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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (198957)	11/2/2001 9:27:37 AM
From: James F. Hopkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

A Most serious threat exist via the thousands of shipping containers that enter our major ports on ships every day. For the most part all our leaders are doing is giving this lip service by saying they will review it. These never get checked until "after they arrive" and then we only check about 2% . Cargo containers have long been the favorite method of transportation for guns and other illegal contraband. While I don't think terrorist have actual "nukes" that they can easily ship us, I am convinced they do have the ability to make bombs like the "McVay type" and also line the container with lead then add radio active material to make the bomb "dirty" . Shipping these to us is easy. ------------- I don't expect just one or two of these , I'm convinced they will try to ship as many as they can to as many different ports as they can on their first attack, because they want to do this in a big way before we start checking all the containers "before" they get loaded. ( which we don't now do ) --------------- The "dirty bombs" via cargo containers will likely have "door triggers" as well as triggers that can be set off via cell phones or beepers. -------------- We are dragging our feet on doing anything to prevent this and they are aware of that. It is our weakest underbelly at this time. The dirty bombs can be made with a wide variety of radio active material that is easily obtained . A few dirty bombs can cripple almost any port and will have the effect of shutting down almost all shipping for a prolonged time. I expect it will exceed the economical damage done via the Airline shut down by a factor of X 1000 or more. ---------------- Increased vigilance at ports of entry are a joke, the whole system of shipping via cargo containers has to include checking all the containers "before" they are loaded and at the ports they are coming from. Play this down all you want, in time it's going to happen because it's just to easy for them to do it. --------- PS if you live in a major port and do hear of a container ship explosion do not rush to the scene to see what happened , no one seems to be taking "dirty radioactive type bombs as a serious threat" so there might not be any warning about the fall out until it's to late. Jim