Did they not...
Like, test them?
So-called Advanced Detection Equipment (ADE) used by the Iraqi army to find explosives have been scrapped – more than three years after the devices were proved to be fakes. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered a halt to the use of the dowsing-rod-like gadgets after they failed to detect explosives on a truck that killed …
I thought they were almost 100% effective where the IED's contained golf balls for shrapnel?
Once the baddies stopped using golf balls as shrapnel in IED's due to the cost increases in the second hand golf ball market as well as unresolved questions about where newer ball designs really did improve distance and accuracy, the detectors were useless.
This is still 'Burn After Reading' hilarious, and it just leaves more unanswered questions:
Q1. How did the scammer assemble enough bundles of throw-a-way cash to complete the 'early' first bribes... Its chicken/egg syndrome.... The first bundles must have been pretty large to make it 'worth it' to officials to put their careers on the line...???
Q2: How did the scammer locate corruptible officials to help cook the tests and fool upper management, without falling prey to being ratting out or extorted back...???
Q3: What happened when boxes were damaged or opened, how come no engineers discovered the truth for so long?
>unanswered questions:
A1: Dear Mr Corrupt Government official. I am a provider of "bomb detection" hardware that is both fake and really cheap to make. I understand you have load of cash from the Americans etc. to stop terrorists in Iraq. If you pay me military hardware prices for these "bomb detectors" I will give you X% of the money in an untraceable foreign account.
Yours,
Massive Crook.
A2: Golf course buddies.
A3: Once people started using them, they became convinced they worked due to various psychological pressures like
1: because they would look stupid if they said they didn't work in front of everyone else (peer pressure)
2: coincidental bomb finds causes belief in effectiveness , missed bombs blamed on user error (magic/prayer effect)
3: Would look bad if they had been an idiot all along, so ignore evidence to contrary (cognitive dissonance)
It appears you have never worked in one of those places where the managers buy the proles loads of worthless crap from their golfing buddies, secure in the knowledge that _they_ won't be around when it all blows up. Apparently the managers in this case couldn't come up with the full amount for sweeping 300 deaths under the carpet, so GAME OVER.
"secure in the knowledge that _they_ won't be around when it all blows up"
As senior members of the Iraqi government, presumably they should have been worried about things literally blowing up around them, especially if they knew that the security forces didn't have working bomb detectors.
Making money off of bribes isn't much use if you get blown up.
You assume they conducted proper blind tests.
The way I read it, the crook that went to jail was paying kickbacks to the government officials who were buying this - they knew it was crap but didn't care because they were getting rich. They could make sure at least some tests were rigged to show they worked - hence "inconclusive", because some tests they worked 100% and some they were no better than chance...and those failures could be blamed on operator error!
I had some success in the past with a pair of dowsing rods (just bent coat hangers), I've found lost items, including my fathers signet ring lost in the garden (quit quickly as I recall). It's not the tool, it's the human connection to his environment and the universe.
Clearly in this case it's a rip.
My coat, 'cause the mainstream science guys are already lighting their torches
"Would the success at dowsing in any way be related to walking up and down the area in question and looking down?"
- Well, if you were going to do it that way, it'd be more logical to divide the area into small squares with bits of string and actually get on your hands and knees and search properly. Walking up and down looking down is just trusting to luck.
"The CEO gets jail time for fraud on these and their customers kept using them. Unfreakinglybelievable."
Iraq is basically a war zone. The police and army are filled green recruits who are so poor and desperate that would a highly dangerous job. For instance, in 2005, 4250 police officers were killed. Police work is a step up from starvation. Also, English is not an official language in Iraq. Given the situation, it is surprising that police units actually became aware that someone was jailed in the UK about selling fake detectors. It is very likely that the leaders have known for some time that the devices were fake, but let the police continue to use them.
In a suspected suicide bomber situation, the bomber might think they were discovered when the police start waving a bomb "detector" in their direction, and prematurely detonate the bomb. In that situation, the police officer is going to die whether the detector is fake or not.
So not so unbelievable.
I think the Jail time was wrong, wen't to Laos a long while ago. Most bombed country on the planet lots of unexploded ordanance everywhere.
I vote community service abroad. Here's some dowsing rods, I mean ADE. Here's a copy of bomb disarming for dummies. You just work your way back to us through this field....
> And here I thought arseafoetida was a symptom of a digestive problem
Well, aseafoetida is used in some North Indian cooking.. Done incorrectly, symptoms may be similar!
(The foetid bit is fairly accurate - use too large a dose and the result is inedible unless you *really* like lower-digestive-tract flavoured foods..)
You must be quite the intellectual yourself since you can guess peoples IQ from your armchair. By the way, believing in science does not make you a scientist.
Pakistan is home to the earliest civilisation. They developed their own nukes too. I doubt you can claim either of those.
Says a load about the collective IQ of the people running the country.
It doesn't say anything about their intelligence, but it speaks volumes about their integrity.
Well.. that is where most of the Microsoft Tech Support "You have many viruses" calls seem to originate....
Got me coat, I'll go quietly.
Does it matter that the detectors did not work as advertised if potential attackers believed they did and they therefore worked as a deterrent?
How much did having a device which did not work factor into people being willing to put themselves out there in a war zone when they might not have done that with nothing?
"Does it matter that the detectors did not work as advertised if potential attackers believed they did and they therefore worked as a deterrent?"
Of course it matters you muppet.
IF (and its a big if) the people using the devices knew that they didnt work and were simply a deterrent then yes, maybe. But as they were sold as working bomb detectors and the operators believed them to work people died.
Imagine for a second you're in Iraq. For some reason you are a potential target, your car has been checked for explosives by a guy waving a bent coat hanger over it. He declares it safe. What do you do?