An excerpt from, "Everything you need to know about ISIS attack on Mosul" Digital Resistance, June 10, 2014:
The Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki has called for Parliament to declare a state of emergency, but to what end? To give his government more powers? He has already take control of the security levers of government, he controls the Defence and Interior ministries. There isn’t much power left to give him. Maliki has been hamstrung by a corrupt and divided state, a left over from the occupation which established the spoils system of dividing political power. He has also shown a remarkable lack of competence, or any semblance of a coherent plan. After 8 years in power, he has not one single security gain to show for in that time.Wikipedia:
To symbolize this incompetence, Iraqi soldiers manning checkpoints are still using ‘bomb detectors’ that have been proven to be compete fakes. Last year, James McCormick, a British businessman, was jailed for 10 years for selling golf ball detectors to the Iraqi government and telling them they were bomb detectors. To this day, the Iraqi officials responsible for buying them are still in their jobs and the detectors are still in use, all to save face for those officials. Who knows how many lives this ego-saving exercise has cost in the last decade?
Latest reports suggest that Parliament will hold an emergency session on Thursday. It is incredible to think that it will take until then to convene parliament while the 3rd city burns. Many MPs live abroad, perhaps they need to wait in order to charter flights in from Dubai? As of Tuesday afternoon, ISIS are reportedly moving on Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam and another stronghold of Baathist loyalists, as well as targeting Baqubah, Sammarah and Ramadi. By the time Parliament sits on Thursday, these predominantly Sunni regions of Iraq could have fallen to ISIS and ISIS convoys could be gearing up for an assault on Baghdad.
The ADE 651 is a fake bomb detector produced by ATSC (UK), which claimed that the device could effectively and accurately, from long range, detect the presence and location of various types of explosives, drugs, ivory, and other substances. The device has been sold to 20 countries in the Middle East and Far East, including Iraq and Afghanistan, for as much as $60,000 per unit. The Iraqi government is said to have spent £52 million ($85 million) on the devices.An excerpt from, "Why are countries still using the fake bomb detectors sold by a convicted British conman?" by Leo Benedictus, The Guardian, June 9, 2014:
Investigations by the BBC and other organisations found that the device is little more than a "glorified dowsing rod" with no ability to perform its claimed functions. In January 2010, export of the device was banned by the British government and the managing director of ATSC was arrested on suspicion of fraud, and in June 2010, several other companies were raided by British police. ATSC was dissolved on 5 March 2013. On 23 April 2013, the founder of ATSC, James McCormick, was convicted of three counts of fraud at the Old Bailey in London, and was subsequently sentenced to ten years' imprisonment.
It is is one of the world's most obvious terrorist targets. So how did a group of 10 militants armed with guns, bomb vests, rocket-launchers and grenades get into Karachi's Jinnah airport? Part of the answer, incredibly, may lie in the fact that Pakistani security personnel still guard the outer perimeter using versions of the phoney bomb detector sold by the convicted British conman Jim McCormick.Background story of Jim McCormick and his fake bomb-detector business. Source: cybersceptic. Date Published: April 24, 2013.
McCormick's device, which he called the ADE 651, was itself a variation of a common design. Essentially, a telescopic radio aerial is attached by a hinge to a plastic handgrip. When used by a "properly trained" operator, who must first sensitise it to the "molecular frequency" of explosives, it was supposed to point out bombs by swinging towards them.
In fact, all this was nonsense. The aerial swings because of unconscious movements by the operator, known as the ideomotor effect – the same thing that gives rise to the common belief in dowsing. Nevertheless, McCormick and other fraudsters, such as Gary Bolton, exported thousands to clients around the world, including in Iraq and Pakistan. Less ambitious criminals used to sell them as golf ball detectors in the 1990s.
