“The military yesterday maintained its support for the so-called GT200 bomb detectors by conducting a demonstration in front of reporters instead of putting it through scientific tests as demanded by academics. The bomb detector, which is widely used in the restive South, became the subject of controversy after the UK banned the export and use of a similar type of bomb detector going under the name of ADE 651 and arrested its manufacturer Jim McCormick.” (The Nation)

Why, exactly, might the UK ban the export of a bomb detector, and arrest the manufacturer of the device? Well it has something to do with this,

“The director of a British company that supplies bomb detectors to Iraq has been arrested on fraud charges, and the export of the devices has been banned, British government officials confirmed Saturday. Iraqi officials reacted with fury to the news, noting a series of horrific bombings in the past six months despite the widespread use of the bomb detectors at hundreds of checkpoints in the capital.” (NY Times)

Oh, wow, clearly there is a real flaw in the design of these bomb detectors. Let’s see how this thing works and why it might have such a spectacular failure rate.

The ADE and ATSC corporate websites are… um… “under construction” at the moment, so I went to check out the website for the GT200, the model under investigation in Thailand

Here is a video from the E-K9 website– Intro to the GT200

Yea. That’s it. That’s their video, from their professional, promotional, buy-this-product-from-us website.

Here’s another one– Detection in Airport Security

Those men are wearing uniforms. And they are training to search for bombs. Think about that.

The website never, never, comes right out and tells you what the hell this plastic box with an antenna actually does, or how it works, but fortunately there is a little place called Wikipedia, where the truth shall always come out.

“The ADE 651 consists of a swiveling antenna mounted via a hinge to a plastic handgrip. It requires no battery or other power source, its manufacturer stating that it is powered solely by the user’s static electricity. To use the device, the operator must walk for a few moments to charge it before holding it at right angles to the body. After a substance-specific ‘programmed substance detection card’ is inserted, the device is supposed to swivel in the user’s hand to point its antenna in the direction of the target substance. The cards are claimed to be designed to ‘tune into’ the frequency of a particular explosive or other substance named on the card.“

Okay, so that tells us… nothing. Maybe that New York Times article has a little move info…

“Iraqi officials said they would begin an investigation into why their government paid at least $85 million to the British company, ATSC Ltd., for at least 800 of the bomb detectors, called ADE 651s… The ADE 651 is a hand-held wand with no batteries or internal electronic components, ostensibly powered by the static electricity of the user, who needs to walk in place to charge it. The only moving part is what looks like a radio antenna on a swivel, which swings to point toward the presence of weapons or explosives. An associate of ATSC, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the devices were manufactured at a cost of $250 each by suppliers in Britain and Romania. ‘Everyone at ATSC knew there was nothing inside the ADE 651,‘  he said.”

Nothing in it? $85 million dollars? Thousands of dead Iraqi citizens because these things are NOT detecting bombs?

“The Iraqi government, according to its auditors, paid $40,000 to $60,000 for each device, although it determined that ATSC was marketing the device for $16,000. The additional money was said to have been for training, spare parts and commissions. The Times of London quoted Mr. McCormick in November as saying that the device’s technology was similar to that of dowsing or divining rods used to find water. ‘We have been dealing with doubters for 10 years,’ he said. ‘One of the problems we have is that the machine does look primitive. We are working on a new model that has flashing lights.‘ Shortly after the arrest on Friday, the BBC reported that it had arranged a lab test of the device and found that its bomb-detection component was an electronic merchandise tag of the sort used to prevent shoplifting.”

This man is NOT an idiot. I want to be very clear on that. This man is not delusional enough to actually believe that an empty plastic box can detect a bomb. It’s like he said, it’s very similar to dowsing. A man walking around with a stick hoping to find water, a soldier walking around with an antenna trying to find a bomb, subconscious movements of the user effecting the device he or she is holding, it is EXACTLY the same thing. And Mr. McCormick doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that he is selling a useless product at a disgusting mark up to a war torn and desperate country. He doesn’t care that he is almost directly responsible for bombings that have killed innocent people.

However, he was a business man with a great idea. Lot’s of products that don’t really work are on the market, and people will buy just about anything if the commercial is colorful and loud enough (I still miss you, Billy Mays). The person responsible for signing the contract, the person who saw this product and agreed to let it be a prevalent security measure in Iraq, is an idiot. The complete lack of critical thinking, or investigation, or even asking for any studies done by ATSC proving the validity of their claims (peer reviewed, double blind studies performed: None. Zero. Ever.) is beyond belief. But, whatever, buyer beware, let the free market decide, what’s the harm in the placebo effect, random chance is better than nothing. It’s not like it’s going to hurt anyone.

While we have yet to really find some nukes, we have found items that could be used in the process.

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of “yellowcake” — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What’s now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

Go here for the full AP/Yahoo story. At any rate, it looks like we have a safer Iraq with this stuff out of the region.

Has it ever been this bad before?

In Austin: A shooting, a man held up in a house that was then lit on fire.
In Virginia, a lunatic guns down 32 people
In Somalia, War is currently raging with Islamic/Muslim extremists
In France a new president run off between the far right and the far left. They both have to deal with things like a Muslim population that houses potential insurgents that – have made clear they want to turn France into a Muslim state.
In Isreal the terrorist group Hamas urges Palestinians to up rocket attacks to kill more Jews.
In Iran, the country continues to push its agenda of backing Hamas and Hesbolah. Iran previously kidnapped British troops and coerced them into stating they had come into Iranian waters.
Syria, backs Islamic fundamentalists.

A lot of people talk about intolerance and peace and how we should be tolerant of religions and shoot for peace. Looking at the world view, it seems one religion feels differently. Apparently there are a lot of “Militant Islamic” groups and they continue to get financial backing. Can religions take over countries in modern days? Why does one feel that Islam is the only religion? What is the breaking point for civil society?

Just as the Iraq Constitution’s first draft has passed the US reached 2000 Casualties. But as others in the miliary have stated this number is so that people like Cindy Sheheen, and the rest of the complete nut cases can use it for their own purposes. She cares little for those 2000 people that have died, she only cares about the limelight.

Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, chief spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, blasted media coverage for focusing on the 2,000 figure, saying that “the true milestones of this war are rarely covered or discussed.”

“The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone,” he said. “It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives.”

Its a shame that people are touting this around like a badge of honor, a “milestone”. It actually makes me sick.