On February 20, 2002, I reported at archive.lewrockwell.com on the uncanny timing of Hollywood in the production of new war flicks, filming which began long before the September 11 terrorist attacks. Well, now Hollywood has done it again.
Just as tensions rise over the possibility of a nuclear conflict between Pakistan and India (which is likely to serve as a distraction in the news just when FBI agents will be giving testimony in Congress over the apparent failure to pursue clues to terrorists working within the US), Hollywood has released The Sum of All Fears (Paramount Pictures), a movie based upon a Tom Clancy novel.
The movie is about a “dirty nuclear bomb” that gets in the hands of terrorists who plan to use it at the Super Bowl. The “dirty bomb” is obtained from Russia after a Kremlin chief dies. Muslim terrorists have been removed from the script and replaced by European neo-Nazi terrorists, “partly because of consistent protests by Arab-American groups,” says www.upcomingmovies.com. Of course, this terror film started production on February 12, 2001, long before the threat of terrorism was on the minds of Americans.
Within ten days of Sept. 11, the International Atomic Energy Agency claimed terrorists may try to contaminate whole cities by making a “dirty bomb.” [Hindustantimes.com, Sept. 21, 2001] But the American Institute of Physics reported on March 12, 2002, that the radiation emitted from a “dirty bomb” is likely to be too low to calculate, and that the greatest risk from a “dirty bomb” is panic, not radiation. [American Institute of Physics, March 12, 2002] Most Americans are likely to think of a mushroom cloud-like explosion when they hear the term “dirty bomb.” Actually, a “dirty bomb” is simply a regular explosive that disperses radioactive material.
As if working as an advance man for the movie promoters, former Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen told a Senate panel on April 23, 2002, about a month prior to the release of The Sum of All Fears movie, that the most likely place terrorists will obtain ingredients for a weapon of mass destruction is from Russia. [Newsmax.com April 24, 2002]
If the public can get beyond the headlines they will understand that there is more likelihood that radioactive material will be stolen from an x-ray machine in a doctor’s office than from Russia. The overseas transport of nuclear material to the US would likely expose any terrorist to harmful doses of radiation. A true nuclear bomb would be very heavy, would be very difficult to transport, and would likely expose terrorists to lethal doses of radiation before it could be transported and detonated.
