The assassination of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, which has been attributed by the Iranians to a joint conspiracy of Israel and USA is a burning issue. Did the Israelis kill the Iranian nuclear scientist? Have they decided to send a message to all those who may be participating in the Iranian nuclear weapons program? The nuclear physics community should be very concerned about the incident. Actually his work doesn’t support the allegation that he had any involvement in the Iranian nuclear weapons program. His publications are in dark energy and quantum physics. Moreover, the rate of his publications indicates that he has been spending a lot of his time on a field which is totally irrelevant to nuclear weapons. Admittedly Robert Oppenheimer had been dealing with quantum physics before he was assigned to the Manhattan project. But then again Oppenheimer’s contribution to the project was mostly that of a coordinator not a nuclear scientist. As Ali Mohammadi had no official position in the Iranian nuclear program it appears that his assassination should be attributed to other (maybe political) causes rather than to his involvement in a nuclear weapons program.
According to Reuters Urban guerillas exploded a makeshift bomb outside Greece’s parliament on Saturday evening causing no injuries and minor damage. The explosive device, placed next to a garbage bin at the highly symbolic monument of the unknown soldier outside the parliament building, caused a loud blast that was heard kilometres away. Here is what Greek TV showed:
A warning telephone call to a newspaper preceded the explosion by 10 minutes and police evacuated the area.
The blast followed a bomb attack outside the headquarters of Greece’s biggest insurer, National Insurance, on December 27.
Police suspect leftist guerrilla group Fire Conspiracy Cells, which claimed responsibility for the attack against the insurance company, may be behind Saturday’s explosion, a police official said.
“Fragments of the explosive device are being gathered and taken to the police lab for investigation,” the official said.
“There are first reports of minor damage inside the parliament building, some broken glass. The blast was captured by the security cameras outside the building.”
Several leftist and anarchist groups have mounted a series of attacks against police, businesses and public institutions since the police killing of a teenager triggered Greece’s worst riots in decades in December 2008.
“The message is simple, democracy cannot be terrorized,” Prime Minister George Papandreou, who came to parliament later, told reporters.
Police were also checking video footage from surveillance cameras at the site to determine whether they had taped the perpetrator placing the explosive device. The “evzones,” presidential guards at the monument of the unknown soldier, stayed put at their guardposts when the device went off, the police official said.
“I assure you those responsible will be arrested and brought to justice,” Civil Protection Minister Michael Chrysochoidis told reporters. “Athens is a safe city.”
According to numerous press reports, in 2007 at Minot US Air Force Base six AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles mistakenly armed with W80-1 thermonuclear warheads were loaded on a B-52H heavy bomber in place of six unarmed AGM-129 missiles that were awaiting transport to Barksdale US Air Force Base for disposal. The live nuclear missiles were not reported missing, and stood unsecured and unguarded while mounted to the aircraft for a period of 36 hours. The Arms Control Center published a report investigating the radiological hazards associated with a worst-case postulated accident that would disperse the nuclear material of the six warheads in large metropolitan cities. Using computer simulations approximate estimates are derived for the ensuing cancer mortality and land contamination after the accident. Health, decontamination and evacuation costs are also estimated in the framework of the linear risk model.
The ACC’s report indicates that the six W80 nuclear warheads reportedly mounted on the six ACMs at the USAF Minot Base could not possibly contain more than 36 kg of Weapon-Grade Plutonium (WgPu) (six kg of WgPu each) with a more realistic approximate estimate of 18 kg WgPu (3kg of WgPu each).
Regarding inhalation hazards from such a postulated accident, even under the most unfavorable weather conditions (absolutely worst-case scenario), the simultaneous explosive dispersion of all the WgPu contained in the primary devices of the six thermonuclear warheads (maximum quantity of 36 kg WgPu) would generate a radioactive plume that could note pose any serious immediate threat (due to inhalation, submersion or ground shine) at distances larger than one kilometer from GZ. However, according to such a worst-case scenario, all the people at distances shorter than one kilometer from Ground Zero would be at a non-negligible risk of inhaling WgPu aerosols delivering a total dose which would increase the individual cancer risk by (at least) an amount of 5% -20%. The health costs per person at such distances could amount to (approximately) $1,500, or higher. All populated areas within a radius of one kilometer from GZ should be evacuated and the population should undergo medical tests to ensure that they have not inhaled any WgPu aerosols. In large metropolitan cities (1,000 people/sq.km) this amounts to 3,140 people and a total daily evacuation cost of $314,000.
However, regarding ground radiological contamination, realistic simulations indicate that there is non-zero probability that some areas within a radius of five kilometers from GZ can be so heavily contaminated with WgPu that their soil should be scraped, removed and buried in a safe location (e.g the Savannah River Site). Such a decontamination procedure, which should invariably be preceded by radiation detection procedures, would definitely force the authorities to evacuate the population within at least a radius of five kilometer from GZ.
Therefore, even if the WgPu inhalation hazard cannot extend to such large distances, ground contamination should definitely stretch evacuation distances to five kilometer from GZ. At distances larger than ten kilometers from GZ, there is a non-zero probability to find contaminated soil which should be watered and plowed and crops that should be removed and buried. No agricultural products from such areas should reach the market unless they have been screened for radiological contamination. Large scale emergency procedures at a metropolitan city (1,000 people per sq.km.) would entail the evacuation of citizens living in areas of seventy five square kilometers, that is 75,000 people. A daily total evacuation cost of $7,500,000 should be anticipated by the authorities while the decontamination operational costs would be of the order of $75,000,000 (assuming arbitrarily an operational cost of one million per sq.km which should be scaled accordingly).
I can hardly believe that the above 17-second clip in Youtube has the highest view count (a stunning 1,348,090 views) and an amazing 3,066 comments! It was posted in July 17,2007 and in less than three years it has been viewed more times than one would expect. The clip of course depicts the Baker event filmed from a high altitude (apparently from an aircraft). Baker was detonated 90 feet (27 m) underwater on July 25, 1946 during the operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear weapons tests conducted by the USA at Bikini Atoll. It was uploaded by a child identifying himself as Jose from Tucson USA who claims in his one line profile “im 15 MEXICAN born in US raised on both places” (sic). He admits to have downloaded the short clip from http://sonicbomb.com/. Obviously Jose could not imagine that his upload would meet such interest. What motivates so many viewers to watch such a clip? Is it the title “UNDERWATER NUKE”; Is it the short duration? I found myself pressing the play button several times as I wanted to watch the clip again and again to realize what was attractive about it. It seems that other viewers have repeatedly pressed the play button thus increasing the view counts. The clip is lousy but it is the most successful nuclear weapon clip ever uploaded to YouTube! It deserves to be studied.
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