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

To: Ish who wrote (256430)	5/17/2002 9:36:04 PM
From: J_F_Shepard	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

"Nuke plants? Very well protected after 9/11. " You speaking as an authority or just whistling past the graveyard?

To: Ish who wrote (256430)	5/17/2002 9:49:18 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769667

Really? How? Are they passing anymore of the terrorism drills? (They fail a very large portion of the 'tests', even with one month's advance warning according to the published government results). Can the containment vessels survive without a meltdown if a 747 plows into the structure? Don't know... they were only designed to resist smaller aircraft... the engineers aren't sure. And what about the multi-tons of high-rad spent fuel stored onsite in cooling ponds that aren't even protected by ANY kind of secure containment? The NRC's own security reports have clearly pointed out that even a Cessna crashing into one of those cooling ponds could cause a Chernobyl-sized disaster. Did the US move anti-aircraft batteries into positions around the power plants after 9-11 to protect them like the French did to protect theirs? No. Think a couple of security guards could stop an airplane crash or a determined band of terrorists with a couple of nitrate and fuel oil loaded Ryder trucks? The NRC doesn't... their security assesments consistently point that out. Think terrorists want to break into a power plant to steal fuel? I don't, that seems fairly riduculous. But might they want to 'kamakaze' one and cause us to - as the NRC report famously said - "lose the economic use of an area the size of Pennsylvania for a few thousand years". That's why the House Republicans wanted to SERIOUSLY increase security spending for nuclear power plants - but Fearless Leader Bush knocked the money out of the budget. Why? I don't know, your guess is as good as mine... Maybe his pals in the power industry were afraid it would make people think the plants were risky or something... maybe they feared for their paychecks, I don't know. I just know that Bush refused to spend even a fraction of the necessary funds that were recommended. And rent-a-cops are no proof against any really determined assaults. Sounds "penny wise and pound foolish" to me.