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    Faulty Bomb Detectors, Government Incompetence, On Thursday Morning

    By Larry Jankens on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 11:49am | Politics

    Generally, I’m a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of guy.  I’m a firm believer that people should be allowed to do whatever it is they wish if doesn’t harm anybody else - live and let live is what I say, especially if I’ve had a few beers in me.  However, there are a few things that this dude cannot abide.  Two of which are wasteful government spending and unnecessarily putting people in harms way.  So you can imagine my response when I found out about a product that the Iraqi government spent over $80 million (of our money, mind you) on that has resulted in the unnecessary deaths of Americans and Iraqis – I was pissed.

     

    The ADE 651 Bomb Detector ASTC costs between $40K and $65K a pop and is used at checkpoints to find bombs on persons or vehicles.   Sounds like a good idea, I know, till you find out what it is and how it works.  The ADE 651 is basically a dowsing rod consisting of a plastic handle and metal antennae sticking out of the handle.  For anyone who is unfamiliar with dowsing, it was created in 15th century Europe to find caches of resources underground, water, gems, ore, etc.  Effects which were attributed to the success of dowsing can now explained with orthodox science, specifically sensory cues, expectancy effects and probability.

     

    According to the manufacturer of ADE 651 it works on nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) or electrostatic magnetic ion attraction (EMI).  The only problem with these explanations is that none of them have been proven scientifically and they sound decidedly made up.  If you have to come up with 3 sciency sounding names/reasons for how your product works, chances are it’s not at all scientific.  Meanwhile, people (not just Americans, apparently civilians count as casualties too) got blown up because the US gov was equipping its soldiers with this faulty device to detect bombs.

     

    Even though the method of dowsing has been debunked, lives were sacrificed in Iraq, and the US gov’s own guide to buying explosive detection devices warns against getting taken in by fake equipment, we spent $80 million dollars on the ADE 651.  Thankfully the maker of the ADE 651, Jim McCormick, has been arrested by the UK authorities for fraud related to his “bomb detectors”, but this is still a disturbing example of incompetence.

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    Politics

    Comments

    Wow. Just wow. What's shocking is the hoops I have to go through to get government funding, but yet some bozos seem to find ways to do it without any checking going on whatsoever.

    Also, the first two of the three explanations are actual things. NMR is what we physicists call MRI. (The medical profession didn't like the word "nuclear", so they dropped it, and added the "I" for imaging.) NQR is a cousin of NMR.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 1:18pm

    I don't see anywhere that the U.S. govt. is buying these devices for use by its troops. But yeah, it's bad enough that they are being relied on by Iraqi troops at checkpoints.

    If it weren't for the people being blown up and all, the funniest part would be that the "electronic card" at the heart of the ADE 651 is actually an anti-shoplifting tag. Pretty scary.


    by acanuck on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 3:07pm

    Sooooo, do you think we can return them and get a full refund? Half maybe? I hear WalMart will take anything back.


    by Gelley (not verified) on Fri, 07/23/2010 - 1:28am

    That the US Government directly spent money on this device is wrong.  Iraq's Ministry of Interior purchased them in a no-bid contract for ATSC, which is based in the UK.  As soon as the product was distributed to our outpost on the Iranian border in April 2009, my team and I called BS on it.  We told the Iraqi generals that it was BS.  We told the Iraqi Police that it was BS.  We made them test the ADE 651 to show them it was BS.  The Iraqi answer - "There are mines all over this area from the Iran-Iraq War.  That's why it seems like it doesn't work, but it's the only technology we have.  So, we're still going to use it." 

    Read the NY Times article from January 2010 with Iraqi General al-Jabiri.  That should be enough of an insight into their mentality regarding the product.  You can tell the Iraqis how it is impossible according to physics all day long, but how do you explain physics to a powerful man with a 5th grade education? 


    by Chris (not verified) on Sun, 08/08/2010 - 10:15am