Posted on 08/16/2006 11:54:53 AM PDT by BenLurkin
SANTA MONICA, Calif. A nuclear blast at the Port of Long Beach could kill 60,000 people, expose 150,000 to radiation, send 6 million people fleeing and cause 10 times the economic losses attributed to 9/11, according to the Rand Corp.
Those projections are based on a scenario that assumes terrorists detonate a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb hidden in a shipping container shortly after it is unloaded at a Port of Long Beach pier.
"We used this scenario because analysts consider it feasible," said a summary of the report, which was an amplification of a study that the Santa Monica-based think tank conducted for the Department of Homeland Security in 2004.
But Rand officials said the study was not meant to predict such an attack was likely.
Based on the nuclear-blast scenario, Rand researchers conducted "strategic games" with leaders from government, business, and the insurance and real estate industries, according to Rand.
"Participants shared their perspectives on what the attack's longer-term consequences might be and outlined the decisions they would be likely to make in response to the sequence of events our scenario analysis suggested," the study said.
"They also anticipated the decision-making challenges that might arise and reflected on strategies that might address these problems."
The attack assumed by Rand researchers could prove overwhelming in the short-term and beyond. Within 72 hours, according to the study, the explosion would "devastate a vast portion of the Los Angeles metropolitan area," including a port complex that handles about a third of the nation's imports.
This could be why the Globalist are trying to move the major ports down into Mexico.
Hmm, isn't the port run by a foreign corporation? This will be the other shoe of this propaganda campaign, unless it's Hutchins-Whampoa or Lippo.
I live nearby.
That's odd. I have been having the strangest premonitions that Al Qaida and Friends were going to detonate a nuke in Long Beach this week or the next.
I had one last night at Church too, weird reading this today.
I suppose in God's eyes, both lives have the same value.
But God doesn't have to put up with liberals.
"Thank you CBS for giving terrorists an Idea."
Just doing their job.
Because heaven knows, supporting the USA and just reporting real
news ain't.
The Islamofacists aren't stupid. There are not enough Americans left in LA to create a real sense of terror in the US population.
The most likely effect would be that Mexico would lodge a strong protest with the Bush administration because Mexico's imports of US currency would plunge.
Whatever.
Why did it take this long for Rand to figure this out? This is old news and doesn't deserve space in a newspaper. Obviously, the POLB/LA is one of the top 5 terrorist targets in the U.S. There have been arrests made in the past several months by Homeland Security regarding suspicious activity in and around the port. Do we need to read about this in the papers? No!
A 10 Ton NUKE going off anywhere can't be too good for us!
Was the point of the story to push for all containers to be searched... a waste of time...once the nuke/container is in port it will go off...we won't have time to search for it.
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