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Transcript NARRATOR: Last year, when Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the capture of suspected Al Qaeda sympathizer Jose Padilla, "dirty bombs" became part of America's vocabulary. As Steve Mirsky reports in this NOVA News Minute, a dirty bomb may be a terrorist's weapon of choice. With the nation guarding against terrorists, authorities are on the lookout for a dirty bomb. As shown on PBS's NOVA, a dirty bomb consists of conventional explosives combined with some kind of radioactive material. Though it's often described as a poor man's nuclear bomb, it would not produce a nuclear explosion. DR. JACK CARAVELLI (U.S. Department of Energy): A dirty bomb is not a nuclear weapon but a real threat, a real possibility... it is a weapon that could wreak havoc in ways far beyond its physical consequences. And that makes it an ideal terrorist weapon. NARRATOR: According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's fact sheet on dirty bombs, the panic that could follow an attack might be more harmful than the explosion itself. ANDREW KARAM (Radiation Safety Officer/University of Rochester): The death toll from the panic or just acting unwisely could very well outweigh the death toll from the radiological weapon itself. NARRATOR: But how much physical damage would a dirty bomb attack cause? ANDREW KARAM (Radiation Safety Officer/University of Rochester): A lot would depend on how big the chemical explosion was and how much radioactivity was involved in it. NARRATOR: It's that uncertainty and the fear of getting cancer from radiation exposure that makes the dirty bomb a potent weapon. While scientists disagree about the health risk of long-term exposure to low-level radiation, the impact could be devastating in other ways. MIKE LEVI (American Federation of Scientists): In some cases either the cost or the technical barriers will be prohibitive to decontaminating an area, and if people aren't willing to accept the radioactivity in that area the only feasible option will be to abandon that space.
NARRATOR: Leaving behind both a reminder of the attack and of
the possibility of another. I'm Steve Mirsky.
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