Port Security and Nukes
Posted by StormWarning on 29 Mar 2006 at 10:04 pm | Tagged as: Current Affairs, Federal Policy, National Security, Opinions
Don’t let anyone make you believe that just because DPW gave up the fight, that our ports are safe and secure.
‘Dirty Bomb’ Material Smuggled to U.S., GAO Says
Senators said a report that investigators smuggled enough radioactive material to build two “dirty’ bombs into the U.S. called into question the Bush administration’s efforts to secure the borders.
…The reports also accuse the Bush administration of being slow to deploy equipment that would detect radioactive materials and say corrupt foreign border officials and poor maintenance of detection devices have left the U.S. vulnerable to terror plots.
Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican who heads the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which held the hearing, said he was “alarmed’ at the ease with which investigators bought the unspecified radiological material and transported it across the northern and southern U.S. borders…
Despite some of the stuff I’ve read recently about how the 5% inspection rate of cargo containers is wrong, those people who make those statement are dead wrong and the Congressmen and Senators are not. The potential for nuclear proliferation in our ports is a significant and worrisome (<understated>).
Chew on that for a moment or two. And while you’re at it, consider that OTM’s are continuing to flow through our borders. It has everything to do with National Security and nothing to do with DPW.
- Technorati dirty bomb
Current Affairs, Federal Policy, National Security, Opinions
“Found” on the internet:
While I’m not sure that the NRC isn’t being a bit defensive, and I clearly believe that the fact that any nuclear material got into a port is quite disturbing…
NRC response to the GAO report.
From the NRC response:
The type and quantity of sources used in the GAO investigation are classified as low IAEA Category 5, which is the least significant of the five categories. These sources are several orders of magnitude from being risk-significant.
Also:
The three sources ordered by GAO are in the class of material that is exempt from licensing (another example is smoke detectors). These sources can be purchased by the general public, contain a very small amount of radioactive material, and are exempt from NRC or Agreement State licensing because of the minimal risk they pose from a safety and security perspective.