Posted on 07/23/2017 2:25:26 PM PDT by BenLurkin
ocked away in a storage room on a Mosul college campus were two caches of cobalt-60, a metallic substance with lethally high levels of radiation. When contained within the heavy shielding of a radiotherapy machine, cobalt-60 is used to kill cancer cells. In terrorists' hands, it is the core ingredient of a "dirty bomb," a weapon that could be used to spread radiation and panic.
Western intelligence agencies were aware of the cobalt and watched anxiously for three years for signs that the militants might try to use it. Those concerns intensified in late 2014 when Islamic State officials boasted of obtaining radioactive material, and again early last year when the terrorists took over laboratories at the same Mosul college campus with the apparent aim of building new kinds of weapons.
In Washington, independent nuclear experts drafted papers and ran calculations about the potency of the cobalt and the extent of the damage it could do. The details were kept under wraps on the chance that Mosul's occupiers might not be fully aware of what they had.
Iraqi military commanders were apprised of the potential threat as they battled Islamic State fighters block by block through the sprawling complex where the cobalt was last seen. Finally, earlier this year, government officials entered the bullet-pocked campus building and peered into the storage room where the cobalt machines were kept.
They were still there, exactly as they were when the Islamic State seized the campus in 2014. The cobalt apparently had never been touched.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Fortunately Obama shunned intelligence briefings, because he would have tipped off the enemy.
Saved it from the damned, dirty apes this time around...
Cobalt 60’s half life is 5.2 years. make a really nasty dirty bomb.
Saved it from the damned, dirty apes this time around...
Well, thanks to the Chicago Tribune, ISIS won’t make that mistake again.
Well if they want to see a dirty bomb we should have helped.
We should’ve dropped a MOAB on it when they were there.
Then we could see what actually happens after a dirty bomb goes off.
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