Originally posted by Creamo
Iraq, and North Korea couldn't put a missile on target to the United States if there very existence depended on it. I like the ocean goof, it’s realistic. They couldn’t put a beach ball in the ocean if they hired Michael Jordon.
Or they would have.
Threat Assessment: ABC News Smuggles Uranium Into United States
ABC News successfully smuggled a shipment of depleted uranium into New York, the Associated Press reported Friday. The story on the smuggled uranium is scheduled to run as part of ABC’s Sept. 11 anniversary coverage this week.
ABC said it borrowed 15 pounds of depleted uranium from the National Resources Defense Council to use in its test of how well U.S. authorities are preventing a possible “dirty bomb” attack. ABC correspondent Brian Ross carried the uranium from Austria to Istanbul. The contents were clearly marked and packed into a container with other objects and then shipped to New York. Throughout the entire process, the uranium was never detected, according to AP.
“Seven countries, 25 days and 15 pounds of uranium, and not a single question,” Ross said.
Out of the 1,139 containers on the vessel used to ship the depleted uranium to New York, the ABC package was one of less than a dozen identified for further inspection before the ship entered port, said U.S. Customs Service spokesman Dean Boyd. Inspectors used X-ray equipment and a radiation detector to check the ABC package, which was found to not pose a threat, he said.
The suitcase of depleted uranium, however, would give off about the same amount of radiation as a package of enriched uranium would if shipped in a lead-lined case, Ross said. The container should have been opened and examined, he said.
“They missed it,” Ross said. “They could say that it was no danger, which is true because we made sure there was no danger. But I think that misses the point.”
U.S. officials are angry over the time spent on ABC News’s operation, AP reported.
“The U.S. Customs Service is engaged in a deadly serious business,” Boyd said. “The American public wants us to focus on real threats, not fake ones” (Associated Press/Salon.com, Sept. 6).
