Full Body Scanners "Doomed to Failure" Says Expert British MP

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Warning: The £100,000 body scanners would not have stopped the Christmas Day bomber, according to Tory MP Ben Wallace

Gordon Brown’s plans to foil terrorist attacks by installing body scanners at UK airports are doomed to failure, according to an MP who helped to design the machines.

Daily Mail.co.uk

Tory MP Ben Wallace, who worked on the scanners at defence research organisation QinetiQ before entering Parliament in 2005, said the £100,000 ‘millimetre wave’ machines would not have stopped syringe bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from trying to mount his attack on Christmas Day.

The terrorist had sewn high explosives into his underpants, which he attempted to detonate as the plane flew over Detroit.

The Prime Minister vowed to use technology, and additional scans at airports, to fight the threat from Al Qaeda.

But Mr Wallace warned: ‘I must advise the Prime Minister – and the British public – that the scanners are not a “silver bullet”. You would be mistaken to think that they would counter the new threat.

‘The millimetre wave technology is harmless, quick and can be deployed overtly or covertly. But it cannot detect chemicals or light plastics.....MORE