www.semp.us/biots/biot_292.htmlIn this article the notion of radionuclides seeping into porous building materials is addressed.
Quoting:
The first approach is sandblasting and demolition of buildings (and monuments), which is problematic if the dirty bomb detonates on the National Mall or in the Capitol rotunda. This approach is also tricky in more standard city-block fare because of the time required to do it; radioactivity from cesium-137, strontium-90, cobalt-60 and other radioisotopes are reactive metals that “don’t just sit on the surface—they bond to it,” according to Thomas McCreery of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Arlington, Virginia. “If the conditions are damp or wet, a water-soluble compound, such as cesium chloride, can seep [an inch] into concrete, brick, marble, and other porous building materials. Within hours to days after the attack, the radionuclides could be inside walls, where it would be much harder to clean up.”
In this case, the danger of a dirty bomb is not long-term exposure to slightly radioactive buildings, but the fact that cleanup can damage or require destruction of building facades and monuments.
Cleanup techniques being studied include sandblasting the affected surfaces, spraying polymers with water to create "peel-off" films containing the contaminants, and using gell/foam substances derived from superabsorbent diaper technology to "pull" contaminants out of the surfaces.
Quoting again:
All three approaches have a similar problem, which is the expense of the materials and the poor feasibility of stockpiling sufficient material in to be of use in a timely manner following a dirty bomb attack. This reality leads to the fourth approach, which is the simplest of all, according to James Conca, director of the Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center at New Mexico State University. The approach is to “deluge the place with water and then let the runoff enter a nearby body of water, where the radiation will become diluted.” Conca predicts that the efficiency and effectiveness with which the first dirty bomb attack clean-up is managed will be of interest to the perpetrators. If it is done well, they may alter their tactics. “The number of dirty bombs we face will be determined by how we deal with the first,” he warned.
So far, al-Qaeda has shown little understanding of what will truly freak out Americans. Their approach is derived from their own patriarcal social model that they are applying to America: grandiose attacks on symbolic patriarchal targets. 911, the African embassy attacks, the USS Cole...
Attacking NY and DC on 911 freaked everybody out for a little while, but we've gone back to our business. New Mexico, Nebraska and Idaho residents (for instance) can either apply the "me-too-ism" mindset to keep themselves scared, or decide for themselves that NY and DC are someone else's distant problem. The attack, large and dramatic as it was, did not "hit home" for a large percentage of Americans. Even the Madrid and London bombings, while affecting a more diffuse target, were still grandiose in scheme, not repeated, and the terrorized have relaxed.
If the current crop of terrorist leadership is eliminated completely without eliminating "terrorism," we may be creating a more clever enemy. If the culture of hidebound-conservatism in the terrorist leaders is eliminated, innovation will replace it. Like making drug-resistant diseases.
"Al-Qaeda in Iraq" has less control over it by the al-Qaeda leaders hiding out in Pakistan, and as a result we are seeing innovation and a developing set of techniques to freak out the Iraqis. Attacks "hit home" more, although the primary targets are still authority figures of various kinds, including the onging attacks on police recruiting centers.
The "dirty bomber" and the "shoe bomber" were both outliers in the al-Qaeda modus operandi, not "mainstream" missions. Rather than grand simultanious attacks, both were designed to be random individual events. But still grandiose and flashy. Both require experts and specialty materials to be carried by a willing martyr. That's a hard combination.
Still, neither one is going to freak out an Ohio farmer or a New Mexico housewife or an Albertson's produce department worker in Pocatello. The current al-Qaeda leadership does not understand these people and how to reach them. I hope they don't figure out how important the women and children and "peasants" are in our cultural model, and how much sway they can have on public opinion.
I say we should be preparing for more of the grand patriarchal attacks, but thinking REALLY HARD about keeping it out of the mainstram of America.
The current "War on Terror" is going to have vast unexpected effects. Oh, sure, some Washington thinktank or another has probably thought this out, but the average citizens aren't thinking or talking about what happens when you cut the heads off the Hydra.
