How many deaths has this useless contraption caused?

perseus

Active member
I can't believe the Iraqi government spent $85m at $40k a peice on this useless contraption for 'detecting' explosives which is widely used by the Iraqi security forces.

This consists of nothing more than a 'dowsing rod' an empty box and (to look authentic and modern) a card reader and cards, supposedly for calibrating the machine for detecting different explosives. These have embedded circuits which are the same as those used to prevent theft from supermarkets!

It was exposed on a news programme last night and has just been banned to countries with serving British forces, but not others. In other words if governments are stupid enough to pay we will happily sell them tea-leaf readers.

This guy should be sent through a minefield equipped with it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8476381.stm
 
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I can't believe this the Iraqi goverenment think it is quite good. It's a dowsing rod with a load of electronic b******t attached. Do I smell corruption?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8477601.stm

Would you buy a device in which you were told this?

Mr McCormick told the BBC in a previous interview that "the theory behind dowsing and the theory behind how we actually detect explosives is very similar".
He says that the key to it is the black box connected to the aerial into which you put "programmed substance detection cards", each "designed to tune into" the frequency of a particular explosive or other substance named on the card.
He claims that in ideal conditions you can detect explosives from a range of up to one kilometre. The training manual for the device says it can even, with the right card, detect elephants, humans and 100 dollar bills.

It can certainly attract 100 dollar bills I grant him that, 400 a piece to be exact!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/01_january/22/iraq.shtml

James Randi. Seems these were originally marketed as Quadro in the US and the FBI & CIA ignored it and sold it to the the Royal Engineers at one point!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruTmqfGJhTI
 
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Maybe the real bomb detectors are too expensive and they can't outfit the entire force with it so they went with a cheap "alternative" that was fake... but not obviously. I think that maybe they were hoping that even having a fake one would be enough to reduce the number of attacks.
Maybe... who knows what they were thinking about...
 
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I don't think sniffer dogs come cheap at all and it's not like you can grab any old dog and train him or her up either.

South Korea has a solution to that actually:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8158097.stm
but I don't know how much individual dogs cost.
Not to mention training and retention of the operators.

And I don't know just how strictly the Iraqis follow the rules regarding dogs. In Indonesia they're forbidden to touch dogs while their hands or the dog are wet. They told me the reason was religious and that stricter followers don't touch dogs at all.
Apparently since there were stray dogs in Iraq causing problems, I don't think the Iraqis followed any laws governing banning of contact with dogs. Who knows...
 
It seems to me that the US taxpayer are so eager to throw money at this country they can't spend it fast enough! Unfortunately it never seems to get to the right place.

A watchdog has accused the US state department of grossly mismanaging the oversight of a $2.5bn (£1.5bn) contract for training Iraq's police force. An audit by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Sigir) said the state department repeatedly failed to monitor the contract.
In one case, it assigned heavy security costing $4.5m to a group of contractors who already had their own bodyguards....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8478010.stm
 
McCormick was running a business, a very successful one with a massive profit margin no doubt, and according to the report satisfied customers as well! Does this tell us there is something wrong with the theory of the 'invisible hand of the market' making us all better off, or is this a special case? This seems to demonstrate that unless the wider implications on society and national policy are taken account (less deaths and better security) markets cannot be let loose to run themselves without wider accountability.
 
I'm not against government run operations.
I'm just aware that things that are run without fear of accountable bankrupcy, very high job security and a general lack of real competition by their very nature tend to be rather wasteful. The wastefulness is offset by stability. And wastefulness doesn't mean the program is run badly with poor results.
So a stable program that is government run can have good results but compared to a competitive private business, it will be rather wasteful.

Take for example...
let's say by shipping commodity A in a regular container from its point of origin to its destination causes a 30% loss. A government run program usually tends to accept the 30% loss as the nature of how things are run.
A privately run business will find affordable ways to reduce this loss.
 
Even if one resorts to canines, one must consider that the canine's partner, the human handler, is exposed to danger.
 
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