British cops: All signs point to KGB in Litvinenko murder;
Update: Russia won’t help — unless Britain hands over Putin’s enemies
Allahpundit
Yeah, except they really don’t. I was ready to do an end zone dance here in front of some of our commenters who are sold on the dirty-bomb theory, but there isn’t anything in the article that conflicts with that theory. The sources point to the fact that the plot was “highly sophisticated,” that it involves a former FSB agent — Lugovoy — and that it would have taken a whole team of people with access to polonium-210 to pull it off. Right — but all of that would also be true if a team of former FSB agents were smuggling polonium either to sell for use in a weapon or, possibly, for use in a weapon of their own. Litvinenko was an ex-FSB agent himself, don’t forget, and one with multiple motives, i.e., money and religious sympathies. Plus, the dirty-bomb theory has something that the assassination theory doesn’t: a plausible explanation for how the polonium got into Litvinenko’s system. Says the Times:
A senior police source told The Times yesterday that the method used to kill the 43-year-old dissident was intended to send a message to his friends and allies.
“It’s such a bad way to die, they must have known,” the source said.
They could have sent a message with a bullet and a note. The dose that killed Litvinenko would have cost literally tens of millions of dollars to obtain; it doesn’t make sense that they would have wasted it on him. Accidental self-contamination in the course of handling material that he was smuggling? That makes more sense. ...
