Iran and dirty bombs

[JBTaurus83]

Apologies if this has been discussed before. Does Iran have the capability to make dirty bombs with the nuclear material they had?

[Greg_In_SF]

1. Absolutely

They're just regular bombs with some radioactive material sprinkled in. No fission process required.

[JBTaurus83]

2. Well

That isn’t reassuring.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

4. Enriched uranium and uranium as a whole is actually a poor material for that use

Its dense and heavy and not that radioactive. Also uranium is primarily an alpha radiation emitter. Alpha can be blocked by clothing and skin and poses little danger outside the body. Gamma emitters are ones that are "best" used for dirty bombs, and those can be found in the medical and industrial world. Cancer treatment and welding inspections use gamma emitters.

[Jerry2144]

6. Exactly. They probably have amounts of Cs137 or other isotopes

Useful for construction or medical that are more of a problem. Cs will bind with concrete and become impossible to decontaminate. Those other isotopes would not be affected by Operation Epstein Fury

[sarisataka]

12. The point of a dirty bomb would not be its effectiveness

But that it was used.

The average person is not going to know about alpha waves or isotopes- they are going to hear "radioactive contamination" and panic

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

15. Also true

N/t

[OC375]

3. Will

Not technically difficult after the material procurement phase. Lots have already crossed that hurdle. It's mainly the will to do it after that.

[Boo1]

5. Easily....

But there is a reason why nobody has done it.

A dirty bomb is a lot easier to detect, since it's radioactive, and its not really much more dangerous than a conventional bomb.

It would take more effort and disruption to clean up, but as far as casualties go it wouldn't increase them meaningfully.

Things I'd be a lot more worried about.

Mass shootings, particularly at large events,
Bombing public transit,
Vehicle based attacks (parades etc),
Cyber based attacks

[Johonny]

7. Im shocked they havent used it

Given who we killed and targeted.

[EX500rider]

17. They probably think it would give Trump/Israel the excuse to go nuclear & say they started it

[haele]

8. Anyone who works in a hospital or science lab has access to the materials to make a dirty bomb.

The issue is not so much lingering radiation, it's the intensity of the initial blast.
Honestly - I would fear more a shipping container half full of ammonium nitrogen fertilizer with the other half rope or other flammable material.

Think Texas City explosion in 1947. One medium sized ship offloading ammonium nitrate.Thousands of buildings within a 5 mile radius flattened or damaged, over 500 known killed (of those, only a little over 300 identified), unknown number of others missing; the concussion blast was heard and felt as far away as Port Arthur, about 75 miles up the coast, damaging buildings (shattered windows, warped building frames and small stantions, pillars or lean to supports) up to 30 miles away

Ya, a portable dirty bomb would be bad; especially as the EMP would probably cause some serious local or adjacent Emergency Operations infrastructure damage; but a similar sized ammonium nitrate "bomb" filling up a standard shipping container can level an entire port city.

On edit, there recently was a small fertilizer explosion at a dock in Beruit, Lebanon - recently, damaged buildings as far as 5 miles away from the port.

[Swede]

11. A dirty bomb is meant to contaminate a large area for generations.

It does explode the radioactive material, it spreads it.

[sarisataka]

16. There would be no EMP

A dirty bomb does not initiate a nuclear reaction, it spreads radioactive material with conventional explosives.

The Beruit explosion was over 2,700 tons of fertilizer. What do you consider a large amount?

[JBTaurus83]

9. Chemical and biological

Are another concern if they have them. I’ve read before that biological isn’t very easy to use either though.

[EX500rider]

10. They can but then it gives their adversaries a excuse to go nuclear

[sarisataka]

13. To make one- absolutely

To effectively deliver one to a target with a high chance of success, less so.

[C_U_L8R]

14. Chemical and biological too.

Things got really nasty in the Iran Iraq War. If pressed, I don’t think they’d hold back.

[fujiyamasan]

18. Other possibilities are weapons similar to that Chinese "weather balloon" and other cheap Shahed type drones

We’ve seen how much damage those can do in Ukraine.

They’re cheap (about $20k each) and it costs almost ten times as much to intercept them. This is the drawback with Israel’s missile defense systems as well. They’re fucking expensive to maintain. The kamakazee drones are built for asymmetric warfare.

[David__77]

19. Why would they want or need to do that?

They have plenty of other weapons that would be much more destructive