theorists noted that one could make a nuclear weapon intentionally "dirty" by "salting" it with a material, which would generate large amounts of long-lasting fallout when irradiated by the weapon core. These are known as salted bombs; a specific subtype often noted is a cobalt bomb. It has been suggested that such a cobalt bomb could destroy all life on earth, although that has been debated. In the post-Cold War age, this usage of the term has largely fallen out of use.
[edit] Incidents
In November 1995, rebels from Chechnya planted, but did not detonate, a RDD in Moscow's Izmailovo Park. The bomb consisted of dynamite and caesium-137 removed from cancer treatment equipment. Reporters were tipped off about its location and it was defused.[2][3]
More recently Dhiren Barot from North London pleaded guilty of conspiring to murder innocent people within the United Kingdom and United States using a radioactive dirty bomb. He planned to target underground car parks within the UK and buildings in the U.S. such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank buildings in Washington D.C., the New York Stock Exchange, Citigroup buildings and the Prudential Financial buildings in Newark, New Jersey. He also faces 12 other charges including, conspiracy to commit public nuisance, seven charges of making a record of information for terrorist purposes and four charges of possessing a record of information for terrorist purposes. Experts say if the plot to use the dirty bomb was carried out "it would have been unlikely to cause deaths, but was designed to affect about 500 people." [1]
Terrorism suspect Jose Padilla was initially accused by the United States Government of plotting to detonate a dirty bomb, although the charge was later dropped.
[edit] Cultural reactions
- Dirty War, a 2004 BBC/HBO television film, features the detonation of a dirty bomb next to Liverpool Street tube station in Central London
- The novel Babylon Rising, Book 3: The Europa Conspiracy (2005) by Tim LaHaye & Lateef Marks includes a plot to detonate a dirty bomb over the George Washington Bridge
- In the first season of NUMB3RS, the episode Dirty Bomb (2005), features a group stealing a nuclear waste truck and threatening to turn it into a dirty bomb
- In the novel A Very Dirty Business (2006) by Cuger Brant, a dirty bomb is detonated in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England
- In the film Right at Your Door (known in the U.S. as Deliver Us From Evil - 2006), several dirty bombs are detonated in the city of Los Angeles
- In the second season of Showtime's Sleeper Cell (2006), a terrorist cell plots to plant a dirty bomb aboard an airplane to be detonated over the city of Los Angeles
- In the film Goldfinger, Goldfinger has a dirty bomb that he is going to detonate inside Fort Knox for financial gain by contaminating the contents of Fort Knox, making his own deposits of gold more valuable
- In the sixth season of 24, a planned nuclear bomb in San Francisco turns into a dirty bomb, as the explosion was prevented but the nuclear components were compromised.
[edit] References
- ^ BBC report on Chernobyl
- ^ 'Risk of radioactive "dirty bomb" growing' NewScientist.com
- ^ Dirty bomb history
[edit] External links
- U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Factsheet on Dirty Bombs
- Council on Foreign Relations, Terrorism Q&A: Dirty Bombs
- U.S. Dep't of Labor Occupational Safety & Health Administration, Radiological Dispersal Devices / Dirty Bombs
- American Institute of Physics, "Dirty Bombs" Much More Likely to Create Fear than Cause Cancer
- Federation of American Scientists, Dirty bomb threat analysis
- Health Physics Society, Factsheet
- Health Physics Society, January 2004 study, Dirty Bombs Could Cause Devastating Economic Damage
- CNN, Explosion, not radiation, "dirty bomb's" worst fallout
- PBS, NOVA, Dirty Bomb [2]This Web site was produced for PBS Online by WGBH.Web site © 1996-2003 WGBH Educational Foundation
- Lost and stolen nuclear materials in the US Three Mile Island Alert describes the problem
