'Dirty Bomb' Materials Found in Taxi

June 18, 2003
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow

Georgian police have seized a significant amount of radioactive material from the boot of a taxi in the capital Tbilisi. The find comes as a US government study says Washington's plan to "clean up" the threat of dirty bombs is failing.

Georgian officials said two heavy boxes containing isotopes of caesium and strontium, together with another substance, thought to be an unprocessed nerve poison, were found in a routine raid.

US officials fear such radioactive material can be used by terrorists to contaminate large areas, by means of a detonation with a conventional explosive. A spokesman for the Georgian interior ministry said that a device made from the Tbilisi material would work over a 500-600 metre radius, but the contamination would go far further afield.

One man was arrested in the raid on May 31. Police suspect the substances were to be smuggled to Turkey. The UN's monitoring agency, the International Atomic Energy Authority, said that it thought the Georgian findings were reliable.

On Monday, the US general accounting office, a branch of Congress which checks spending, said that the energy department "lacked adequate planning and coordination," in initial efforts to tackle the threat from dirty bombs.

The department had not worked effectively with agencies such as the US nuclear regulatory commission and the UN agency, and "there is a worldwide crisis in tracking and securing" radioactive material.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,979549,00.html