Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!tellab5!laidbak!mcdchg!att!cbnews!military From: cbl@uihepa.hep.uiuc.edu (Chris Luchini) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: unconventional terror tactics (Iraq) Message-ID: <1990Oct17.010103.12116@cbnews.att.com> Date: 17 Oct 90 01:01:03 GMT References: <1990Sep27.031917.8257@cbnews.att.com> <1990Oct15.033902.13042@cbnews.att.com>,<1990Oct16.011136.11731@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military-request@att.att.com Organization: High Energy Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Lines: 51 Approved: military@att.att.com From: cbl@uihepa.hep.uiuc.edu (Chris Luchini) From: cbl@uihepa.hep.uiuc.edu (Chris Luchini) In article <1990Oct16.011136.11731@cbnews.att.com>, finn%isi.edu@usc.edu (Greg Finn) writes: > > >From: finn%isi.edu@usc.edu (Greg Finn) > >In article <1990Oct15.033902.13042@cbnews.att.com> morgan@ms.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) writes: > > >> ... I don't really believe that something as "hot" as rad-waste >> could be effectively smuggled into the US or Canada. ... > > That is not historically accurate. This is from memory, >someone else can probably provide you with the attribution (try New >Scientist or Technology Review first). > Approximately two years ago a truck was stolen. In the truck >was a safe filled with radioactive cobalt. The thieves sold the safe >as scrap in Mexico, where it was smelted, resulting in the >incorporation of the cobalt into reinforcing rods and cast table >supports. Some workers at the smelter became quite ill from radiation >poisoning. Product was shipped back into the USA by the truckload and >detected only by a incredible stroke of luck, some of the rods were >sent into a DOE plant where the exit detectors detected radioactivity >coming into the plant. It was more than 5 years ago, I was working at Los Alamos at the LAMPF (Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility). A worn out Cobalt 60 cancer treatment device was stolen off the loading dock of a Juarez hospital, sold to a junkyard. The pellets leaked out of the broken container, some were melted into some steel and sent across the river. A truck carying re-bar drove into LAMPF by mistake, and when leaving it set off the rad detectors. A smelter in El Paso detected some of this contaminated steel because they use gamma attenuation to measure the thickness of the hot iron as it goes into the rollers (Sir, We have a negative 4' thick iron ribbon..... :) ) Lots of people get very sick, I remember seeing a video shot of a ward filled with people with no hair (~50-100) One of two of the people who stole the stuff in the first place died. -Chris -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |I love my country, I fear its government |Are you registered to Vote? | | Chris Luchini/1110 W. Green/Urbana IL 61801/217-333-0505 | | Cluch@fnald.bitnet cbl@uihep.hep.uiuc.edu| | --------------------------------------------------------------------------