First, read this blog post
Now, recently (paraphrased) from a New York Times Article:
Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq’s security forces have been relying (at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq) on a device (a small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel) to detect bombs that works on the same principle as a Ouija board – the power of suggestion.
The Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.
ATSC’s promotional material claims that its device can find guns, ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at distances up to a kilometer, underground, through walls, underwater or even from airplanes three miles high. The device works on “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction,” ATSC says.