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by Copy Dude

Suddenly the whole Litvinenko business is looking more like Austin Powers than James Bond.

Aha. ‘The Trail of Poison Leads To Moscow’ deduced the Spiegel yesterday, as a number of BA flights were grounded. What kind of secret agents leave their dabs everywhere they go? It’s like sticking up a bank while posing in front of a CCTV camera not wearing a mask.

Back at London’s Millenium hotel, traces were found on the floor of a room and on the light switch. A source told the Telegraph, ‘ . . looks like they dropped the stuff on the floor‘.

For sure the ‘bungling amateurs‘ dropped it all over several aircraft, too. How is this possible? Polonium 210 emits only a few centimetres and won’t pass through a paper bag. Did they carry a big lump in a string bag? But what do I know. Especially when newspapers quote ‘Experts’ and ‘Security Sources’.

Of course, if you read past the sensational headlines, you’ll find it’s all the kind of weasel wording for which the British press is famous. Try this from the BBC.

Experts have SUGGESTED that polonium-210 COULD BE present in locations, including the planes . . ‘

Read through more tales of horror to find this buried at the bottom of a Guardian piece:

While there was no immediate confirmation that polonium 210 is the substance discovered on the BA aircraft, it is widely ASSUMED at the airline that this is the case.

Perhaps ‘vaguely assumed’ is a better choice of words, vague assumptions being the basis of almost everything printed so far. Plus a bunch of wobbly PR handouts.

The most interesting facts, of course, are still those that have been suppressed. Like Litvinenko’s conversion to Islam, and being read the Koran at his bedside while the PR guys typed up his farewell note. That must have been a worry for the British press, who have been demonising Muslims every day since the Iraq war started. It’s pobably been a real bigot’s holiday for journalists to slag off Russians instead.

Mind you, Matt Taibbi thinks it was the Russians - but not the ones you first thought of. He’s also got a hunch that the polonium came from Arzamas-16.

Arzamas-16, formerly known as Sarov. Arzamas-16 is the Los Alamos of Russia, famous nationwide for being home to the Russian bomb. In Arzamas-16 there’s a factory called “Avangard,” where the Soviets in the 1950s started industrial production of various radioactive materials.

Hmmm. So they didn’t just order their polonium online from the Internet store like everyone else? Oh I forgot, they’re just bungling amateurs.

 

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