Friday, November 24, 2006

A Small Nuclear Bomb

What killed Alexander Litvinenko was, as his father has stated, a very small nuclear bomb.

The implications of this fact are disturbing. If a radioactive substance such as Polonium can be brought into the UK - by diplomatic mail, for example, or by air courier - there is a likelihood that more of it may be around in the country. For some time now, the government and police authorities in Britain have been warning about the possibility of a terrorist attack with a so-called “dirty bomb”. It looks as though Russia has become the first state to use such a weapon in such an attack - and there is a significant risk that it may use it again, in Britain or elsewhere, on a larger scale.

It will indeed be interesting to observe how Russian state propaganda deals with the discovery of the nuclear material in Litvinenko’s body, and in the restaurant where he ate.

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