Ammonium Nitrate: Weapon of Choice for Terrorists?

As I recall, after the Oklahoma City bombing it was reported that in many countries Ammonium Nitrate is not sold in pure form. Rather it is sold mixed with something that does not lower its fertilizer value but does make it hard to detonate. I guess the US never adopted this approach.

It is my understanding that the fertilizer that can be bought now is not explosive grade no matter how much you buy. If that is true then your story is helping to feed my perception that the news media does not do their research before reporting what they consider “noteworthy news”. Can you dispute this?

There is a major flaw in your investigative experiment to buy mass quantities of ammonium nitrate, your men who purchased the fertilizer were working class white men. Do really expect a 75 year old experienced hardware store owner to question a large purchase of fertilizer by these men. If there were two Arabic men that barely spoke any English making this purchase, the red flags would be flying!!!
Yeah… Tim McVeigh…. blah, blah, blah,… that’s the past, we’re in the age of Muslim Terrorism. Please lighten up on your endless pursuit to make the Bush Administration look like they’re not doing enough to prevent attacks (5 Years, 0 Attacks).

I really appreciated the Movie “Path to 911″, but was disgusted to see Brian Ross’ report immediately afterward telling terrorists about more of our security weaknesses, and how they might strike us again. You talk about the lack of accountibility in our government, but who is Brian Ross accountable to?
Dale

Brian,
A sensitive issue still remains. Should we trust the information the government is supplying to the press & our people? Is the information valid? Is taxpayer funds being diverted in direct interest towards long time players in the government stature (i.e JFK’s brothers). Power and money have long term consequences for the next generations.
Does the president of the U.S. have full control in informing the general public the sencere truth of current events regarding where we stand as american citizens?
There is plenty of information on the internet that will simply saturate the true events of the lawfull or leagal aspects of the american way of life. It simply scares me when the government (persay) covers up many of the operating aspects of our government. Not just Washington DC but ALL of us citizens together that make the power to mould the U.S. into the most ideal place on earth to raise families & live life life to the fullest.
I’m proud to be an american & veteran but scared with the aspects of the undisclosed truth the government may be covering up.
gary n
ft wayne, in

This story & it’s irresponsible sensationalism is disconcerting.
While I’m no bomb-making expert…
Why do I have to register to own a gun, when college-aged kids can walk into a store and buy bomb-making materials or meth ingredients?
If we have to register for a shotgun or Sudafed, why are special-interest groups keeping a strangle-hold on Capitol Hill?

Mr. Ross,
In your report tonight, you repeatedly mentioned that lobbyists and the Farm Bureau continue to block bills that would restrict the purchase of Ammonium Nitrate. My US Government knowledge may not be the most complete, but from what I remember, lobbyists do not vote on bills. Why not expose those members of congress who voted against these bills? Lobbyists certainly have influence, but ultimately, each individual congressperson most vote for what is right. I want to see those who voted against these bills explain their vote(s).

The next time you have some investagative report about buying ammonium nitrate and not getting caught or questioned, try using some arabic men wearing dress shoes who load the stuff in a rent a car. I put my money on the feed store owners kicking themselves and holding them until athorities arrive. Stop crying about background checks…. give me a break, if I farm a thousand acres, I need a background check to buy fertilizer?

While Brian Ross and crew were able to buy ammonium nitrate, were they able to buy anything to detonate it with? The mixture won’t go off by itself. How hard is it to buy blasting caps anonymously nowadays? How hard is it to buy anything that would set it off?

Whenever I get a cold or sinus headache, I have to fill out a form with my name and driver’s license number in order to purchase pseudophedrine (Sudafed). This is because it is the main ingredient in making crystal meth.
I feel sure that more people buy Sudafed than buy ammonium nitrate, a main ingredient for simple bombs.
If you can inconvenience me at the grocery store or retail store, I think you should be able inconvenience farmers who are purchasing fertilizer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we all have purchased fertilizer at one time or another. The only difference is that the farmers have a lobbying group fighting on their behalf.
Yes, it’s a little more time-comsuming and frustrating, but what’s a little time compared to the overall safety of our country? They can just have that information ready and in-hand when they pick up their order. I don’t see what the big deal is that they have a lobbying group fighting this.

I am not impressed with the ease with which one can buy ammonium nitrate. True, it can be used as an explosive but only when it is set off with a detonator. For your next episode set your college kids the task of going out to buy some detonators and see how easy that might be.

I found it interesting that your controlled test was carried out with caucasian college students. Perhaps if you had used middle eastern decent students you would have gotten the result we all expected. I am from rural community USA and I can promise you using the test subjects you did as buyers was a bad idea.
While I don’t have a problem with an ID check to buy it, I do have a problem with a back ground check. It is foolish and would be a real issue in the day to day activities of the agriculture community. Perhaps a registered user permit would be a much better idea, just an added piece of paper to USDA’s system but worth that annual report perhaps?

Gee Brian, I’m embarrassed for you. Did you really think you were blowing the cover on something sinister? You mean some white kids that look like farmers can buy large quantities of fertilizer in farm country without being questioned? What an outrage! I won’t repeat what others have already said, but my first thought when viewing your “undercover report” was; “those people don’t look like terrorists to me”. Profiling = common sense. Bring back common sense. I would call your piece irresponsible if it wasn’t so laughable.

Must be one of the lamest attempts yet,, so what the bought some fertilizer, is this what it will come down to?? Panic mania, if you really look at things just about anything can be made to go boom, as the one person noted what would be the difference if they bought $300 worth of Gasoline and had a tank in car that held 100 gallons there would be nothing you could do about it, sure lets fill out a form for buying gas then you know what happens it become old and no one will pay attetion to it. Maybe the next Big story will be that they got bags and bags of Grain dust, and we all know what happens to grain mills with grain dust..

This may sound simple, but why don’t we make ammonium nitrate a class 1 hazardous materal. This would require the person purchasing,and transporting it a haz-mat endorsement{any quanity}.
These systems are already in place and would be a minimal cost to implement, a small cost to pay to help keep America safe.

I moved out into agricultural Long Island from the projects in the South Bronx (last of the 3rd Ave El, near where the Janes and Kirtland foundry made the once all-iron Library of Congress, the Capitol Dome for Lincoln [~1 million] and other capital projects, where the Mott Foundry made stoves, public fountains, sculpture, etc.) and in the 1960s there was stories about the “fertilizer bomb” and rumored to need about a 2 lb. coffee can of mercury fulminate to set off the oil and nitrate mix in a steel 40 gallon drum. Fertilizer bags marked “30-0-0″ the best, the amount of nitrate, potassium, etc. The US Army was testing it in the 1980s, shown in a NEWSDAY photo report (as was the Ayatollah with the Reagan family bible). I have no idea perhaps it was invented locally by some “genius” in exothermic chemistry. They are using nano-amounts now to investigate chemical reactions, thankfully. New Yorker Tim McVeigh should not have been executed, and kept as a future resource. (That might be because in school I’ve seen the original print of the first woman in an electric chair, taken from a shin-worn smuggled camera, that ended on the first page of the “Chicago Sun”). In my opinion, and apparently Oklahoma witnesses, others and events were ignored in the investigation by the authorities.

Yes, farmers and lobbyists are selfish and self-serving with little regard for life. Yes, store clerks may be breaking the law and could care less. They are definitely a bigger problem than the politicians who cannot enact a law requiring a national identity card, an energy bill aimed at USA independence from Middle-East oil, and a law that permits screening based on profiles of terrorists. Not really!! John Estep

Nice try! The ignorant probably fell for it. The NH4NO3 that you folks bought (as visably stated on the bag) was the mixture 32-0-0, The mixture of 20-20-20, is what you need for the bang-bang, and thankfully you’ll can not easily get it.
Even then, criminals are more interested in it for is value in crystal-meth production than as explosive material.
Your report was a failed attempt to show how little-ole-you could construct a bomb provide by some of us ignorant southern hay-seeds, in light what you see as GW’s unsafe war on terror.
Want to impress us viewers? Mix some diesel fuel with your 32-0-0 and try to blow it with a blasing cap.. you’ll get more bang with some methos and 2 liter of diet coke!

Some of the little known facts that were left out of the investigative report, Farmers are required to have a pesticide license and have to have annual training to maintain their license. They are required to show it and their suppliers record their license number when they purchase pesticides. Obviously the simpler way to solve this issue would be to expand what products the license covers. As in every case, the way this was reported is that farmers are against controlling this product which is far from the truth. There are existing ways to do this and that is why they were opposed to the bill that would have instituted this policy. The American Farm Bureau does not/can not provide any funding to members of Congress. Obviously most amercians have no idea of the amount of regulations/policys that already impact farmers to suggest that they must go through a criminal background check on top of eveything else.

Coming from a small farming community in central Illinois, every business knows if someone is new to the community. Every time the goverment makes a new law like this, it raises the farmers cost monetarily and extra time. Beleive it or not the american farmers and small town america are still the backbone of this country. In these communities, small town people are much better at policing our own. We don’t need more laws to protect us at the price of our rights slowly being taken away. Where I was raised if any of us were face to face with a highjacker with a bomb. Our thought is, OK a bomb,no negotiations. We are going to be blown up so why let them accomplish their goal. It’s rediculis to take our shampoo to protect us. Lets let our farmers feed us at lower cost with less interference from neurotic people who can’t, or are to weak to face their own responibility to take action.

YOU PEOPLE AND ALL AMERICANS THESE DAYS ARE NOTHING ABOUT A BUNCH OF PARANOID, FEAR FILLED CANDY-#####.
A background check to buy ammonium nitrate. Sure…let’s allienate the 5.7 million convicted felons in this country even more. Now if some dude was convicted for having some weed or pills years ago and happened to do some time for it or even received probation not only can that person have the chance after he or she turns their life around to have a decent profession anymore that requires licensure such as a doctor or nurse; now the government won’t even let them be farmers!
Hey you all…if you ever decide your tired of working to survive and put food on the table you can simply go out and commit a small felony. Don’t worry even if you don’t have a criminal mind or heart it is really simply in this country these days to break some insane, useless and draconian law. Anyways…then you can just sit back and collect disability, welfare, food stamps and whatever else the government offers those people who can never work. After all, every darn thing these days requires a backgroud check to do….What the heck is left for someone who has ever made a mistake in their life.
Let me tell you the difference between a convicted non-violent felon and a citizen with no record. The felon got caught. I see my ‘clean’ prison guard, cop, homeland security, and nurse friends prancing around town once in a while drunk as heck on the weekend drving from one bar to another without ever being pulled over. The majority of them even light up a joint when they know a drug test isn’t in the near future. Once I had a torn rotator cuff and picked up some extra pain meds because I was miserable in pain and my doctor would not listen to me when I told what I needed as everything else does not work. Well, I happened to get wacked in a sting. Felon for life now. I have 2 B.S. degrees, too many post grad certificates to mention, and I can’t get a job with the state or fed now. Ha! They view me as being ehtically challeneged. Ethically challenged people don’t make up at least 50% of the state and federal workers? No….not them. Ya right.