Today's award for suckiest job on the planet goes to a luckless Iraqi army lieutenant, assigned to search for deadly bombs with a fancy divining rod.
On assignment in Baghdad, Agence France-Presse correspondent Arthur MacMillan met the unnamed lieutenant, assigned to hunt for bombs in crowded traffic with the ADE651, a.k.a. the bomb-detecting "magic wand." The ADE651, made by U.K. firm ATSC, is supposed to sniff out explosives at a distance, using little more than a handheld antenna rigged up with interchangeable, credit-card sized paper cards.
The U.S. military won't touch the device, which critics say is little more than a dowsing rod. But the New York Times reported last year, that didn't stop the Iraqi government from buying a boatload of them.
Over the weekend, however, Jim McCormick, the managing director of ATSC, was arrested on suspicion of fraud. McCormick was released on bail, but Al Jazeera reports that the British government is preparing to ban export of the device. In a statement to the network, the U.K. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said that its "legal power to control these goods is based on the risk that they could cause harm to U.K. and other friendly forces."
Understatement of the year! Baghdad has seen a wave of deadly bombings, with a series of attacks in December claiming the lives of over 100 people. More bombs went off today. We don't know if the bombs got through because the detectors failed to find them. But if they were in fact sold fraudulently, there should be hell to pay.
Which brings us to the Iraqi army lieutenant, standing in traffic. He said he knew the device had been banned, but told the reporter the military was still continuing to use it.
"It is [terrible]," the officer told AFP. "But still we are lying about it."
