Smuggling Nuclear Materials Into The US
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On TerrorismApparently, we’ve done it recently to test our own security and we got them into the country. That’s right, we got them through our borders.
So why does anybody think “they” can’t?
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Two teams of government investigators using fake documents were able to enter the United States with enough radioactive sources to make two dirty bombs, according to a federal report made available Monday.The investigators purchased a “small quantity” of radioactive materials from a commercial source, according to a Government Accountability Office report prepared for Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican.
The investigators posed as employees of a fictitious company and brought the materials into the United States through checkpoints on the northern and southern borders, the report stated.
This is a miserable failure by DHS, and only speaks to how significant secure borders are to this country’s future.
Hey DHS! Wake up! You’ve got the money to patrol these borders, to scan each vehicle coming in for radioactive materials. So would you do it already before we got a dirty bomb attack in one or more of our cities?
Jeezus…
UPDATE:
I was wrong about the US scanning for nuclear materials. We do. But we STILL let them through. That’s even more alarming.
Plus, Interpol has said that Al Qaeda is looking to biological warfare as their next gambit of attack.
Ronald Noble, secretary-general of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), told a conference in Singapore that captured terrorist suspects have admitted that their groups are plotting potential biological attacks.There is enough evidence to show that Al Qaeda is preparing to engage in biological warfare, Noble said.
“It can’t be that we as a world community have to wait for a September 11 type of attack in bio-terrorism before we prepare,� Noble told government officials, police and health experts attending the Asian Terrorism Workshop.
Agreed…but what to do? The only thing I can think of right now is secure the borders, secure the borders, secure the borders.
Any thoughts?
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 28th, 2006 and is filed under The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 28th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Apparently the guards detected the radioactivity but were fooled by forged documents and let the shipments into the country. They are now receiving the means to identify fake documents.
Not a banner moment for national security, is it?
March 28th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
No, not a banner moment…but overall, a good thing.
Not good that it happened, but good that it was exposed, good that there was some embarrassment caused (we can hope, at least…pols are strange about what they choose to be embarrassed about), and good that DHS is getting the means to address the exposure.
I hope it keeps on happening, and that we continue to probe for our exposures…because THEY aren’t going to stop doing so.
March 28th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I agree with you, LF, this is a good thing …. we should be testing on a continuous basis. The good thing is that I think we are doing that, but it rarely makes the press.
March 28th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
So, uh, has anyone ever successfully smuggled dirty bombs into Dubai? Just asking.
March 28th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Cal – No one smuggles dirty bombs into Dubai … they smuggle dirty bombs THROUGH Dubai. You can move anything through “Smuggler’s Creek”.
U.S. News & World
Report had to say about Dubai back in December 2005:
But Dubai also serves as the region’s criminal
crossroads, a hub for smuggling, money
laundering, and underground banking. There
are Russian and Indian mobsters, Iranian
arms traffickers, and Arab jihadists. Funds for
the 9/11 hijackers and African embassy
bombers were transferred through the city. It
was the heart of Pakistani scientist A. Q.
Khan’s black market in nuclear technology
and other proliferation cases. Half of all
applications to buy U.S. military equipment
from Dubai are from bogus front companies,
officials say. “Iran,” adds one U.S. official, “is
building a bomb through Dubai.” Last year,
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agents thwarted the shipment of 3,000 U.S.
military night-vision goggles by an Iranian
pair based in Dubai. Moving goods undetected
is not hard. Dhows–rickety wooden boats
that have plowed the Arabian Sea for
centuries–move along the city center,
uninspected, down the aptly named
Smuggler’s Creek.
March 28th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Exactly GN. Thank you.
But you do realize this makes us both racists and islamophobes.
Tis said…but tis true…
March 29th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Justin,
Not racist … by any standard
Black friends …. not Panthers
White friends …. not KKKers
Spanish friends … not Crips
Gay friends … not pervs
Yadda, yadda, Yadda
Islamophobe? dinner last night with Egyptian friends …..not terrorists
What i8t really makes us is … thoughtful and literate. (somewhat)
March 30th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
I had no idea that “Interpol” was short for International Criminal Police Organization. It would be way funnier to use just the acronym — ICPO — and pronounce it “Ickypoo”
March 30th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Bob – Everybody hates the cops … till they need them.