The term dirty bomb is most often used to refer to a Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD), a radiological weapon which combines radioactive material with conventional explosives. Though an RDD is designed to disperse radioactive material over a large area, the convential explosive would likely have more immediate lethal effect than the radioactive material. At levels created from most probable sources, not enough radiation would be present to cause severe illness or death.

For this reason, a dirty bomb is not a weapon of mass destruction. Its purpose would presumably be to create psychological, not physical, harm through mass panic and terror. Additionally, decontamination of the affected area might require considerable time and expense, rendering affected areas unusable, and causing extensive economic damage.

The term first entered the public lexicon on June 10, 2002, when U.S. officials announced they had a month earlier captured an alledged al-Qaida terrorist named José Padilla in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Padilla was charged with assisting in the construction of such a device.

The term dirty bomb also refers to any nuclear weapon that generates a significant amount of radioactive waste in the form of nuclear fallout. Due to the inefficiency of early nuclear weapons, 2% or less of the nuclear material would be consumed during the explosion. Thus, they tended to disperse large amounts of unused fissile material. The term does not necessarily refer to a specific nuclear weapon design, but is typically used to contrast with newer, more efficient bombs. Some nuclear weapon designs feature the inclusion of a salting metal (most commonly cobalt) which will create large amounts of long-lasting fallout radiation when radiated by the weapon core.

The term dirty bomb has also been used incorrectly in the press to describe improvised explosive devices which are designed to disperse a chemical weapon payload other than nuclear material, particularly when used in unconventional warfare.

External links

• U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, [http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dirty-bombs.html

Factsheet on Dirty Bombs]

• Council on Foreign Relations, Terrorism Q&A: Dirty Bombs (http://www.cfrterrorism.org/weapons/dirtybomb.html)
• U.S. Dep't of Labor Occupational Safety & Health Administration, Radiological Dispersal Devices / Dirty Bombs (http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/emergencypreparedness/rdd_tech.html)
• American Institute of Physics, "Dirty Bombs" Much More Likely to Create Fear than Cause Cancer (http://www.aip.org/isns/reports/2002/038.html)
• Federation of American Scientists, Dirty bomb threat analysis (http://www.fas.org/faspir/2002/v55n2/dirtybomb.htm)
• Health Physics Society, Factsheet (http://hps.org/hsc/documents/factsheet.pdf)
• Health Physics Society, January 2004 study, Dirty Bombs Could Cause Devastating Economic Damage (http://hps.org/documents/RDD_report.pdf)
• CNN, Explosion, not radiation, "dirty bomb's" worst fallout (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/06/10/dirty.bomb.health/)

See also

• area denial
• nuclear war
• nuclear weapon
• nuclear weapon design
• nuclear terrorism

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