Steve Quayle News Alerts

June 13, 2002

OTTAWA - Canadian customs officers at border crossings and ports are being issued radiation detectors to find dirty bombs and stop them from being smuggled into the United States.

Elinor Caplan, the Revenue Minister, told the National Post yesterday both hand-held and lapel-style radiation detectors have been in use in select areas of the country for three months.

By mid-July, all 3,600 custom officers will be outfitted with the sophisticated Geiger counters.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Chrétien government decided to spend $110-million on a range of radiation detectors that beep wildly when they pick up radioactive material, such as plutonium or uranium-235.

"They are going to be at our container ports, airports and wherever we are concerned either with officer safety or the ability to use this new high-tech equipment to sense any radiation or what is referred to as the 'nuke in the box,' " she said in an interview.

"But there are a number of weapons of mass destruction that emit radiation so these electronic dosimeters are pre-set at a threshold which will cause the alarm to go off and alert people."

A dirty bomb is made with radioactive material that is wrapped around a bomb, which when detonated disperses low-level radiation in a limited area. On Monday, U.S. authorities arrested an American they allege had been working with the al-Qaeda terrorist network to detonate a dirty bomb in the United States, possibly in Washington.

The radiation equipment purchased by the Liberal government include gamma X-ray systems at ports, land crossings and airports, as well as other state-of-the-art technology.

It has obtained a specially equipped $2.5-million truck at the Vancouver port that uses a Cobalt 60 energy system to examine whole containers or other large quantities of cargo shipped into Canada.

Another seven mobile or large radiation detectors, which cars, trucks or whole containers can pass through, have been purchased on a rush order. Two of the large detectors will go to Toronto, two for Vancouver, two for Montreal and one for Halifax.

"We are working closely with American targeting experts because what you want to do is identify the high risk cargo you don't know anything about and that's where you use the machines to detect," Ms. Caplan said.

"We can then use these machines to look inside those containers where we are not certain about what's in there and those machines are stationary and also mobile."

Ms. Caplan said Canada and U.S. officials are working closely to catch terrorists by sharing data and information on goods and individuals coming into both countries. "We are learning how to make our data systems more compatible and that is the way to work together in the interests of both of our countries using high-tech as the tool, but it's also having well-trained officers working co-operatively with their counterparts," she added.

U.S. customs agents have been equipped with 4,000 radiation detectors. There are plans to provide agents with another 4,500 in the coming months. Large radiation detectors have been installed at some entry points on the Canadian and Mexican borders.

The United States has asked countries, including Canada, to station customs agents, equipped with the radiation detectors, in their ports rather than waiting for cargo to arrive in the United States to be searched.

In January, the United States announced it wanted to put customs agents in Canadian ports to guard against terrorists smuggling a "nuke in a box."

Robert Bonner, the U.S. Customs Commissioner, said he wanted to "push our sphere of activities outward, from points of entry in the United States to points of origin abroad."

About 5.7 million shipping containers arrive every year at U.S. ports and a further 11.2 million cross land borders from Canada and Mexico.

The United States has shipped more than 600 radiation detectors to Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet satellites to help stop smuggling of radioactive material from weapons programs and nuclear reactors.

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