Special Ops boarding ship to search for Nuclear Material off the NJ shore

Fox News Alert | 9/12/02 | Brytani

[Brytani]

Fox News just broke in with an alert. Special Op's are now searching a Liberian flagged ship 8 miles off the coast of NJ looking for nuclear material. More information to follow.

[El Gato]

If there was a "threat" so devastating as a nuclear explosion so close to NYC this week,

They got the ship well offshore before the President got anywhere near NYC. They never say where the other 4 ships were that they checked out based on the intell information.

[Petronski]

Free Republic is the cutting edge of the cutting edge, that's what it means.

I don't want to get maudlin, but I must say that your analysis threading through this topic is extraordinarily sharp. Bravo.

[El Gato]

Gioia Tauro in southern Italy

One of the last ports of call of the ship that's currently sitting several miles off NJ crawling with SEALS and NEST folks!

[El Gato]

within 48 hours of a nuclear detonation in or near the United States

48 minutes would be entirely possible, still allowing plenty of time for communication and decision making.

[El Gato]

You don't need to send the Boomers into the Arabian Sea, just send them to sea anywhere

Technically you don't even have to send them to sea, they can fire from in port. However putting them into the Arabian Sea gives the target so much less time to evacuate the "important" people.

[El Gato]

SEALs boarding ships overall isn't completely unheard of.

But when they are accompanying or accompanied by a NEST team, that changes the equation, and the pucker factor, by a bunch.

[fooman]

AS I live in the upper east side, Would I survive the blast if the ship is 6 12 miles out? Assume 11 Kilo ton device.

[El Gato]

You'd have to be an old fart like me to remember the godawful Pinto

Heck I not only remember them, I had one, a '73 which I got in '76 after putting my '68 Malibu into a very steep ditch after hitting some black ice at -10 deg F. I don't think the Pinto was any worse than it's Chevy contempory the Vega, or the AMC Gremlim for that matter. It certainly wasn't as ugly as the Gremlin, engine was rough as a cob though, it kept shaking it's carb apart.

[El Gato]

Bandar Abbas, Iran; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Karachi, Pakistan.”

If they find or have found a bomb, and it doesn't have cyrlic or chinese characters on the outside, I'd bet on Pakistan being the source. We know they have nukes, and that at least some of their security forces are in cahoots with Al Qaida.

[spokeshave]

Sounds like an update to the "document dump" will be landing on little tommys desk next week.....

Try delaying a vote now you twerp

[tet68]

They never went to a "WAR" footing till late.
Speer wanted to but Hitler just couldn't bring himself to do it.
It wasn't until after Goerbels "Total War" speech that they
even moved in that direction.
Of course later Hitler wanted total destruction of the infrastructure, and Speer managed to prevent that.

[caa26]

Does anyone know of any "normal" cargo that would emit background radiation?

If something is found, it may not be released to the public. News of a dirty bomb in the ship would be enough to send the stock market plunging, I can only imagine how news of a nuclear bomb being found would effect the economy.

[El Gato]

Clinton would assemble the device himself. With his teeth, if he had to.

I suspect he'd use some other organ. Or get an intern to do it, and the organ too.

[Dinsdale]

Does anyone know of any "normal" cargo that would emit background radiation?

Radioisotopes are used for various industrial, medical and resource related tasks. They are fairly well tracked, documented and shielded most places.

The men and women on the ship are experts. No all clear yet tells me there is likely something sinister to this.

Does anybody believe they were unable to get onboard yeasterday? Choppers fly in hurricains and this is more serious then a heart attack (well anybody but me having a heart attack).

[Preech1]

I was thinking along the same lines myself, as to the chicoms. Remember W's first international "crisis" involved the chinese. Also, China supplies the Iranians and who knows who else...

[B-Chan]

My pleasure. Glad to help.

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

Has anybody noticed that tomorrow is Friday the 13th? I'm not superstitious, and I don't know if Muslims in general know that this date has an 'unlucky' connotation, but it's worth noting, anyway.

[Grampa Dave]

Kudos to many of our great Freepers for adding their expertise for we radiation dummies on this thread and what seals do after they board ships and other factors.

Travis, el gato and b chan did a great job for the rest of us!

This is why, when there is real breaking news and sometimes even a speech, I prefer to come to that breaking story on Free Republic. We know who the spinners and bravo sierra artists are, and we can avoid their clutter.

I know that I missed others who have added to this thread. Hey, I'm am an old Grampa and I forget things.