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America’s history of planning for radiological warfare

Cheap and Dirty Bombs VOICE, Could these creepy chest packs be North Korea’s way of threatening radiological war? BY WILLIAM C. POTTER , JEFFREY LEWIS FEBRUARY 17, 2014
  “……. U.S. interest in radiological weapons can be traced back to the early years of World War II, when scientists explored whether radioactive fission products dispersed over enemy territory could have military applications. The United States researched radiological warfare — then called “RadWar” — for both offensive and defensive purposes before abandoning the idea sometime in the 1950s. (The work on offensive uses appears to have ended because nuclear explosives were a far better investment.) British scientists, too, explored the potential for radioactive weapons in the early 1940s.
Declassified documents outline a number of scenarios in which U.S. military and civilian officials pondered the use of radiological weapons, including a proposal by U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur, following China’s December 1950 entry into the Korean War, for “sowing a band of radioactive cesium across Manchuria as a kind of ‘cordon sanitaire’ against the Chinese advance.” The technical details of the exotic devices dreamed up by U.S. weaponeers during this time still remain largely classified.
Throughout the 1950s, the Soviet Union developed its own radiological weaponry — two radiological warheads for the R-2 missile, named Geran (Geranium) and Generator, which contained aradioactive liquid that would be aerosolized by an explosion, drenching enemy units in radioactive fallout. They tested the warheads from 1953 to 1956, until small nuclear weapons for the R-2 became available.
Interest in radiological weapons, however, continued in other parts of the world……..Saddam Hussein sought to develop air-delivered radiological dispersal devices that could be used in a fashion similar to that proposed by MacArthur in North Korea…….
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/17/cheap_and_dirty_bombs

February 19, 2014 - Posted by | Uncategorized

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