Special to WorldTribune.com

by Dr. Jack Caravelli, Geostrategy-Direct

As the U.S. enters the July 4 weekend and the summer travel season with numerous large public gatherings and celebrations, law enforcement and intelligence officials this year are confronting many types of potential terrorist threats but perhaps the most unusual is a dirty bomb attack.

Some commentators such as Rep. Peter King during his July 1 appearance on a Fox News show made remarks that appeared to confuse a nuclear attack with a dirty bomb attack.

The differences are significant. A nuclear detonation would cause massive damage, the combination of blast, heat and radiation capable of killing tens of thousands depending on the size (yield) and location of the detonation.

Dirty bombs have qualities attractive to terrorists and thus present an immediate security threat at a time when the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) is mounting a global offensive using social media to recruit, groom and direct remote actors.

The good news — if that description fits — is that nuclear weapons in the U.S. are accorded extensive albeit far from perfect security. In addition, there are a series of technical barriers that must be crossed before a nuclear weapon can be detonated.

Dirty bombs are almost the polar opposite of the consequences of a nuclear blast.

In a dirty bomb attack there is virtually no physical destruction. One possible dirty bomb scenario would involve the use of conventional explosives to disperse a small amount of radioactive material into the atmosphere, hoping winds would carry the radioactive material over some distance — one mile is a reasonable estimate — again depending on conditions.

There are hundreds if not thousands of radioactive sources that serve useful and even important roles in various commercial and medical settings. Many of those sources have little utility in making a dirty bomb but there are exceptions.

In the early part of the last decade the threat reduction program I was running at the Department of Energy received congressional funding to begin a radioactive security program. Our mandate was to work with overseas partners, beginning with Russia, which had a massive inventory of unprotected sources located in central repositories scattered around the country at what the Russians called Radon sites.

This was an era of cooperation with Russia and I directed our experts to move as quickly as possible to set in place a process to secure those sites.

Doing so required assistance from the Russian government and also the International Atomic Energy Agency which supported our efforts. Before so doing we wanted to understand more about the most deadly sources and asked our experts to assess the situation more closely to identify those sources of greatest concern.

A list of about two dozen radioactive sources was identified. Subsequently, in the open media some of those sources also were identified and can be found on various websites. Unfortunately, after my departure from the energy department the program lagged badly for years due to bureaucratic mischief.

Today the situation is not much improved than when I found it. There also are security vulnerabilities within the U.S. that remain unaddressed.

The dirty bomb scenario described above is low cost and low-tech. It also achieves, through the spread of radioactivity, not only physical harm to those who may ingest some of the radioactive particles but potential broader panic in the area where the radioactive material was released. Publicity is the life blood for terrorists and such an attack would generate global headlines.

Finally, the disruption caused by such an attack invariably would cause considerable and potentially lasting economic consequences. Few would want to shop or eat in an area known to have been involved in a dirty bomb attack.

For this reason areas such as the Mall and surrounding area in Washington, DC and central Manhattan in New York City would be attractive targets for such a dirty bomb attack.

  CIA, Geostrategy-Direct..com, Jack Caravelli, Why the ‘dirty bomb’ scenario is a realistic threat for homeland terrorism, WorldTribune.com