Fighting Terrorists With Magic Wands
July 10, 2016
Iraq armed with fake equipment.
BY CALLUM WOOD
The blast that ripped through Baghdad’s heart on July 3 was the deadliest attack on Iraq since 2003. According to Iraq’s Health Ministry officials, the death toll has reached 250.
A truck packed with explosives was detonated on a shopping street as Muslims broke their Ramadan fast. Baghdad’s residents have expressed outrage at the government. The bombing exposes the government’s inability to prevent terrorist attacks in the nation’s capital.
Interior Minister Mohammed al-Ghabban tendered his resignation after the attack, leaving with a parting shot at security forces. He called on the government to hand over responsibility for securing cities to the Interior Ministry, saying that hundreds of checkpoints across the capital were “absolutely useless.”
He is right. The explosives-laden truck needed to navigate a number of checkpoints on its way into the capital. Yet somehow it made it through. How?
Magic wands.
Over the years since the invasion, Iraq invested in a large number of $40,000 ADE-651 bomb detectors. The only problem, they weren’t worth the boxes they came in.
Now illegal, the ADE-651 works the same way a dowsing rod finds water. For those unaware of the dubious method, dowsing is done by a person who uses a fork, rod or pendulum to find water. A dowser’s fork will theoretically point down when the person is standing over a water source.
Sound like a hoax? It is. And so is the ADE-651. When a BBC crew acquired and disassembled one of these devices, it found that the electronics in it were no different from basic anti-theft devices found in stores throughout the world. It didn’t even have batteries. It was just a black box with a steel wand on a swivel. If you lean left, the rod swings left. If you lean right, it goes right.
The creator of the ADE-651 was arrested and imprisoned after the BBC report, and the ADE-651 has been exposed as a cheap fraud.
And yet the day after the bombings in Iraq, security forces were still waving the ADE-651’s at checkpoints. Haider al-Abadi has ordered the devices to be removed, but security forces have continued to use them. Some have said there simply is no alternative.
Angering Iraqis further, an Interior Ministry report concluded that 75 percent of the contract’s value was paid in kickbacks to Iraqi officials.
The phony devices are just one of many repercussions of a dysfunctional, corrupt and incapable Iraqi government. Another example is the ghost armies—imaginary soldiers whose paychecks go to senior commanders. The result is an overestimated army size and a breakdown in logistics.
The Iraqi people are fed up with the bombings and fed up with the corrupt government. What the people want is a new government and protection from the near-daily terrorist attacks.
Keep an eye on Iran. Tehran’s military commanders like Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani and sympathizers such as Muqtada al-Sadr are gaining respect and followers as they show themselves capable of taking the fight to the Islamic State in Iraq. The Trumpet has long foretold that Iraq will join into a close alliance with its Shiite neighbor. With public dissatisfaction toward Abadi and his corrupt government growing, Iraqis are looking for a savior. Iran will not miss the opportunity.
