"breaking news" that NYPD is deploying to search for or intercept a aQ threat of a "radiological bomb" in New York (one news site claims "near 34th street"?)
threat is "unverified", of course, we'll see - radiological bombs are mostly psychological weapons, very hard to get material together for a bomb and then dispersed in a way that makes much of an actual health effect - more something for causing panic and dislocation, especially with false alarms
also interesting that right wing news sites have been buzzing with "imminent 'dirty bomb' attack" speculations for several days now
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=n&q=radiological+threat&btnG=Search
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Acccording to the linked reuters article:
A secondhand source with a rather obvious political bias. One would think that our own intelligence agencies would have access to the primary sources, instead of relying on what some Web site claims about other Web sites.
The main (maybe only?) effect of a radiological (dirty) bomb is economic.
As we saw from Chyrnobel, relatively few people died (I think 600 or so) and a few thousand more have increased likelyhood of contracting cancer in their lives. However, the towns near Chyrnobel had to be evacuated with these areas remaining "no-man's land" for the next few centuries.
Likewise, a radiological bomb set off in Manhattan would kill, maybe, a few 100 people, much less than 9/11. My understanding is that if such a device goes off near where you are standing, that if you walk out of the area within 1 hour or so, that you will be OK. Also, in my particular case, I take lots of anti-oxidants, including Co-Q10. These are believed to radiation-harden oneself.
However, parts of Manhattan would have to be evacuated and left as a no-man's land for 50-100 years (cleaning up the radiation in a messy place like Manhattan is next to impossible). Given this, what do you think would happen to all of that fancy, expensive Manhattan NYC real estate? What do you think would happen to Donald Trump's financial well-being? This is the real purpose and target of a radiological bomb.
The problem with such a device is that NYC, San Francisco, and maybe Miami Beach are about the only worth while targets for such a device. These are the only places with high-enough population density on expensive real-estate to may such an attack worth while.
Places like LA/Hollywood/Beverly Hills are way too spread out for such a device to have much effect. Phoenix and Dallas? Forget it. These places are such sprawls that its like "wheres the target?".
Honestly, I would not worry too much about a radiological bomb attack in the U.S.
The debka website has a reputation for all kinds of outrageous claims and predictions that fail to materialize.