Fake bomb detectors were being used in Iraq as recently as last month; Businessman Found Guilty...

[xocet]

Fake bomb detectors were being used in Iraq as recently as last month
Iraqi MP says country has paid 'high price in blood' for fake devices, but officials continue to put faith in them

Peter Beaumont
The Guardian, Tuesday 23 April 2013 08.47 EDT

On 19 March this year, the tenth anniversary of George W Bush's declaration of war against Iraq, I was heading into Baghdad's ministry of the interior in search of an official from the inspector general's office who had been involved in the investigation into its purchase of fake bomb detectors.

Arriving at the entrance, a bomb – the first of 12 to explode in the city that day – detonated about a kilometre away.

The officer on the gate explained a few minutes later that just the day before two improvised explosive devices had been found nearby. He asked what we were doing at the ministry. He nodded as I explained. "We know that the detectors are useless," he replied bitterly. "They're fakes. We've seen it on the news."

...

Visiting a checkpoint a few days before the wave of attacks I watched two police officers using the wands in the recommended fashion, halting in the road and shuffling their feet – supposed to build up static electricity – before approaching cars with the device held out.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/23/fake-bomb-detectors-used-iraq

UK businessman found guilty of selling fake bomb detectors to Iraq
Jim McCormick made millions of pounds selling 'completely ineffectual' devices based on novelty golfball finder

Robert Booth and Meirion Jones
The Guardian, Tuesday 23 April 2013 07.49 EDT

A businessman has been found guilty of a multimillion-pound fraud involving the sale of fake bomb detectors to Iraq and around the world.

A jury at the Old Bailey found Jim McCormick, 57, from near Taunton, Somerset, guilty on three counts of fraud over a scam that included the sale of £55m of devices based on a novelty golfball finder to Iraq. They were installed at checkpoints in Baghdad through which car bombs and suicide bombers passed, killing hundreds of civilians. Last month they remained in use at checkpoints across the Iraqi capital.

McCormick, who faces up to eight years in jail when he is sentenced next month, also sold the detectors to Niger, Syria, Mexico and other countries including Lebanon where a United Nations agency was a client.

He claimed they could detect explosives at long range, deep underground, through lead-lined rooms and multiple buildings. In fact, the handheld devices were useless. Their antennae, which purported to detect explosives, and in other cases narcotics, were not connected to anything, they had no power source and one of the devices was simply the golfball finder with a different sticker on it.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/23/somerset-business-guilty-fake-bombs

Here is a company description of their "device":

http://web.archive.org/web/20101030091013/http://www.atscltd.com/advanced-detection-equipment-ade651.html

[Politicalboi]

1. Are they going after Haliburton too?

For their "hot" showers and contaminated water. Or the not so bullet proof vests our soldiers were ordered to wear even though their parents sent them better ones.

[MattBaggins]

2. A few weeks back these were talked about

and exposed as bullshit dousing devices. We actually had people who claimed dousing is real.