ADE 651

In chaos, opportunity. That must be what Jim McCormick thought.

Tony Blair, then UK Prime Minister, writes to George W Bush something that could have been a love letter in a different context, declaring: "I will be with you, whatever."^[1] Jump to March 2003, when the Coalition of the Willing touches ground and deposes Saddam Hussein within a matter of months. Now, pan to a fluorescent-lit police station in Liverpool. Slippin' Jimmy is sitting at his laminate desk in his uniform, rubbing his hands together.^[2]

Fast forward now to 2008, when Jim's company is turning over a gross profit of more than £1.3M per year—at least on the books.^[3] Off the books and in offshore accounts, there is much more.^[4] He lives a life of luxury, with more money than he could ever have dreamed of, owning a yacht, a holiday home in Florida, a villa in Cyprus and even Nicolas Cage's old mansion in Bath.^[5]

How did he make his fortune? We all know that after the short-lived war with the Iraqi Army, a much longer, more protracted struggle with insurgents began.^[6] These insurgents were not against using car bombs, suicide bombers and IEDs to terrorise the Iraqi Government, now allied with the West. What better way to sell shovels in a gold rush than to manufacture a device that could detect explosives, even with no formal training required by the operator?

I suppose if his machine had worked, maybe we'd all admit that he should be lumped into the warmongering profiteers of the world like Palantir, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Those whom we love to hate, but also admit that might be good at their jobs.^[7]

Unfortunately, the machine did absolutely nothing. Here’s how the BBC described its operation:^[8]

1. A small amount of the substance the user wished to detect - such as explosives - was put in a Kilner jar along with a sticker that was intended to absorb the "vapours" of the substance
2. The sticker was then placed on a credit-card sized card, which was read by a card reader and inserted into the device
3. The user would then hold the device, which had no working electronics, and the swivelling antenna was meant to indicate the location of the sought substance

The Iraqi government spent over £52M on these machines, with each one sold for as much as £27K each. Yes, a plastic handle with a swivelling metal rod for twenty-seven big ones.^[9] It wasn't even the only fraudulent device of this kind.^[10]

This would all be quite humorous if you ignore the fact that this device was used, seriously, for over a decade^[11] in a country with over 12,000 civilians killed in suicide bombings.^[12]