Dec 12 2006
Litvinenko Dosage Was Massive
There is an article out today which helps put the dosage of Polonium 210 into perpsective, and a history lesson which would dictate the Litvinenko incident was not an assassination. It is the only recorded death by Polonium 210, and clearly demontrates Polonium is not a weapon of assassination:
A low-dose exposure was blamed for causing the death of Irene Joliot-Curie, the daughter of Marie Curie, who first isolated polonium.
Irene died in 1956 of leukemia caused by accidental exposure when a sealed capsule of the metal exploded on her laboratory bench. Polonium’s alpha rays damage DNA, although in Irene’s case they took more than 10 years to do their deadly work.
Litvinenko passed away much more quickly. On Nov. 23, the 43-year-old died in a London hospital from the intense radiation polonium emits, having ingested it sometime in late October. Even though the dose of poison was tiny — maybe no more than the weight of a speck of dust — it was deadly.
…
The maximum safe body burden of polonium is only 7 picograms (7 trillionth of a gram). It appears that Litvinenko was given something like a milligram (a thousandth of a gram), which is a billion times the safe level. Polonium-210 is regarded as one of the most dangerous substances known because it ejects alpha particles.
The history shows ten years before the first accidental exposure to what must have been a large amount of Polonium dust took its victim. True, the Curie’s were scientists and they took precautions. But an assassin would have to consider this example a poor result. The assassin theory has mutiple conflicting assumptions. First the assassin is sophisticated so he/she selects this exotic weapon. Then it turns out they know little about the weapon and the trail it leaves:
Whoever the assassin was, he or she had some method of concealing the poison before it was given to Litvinenko. The hidden poison would be undetectable because this isotope emits almost no telltale gamma rays. However, polonium has a tendency to leak from containers. This probably explains why traces have been found in five airliners, particularly those used for flights to Moscow. (Passengers in those aircraft were not at risk.)
Where Litvinenko was poisoned is still not known. But wherever he went after he was poisoned, he left traces of polonium, including his home in the north London suburb of Muswell Hill, a sushi restaurant near Piccadilly Circus where he dined with a friend, a luxury hotel where he met two unidentified Russians, and the home of Russian billionaire exile Boris Berezovsky. His room in the hospital was the most contaminated.
So was this a smart assassin? Apparently not. But why hire a low brow (and low budget) assassin to deliver a poison which costs tens of millions of dollars? That makes no sense either. Polonium 210 is useful as a weapon. Very useful. But that use has nothing to do with poison pills in tea. That is not an effective use of Polonium 210. Its role in a nuclear device or dirty bomb is much more deadly and cost effective. Now, you don’t need to tell a smuggler exactly what they are smuggling when you want to transport contraband. And smugglers might not think or even know about the trail Polonium 210 can leave. If I was in on the smuggling and then took ill, I would spend some serious time negotiating an air tight role as a whistle blower to get as light a sentence as possible in any prosecutions. The radiation poisoning would be punishment enough in many people’s minds.
On a slightly separate topic I would expect people involved in a smuggling ring that went bust like the Litvinenko incident might have to start running for cover. And that is apparently what we see.
Paris. A key witness in Litvinenko case,
Andrey[Evgeny; ajstrata] Limarev, has disappeared from his home in the French Alps, the Echo of Moscow Radio reported citing a statement of News Ru. Limarev is a former Federal Security Service agent and a colleague of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned recently in London. Some time ago, Limarev accused a former agent of the Federal Security Service, of Litvinenko’s death. Limarev told the British press that he would be the next victim. A day later, he went missing.
l which will be twisted by those trying to divert attention from themselves as some sort of act by Putin. Clearly someone is trying to hide something and some form of cleaning up is taking place.
Major Update: I can confidentally predict Lugovoi has signed a plea agreement in this matter:
Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoy, a presumed key witness in the case on the death in London of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, has flatly dismissed media reports alleging that Russian and British investigators repeatedly interrogated him on Tuesday.
“There have not been any investigatory actions today. I have only signed a protocol on not divulging preliminary investigation secrecy, and the signing of a protocol is not, as it is known, an investigatory action,†he told ITAR-TASS.
Berezovsky and Goldfarb and Zakayev must be getting pretty concerned about now. They do seem awefully eager to please all of a sudden. It is not good to pollute the home of someone who has given you shelter.
BTW, here is an interview of Lugovoi in Der Spiegel from a while back which is interesting. I have meetings today but will try to drop in and blog when I can. Update: This is fascinating reading and I hope I can join the debate later today, but one thing that should be noted about Polonium 210 poisoning is it can happen over time. If a person repeatedly visits a location where Polonium 210 is being handled one can build up the toxin to the point it becomes deadly. I only note that because Lugovoi and Kovtun stated Litvinenko was claiming to be poisoned as early as Oct 16th. I would wager this smuggling effort, if it is one, went on for months and involved many more carriers than we are seeing reported now.
Problem with polonium is that it needs to be “used” pretty quickly after manufacture. In less than 4 months you only have half of it left. In less than 8 months, 1/4 and in a year only 1/8 of it. It isn’t something you can “save up” in a strategic cache that you can use at the opportune moment. Other isotopes such as cesium or americium would work better for that. You don’t collect polonium until you have an immediate use for it.
Same would go with a smuggler. You can’t steal polonium and sit on it and wait for things to cool off before unloading it, you need to put it on the market right away.
Enlightened, Jerry–welcome back–you are both a breath of fresh air.
Here’s a very interesting article on Berezovsky – not sure if already linked.
I wonder if he was the target? Sasha was a fierce critic, but Berezovsky is one of the reasons Putin is even in power. And then Putin betrayed him.
http://www.zmag.org/italy/chiesa-beslan.htm
For some reason this seems tangently related to this subject…
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=20589
But it is stuff like this article that really bother me:
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/02/08/berezobomb.shtml
Also note this article from Pravda last year before any of this was going on:
http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/88/354/16321_Berezovsky.html
Several articles on Boris at Jamestown Foundation website too, most are old, though.
Well, it has been no secret that the Kremlin will display Berezovsky in the worst possible light. Up to and including lies to the press, and censorship of the press, and murder when Berezovsky and Politkovskaya and Litvinenko spoke the truth.
2 out 3 Chechnyan sympathizers/Putin critics – dead.
CP, that Mosnews article points to a possible use of polonium. But from whom did Berezovsky glean this information? He may be a thug, but is it possible he was being set up?
Oh my. Look what happened to other Chechnyan sympathizers/Putin critics:
“Beginning march 2000 a small plane crashed at the Moscow airport sheremetevo just after taking of into the air for a flight to Kiev, Ukraine, 9 people were in it killed, the crew of five and their 4 passengers. Under the passengers were russian journalist Artyom Borovik (39) and the chechenian oilmagnat Zija Basajev. russian journalist and newspaperpublisher Artyom Borovik (39) was specialised in Kremlin corruption and was a critic of acting president Vladimir Putin and the war in Chechenia. The checenian businessman Zija Basajev was the head of the oilcompany Alliance Group. Borovik’s newspapers Top Secret and versija wrote about corruption and Versija had a week ago 2 pages published on russian warcrimes in Chechenia. Vsevolod Bogdanov the head of a journalist union finds the accident suspect just like others who comment on it. ”
Quite a pattern if I do say so myself.
http://gangstersinc.tripod.com/RussianPup3.html
Ah, now we’re trolling into sources like wnd and zmag–it must be a dull day on the rialto.
Another tangent article
I just read in one of the Jamestown articles that Russia is actually courting Iran and attempting to give Iran more influence in the North Caucases region in order to “dilute” the influence of salafist sunni muslim doctrine there. They see shiism as less of a threat.
Hmmm….Test?
“In the eastern portion of the North Caucasus, where republics like Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan have very strong Islamic traditions, it is unlikely that the United States could help Russia enact ideological changes. Rather, the Russian government would like to promote branches of Islam that are regarded as less dangerous, such as Sufi Islam and Shiism. Shiism has some followers in the south of Dagestan, mostly in Derbent city, but the Kremlin hopes to spread its influence among the Caucasian Muslims with the help of Iran, which is the world center of Shiism. ”
http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2371736
Actually, that article I linked to is only partially true. The “world center” of Shiism is really Iraq in a historical sense. Iran has only taken that role since the “islamic revolution” in that country. Control of the Shiite holy cities in Iraq would be a key long term goal of the mullacracy in Iran and the Russians might be prepared to help them in reaching that goal.
We could be watching an “even colder war” with religious sects being used as proxies and not nations.
Ok, watch out for 3 identical posts….for some reason it won’t go through.
Here’s the link. 3rd paragraph Moscow airport Sheremetevo
The pattern of dead Chechnyan sympathizers/Putin critics continues.
Ok what is up. Link again. 3rd paragraph
http://gangstersinc.tripod.com/RussianPup3.html
More on the condition of Kovtun in a new Spiegel interview; amongst other things,
– Kovtun claims the German polonium traces must have derived from his meeting with Litvinenko in London 16-18 October
– he feels guilty that his ‘favorite town’ Hamburg and his family have been dragged into the affair because of him
– the head of the nuclear medicine department in a Hamburg hospital says Kovtun’s ex-wife, two children and her partner show no ‘measurable signs of radiation’, though urine tests will be more conclusive and will be ready in 4 or 5 days time
– Kovtun himself says he is in a Moscow clinic and that he is getting better every day, and that his radiation values are almost normal. He hopes to be discharged from the clinic by the end of the week.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,454088,00.html