'Bomb detector' that UK banned still in use in Iraq

Little evidence that device used by security forces actually works, as British authorities arrest maker on suspicion of fraud

A security personnel searches for explosives with the an ADE-651 as soldiers prepare to storm a suspected al Qa'eda hideout near Karbala.

BAGHDAD // In central Baghdad's car-choked Jadiriyah street stands a familiar sight: an Iraqi police officer with an ADE-651 "bomb detector" in hand. Small, plastic and, even before the British government this week banned their export to Iraq, highly controversial, this hand-held device is the primary tool with which police screen vehicles for explosives.

One by one, cars, pick-up trucks and motorcycles are waved forward and told to wait while security forces walk past them, watching to see if the device's antenna twitches. Iraqi security forces say the British-supplied ADE-651 will detect not only explosives, but Kalashnikovs, detonators, dynamite, grenades and even strong perfume. There are about 2,000 ADE-651s in Iraq, although there appears to be little evidence that they actually work: earlier this week a series of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks in the capital left 36 people dead and 70 wounded. The device is supposed to contain a card that detects explosives, but a recent investigation by British media found that the electronic tag did little more than prevent shoplifting. Iraqi officials, however, insist that the supposed bomb detectors work and say they will continue to be used.

"I trust this device," said Arkan Nozad, a Kurdish soldier at a checkpoint opposite the remains of the al Hamra hotel, one of three targeted in the bomb blasts on Monday. "Even if you had a bullet, it would find it." Standing in the rubble of what was once her family home, Bassama Tomo has a different story to tell. A mother of three, Mrs Tomo, 45, was in her living room on Monday afternoon teaching English to her children when a white minivan pulled up to the checkpoint outside her front door and began firing.

Quickly, she gathered up her son and two daughters, while security guards returned fire. By the time the family made it into the corridor, it had happened: a deafening blast. Mrs Tomo and her children were knocked to the ground, her sister-in-law was killed, and a three-metre deep crater lay smoking in the concrete. The front of Mrs Tomo's house was ripped off by the force of the blast. "I was scared, all my children were bleeding," said Mrs Tomo.

"I wiped the blood off them with my dress." Days after the blast and following news that the bomb detectors being used at the checkpoint near her house may not actually be effective, Mrs Tomo is furious to hear that Iraqi security forces continue to use ADE-651s, referred to by some US officials as nothing more than a diving rod. Baghdad is a city of hundreds of government checkpoints and she says she is certain that the explosive-filled minivan would have passed through at least one of them before detonating outside of her home.

"Of course the device is a failure," she said. "My house tells the story." Each ADE-651 can cost as much as US$60,000 (Dh220,200). The Iraqi government paid at least $85 million to purchase the devices from the British company ATSC. Eight days ago, British police arrested ATSC's director, Jim McCormick, on suspicion of fraud and the UK government imposed a ban on the export of all ADE-651s to Iraq.

Lou McGrath, the chief executive of the Mines Advisory Group, a non-governmental organisation assisting people affected by explosive ordnance, said: "For a British company to be selling an explosive detection device that has not been properly tested to countries where people are vulnerable to attack is, in my opinion, absolutely abhorrent. "Checkpoints are where detection is important to deny bombers access to towns and marketplaces," Mr McGrath said. "I cannot believe that someone would manufacture or sell something that they know will not work. That is completely immoral, if not criminal."

There have been no scientific tests to prove the ADE-651's ability to detect explosives. An investigation by the BBC's Newsnight programme found that inside the plastic casing of each supposed bomb detector was nothing more than the same type of electronic chip used by high street shops to prevent shoplifting. In the face of such allegations, the Iraqi government has ordered several investigations into ADE-651s. It says, however, that security forces will not stop using the device until the results are known.

An employee with Iraq's ministry of interior said government officials were continuing to authorise the use of the device even though they know it is unable to detect explosives. "We know it's not working, but we still have to use it," said the employee, who asked his name not be used as he is not authorised to speak to the media. "We don't have anything else." Waving his ADE-651 across the chassis of a van parked at his checkpoint, Mr Nozad maintains his equipment can detect explosives. Any error, he says, is due to human failure. "It works along with our pulse," he said. "If we feel tired, it won't work as well."

For Mrs Tomo and her family - now sleeping in the corridor of a neighbour's chilly apartment - the problem lies not with the device, or the personnel who use them. It is an institutional failure, she says. "We have no government; if there was a real government, a real army, how could explosions happen?" she said. "They want me to go to elections? I curse these elections and anyone who goes to them."

* The National