U.S. Hiring Hong Kong Co. to Scan Nukes

My Way News ^ | Mar 23, 8:32 PM (ET) | TED BRIDIS and JOHN SOLOMON

[AnimalLover]

In the aftermath of the Dubai ports dispute, the Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the United States and elsewhere.

The administration acknowledges the no-bid contract with Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. represents the first time a foreign company will be involved in running a sophisticated U.S. radiation detector at an overseas port without American customs agents present.

Freeport in the Bahamas is 65 miles from the U.S. coast, where cargo would be likely to be inspected again. The contract is currently being finalized.

[DustyMoment]

Apparently, one of two things is going on - either there is something in the air or the water in Wash., DC, or W is becoming a certifiable idiot. He didn't get the ports deal and he doesn't get this!

Are there simply no American companies that can provide these services, or is Bush too wrapped around his globalization agenda?

[Beckwith]

I'm reading a lot of paranoid stuff in this thread.

There is no point in any of our security systems that is, by itself, secure. But our security systems are layered.

At each point in the shipping chain, inspections are carried out and the results documented. At each inspection point, inspectors and/or workers perform their checks.

Even if one, two or three agents were to be placed in the shipping chain, there is not a whole lot they could do insure a particular container were routed around foreign port inspections, at sea inspections and off-shore and US ports inspection.

You would need a huge conspiracy to do that.

Beyond that, these inspections are taking place in the Bahamas. Those same containers are subject to inspection once they hit our ports.

It's just another layer of security, it seems to me.

As far as getting a nuke into the country, a container would be the last tool I would use. I can think of a number of ways to get a nuke into the country that would end-run all inspections.

[Beckwith]

Are there simply no American companies that can provide these services?

See Post #11

[putupjob]

This whole thing is all good. After all we have a Republican President and we've already been told that everything is ok on this. And besides, this is the same Chicom outfit the Clinton people were working with. There, now everybody can be happy....both sides are doing it to us. I feel better now.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Beyond that, these inspections are taking place in the Bahamas. Those same containers are subject to inspection once they hit our ports. It's just another layer of security, it seems to me.

I am PRO-DPW. But here is the key problem with this port deal:

b>"The fact that foreign workers would have access to how the United States screens various containers for nuclear material and how this technology scrutinizes the containers — all those things allow someone with a nefarious intention to thwart the screening."

It is not a matter of manipulating the equipment or getting something through the Bahamas. It is a matter of deliberately sending "things" through the equipment to test what kind of shieldings will defeat it. (What fails can just "disappear".) That information can then be sold or used to defeat the same equipment at any port. My 81-year-old MOM understood the possibilities in a minute when I explained it and she has no nuclear knowledge (I do.)

[santorumlite]

You don't really believe bush is involved in this low level bueracracy decision?

I'd be far more concerned with chavez's role in chemical plants in tbis country.

[ex-Texan]

Yeah, maybe. Perhaps both sides are the same.

[Non-Sequitur]

I was in Freeport a week ago when my cruise ship docked there. We were in the middle of the commercial port, next to a container facility. Security was a joke. In U.S. ports each passenger had to show his shipboard ID when entering the dock areas. The Freeport dock had no security at the gate at all. Taxis and buses leaving at will. You could get off, hop the fence, and be in the container port. How does this improve security in an area with no security whatsoever.

[palmer]

This is obviously work that needs to be done by overpaid union longshoremen. I'm sure our dem friends will be all over this.

[DustyMoment]

You don't really believe bush is involved in this low level bueracracy decision?

I don't believe that Bush MADE the decision, but he damn good and well better have known about it in advance. And, if he knew about it and let it go through, he has clearly lost touch with the sentiments of John and Jane Doe American walking the street.

I see no difference between this issue and the Dubai Ports deal. Both stink and both need to go down in flames.

[B4Ranch]

Thank you for stating the obvious for all to see. Unfortunately there are those who will refuse to remove their blinders even after 911.

[B4Ranch]

"Who or what is the "they" you write about?"

Do yourself one BIG favor. THINK LIKE A TERRORIST FOR A WEEK and then ask your STUPID questions. You'll find they are so obvious that there isn't any more questions about how to destroy America. We are doing it ourselves!

Do you have any military background at all? Did you ever play war games when you were a kid?

[B4Ranch]

Bush IS too wrapped around his globalization agenda to see the future attacks from our enemies.

[B4Ranch]

"I can think of a number of ways to get a nuke into the country that would end-run all inspections."

By God, you can think how to end-run all the inspections. Amazing, I didn't think you had it in you.

I can think how half a dozen men working in a shipping terminal could shut it down for a year. No outside help needed, just determination is all that's required. Yet we leave those doors open for them as if we are asking for trouble.

Well when it comes I will not be surprised.

[flg]

Li Ka Shing became Hong Kong's leading business tycoon way back in the 1960s, under the British rule. Huchingson was a British multinational company acquired by him in the 1960s and he has been doing port business since then. The Chinese only took over Hong Kong in 1997. I doubt he's a Chinese agent of some sort.

[B4Ranch]

"Even if one, two or three agents were to be placed in the shipping chain, there is not a whole lot they could do insure a particular container were routed around foreign port inspections, at sea inspections and off-shore and US ports inspection."

Wrong, wrong and wrong. It is obvious you have never been around container shipping.

[Beckwith]

And for $150,000 I can buy and equip a fat cruiser like a Gulfstar 50 and invisibly sail across the Atlantic and carry a nuke right up the Potomac.



So why use a shipping system, the complexity of which, just adds too many variables and too many opportunities for a screwup?

[GladesGuru]

Hutchinsom-Wampoa is a de facto branch of the Peoples Liberation Army of China (PLA). Just who is minding America's interests in Washington, anyway?

Allowing the PLA to inspect American bound cargo for radiation is a waste of time. The PLA is well known to be one of the most likely sources of such an attack.

Much more of this deliberate making America more open to terrorist attack and I'll begin to believe it is time to impeach Bush.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

All the way from Iran?

[Beckwith]

then ask your STUPID questions

There is no such thing as a stupid question and you don't have to yell. It's just bad manners.

Thinking like a terrorist for 5 minutes tells me that there are better ways to deliver a weapon of mass destruction to the United States than the container system.