Kristof on the High Risk of Nuclear Terrorism
I have said it before and I’ll say it again: if John Kerry would do a better job with this — which is not unthinkable given how little Bush has done — that’s a significant factor for people to look at in deciding between Bush and Kerry.
When I said this before, my conservative friends criticized me, saying that there is no reason to think Kerry would be any better. Fair enough. Hence the word “if.” But you know what? I’m sick of the complacency. Bush needs to damn well start taking the simple steps necessary to combat this obvious menace.
As I’ve discussed here before, the steps to take are straightforward. Kristof says he’ll discuss these steps in his next column.
UPDATE: Michael Williams has a different take.
I agree with you about the importance of this issue. I don’t understand the complacenty of the public.
Bin Laden wants to destroy western civilization, and I don’t think that this is an idle threat. Or as unlikely as it seems.
The distance from Capitol Hill to the White House is 1.5 miles.
A well-timed large explosion – or two smaller ones – could take out the President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, the Senate Pro Temporare and possibly even the Secretary of State.
The FBI, Department of the Treasury and the Justice Department – all vaporized.
In the confusion, the value of the dollar would plummet and the world economy would be sent into a new form of the dark ages.
It might take generations to recover, if we could do it at all.
Comment by John Rogers (8e6087) — 8/11/2004 @ 6:31 am
I wonder how such a thing is preventable? Would posting thousands of nuclear sensitive sensors on streets, apartment complexes, hotels, that are networked be an option? I would like to know what are the options that all of you may know of.
Comment by Hugo (2fabc6) — 8/11/2004 @ 4:10 pm
Thanks for the link. My point, of course, isn’t that we’re not in danger. Rather, I don’t think the fighting in Iraq had any negative effect on our ability to prevent a domestic nuclear attack; on the contrary, I think a lot of Arab terrorists were drawn to Iraq — the so-called fly-paper strategy. Plus, I imagine there’s quite a bit being done domestically that we’ll never know about, for obvious security reasons… and I bet more Americans think so as well, which is why they don’t worry about it. We tend to trust our government to handle really important things like that.
Comment by Michael Williams (29f726) — 8/11/2004 @ 6:18 pm
Well, I don’t. And I don’t think you should either.
Comment by Patterico (f7b3e5) — 8/11/2004 @ 6:22 pm
I don’t doubt that they will eventually get their hands on a nuclear device and may have already. But here’s what I don’t get. Stories have been around for a long time about Soviet weapons unaccounted for, bad guys going shopping, etc. And we’re told how porous the country is, shipping container not inspected, etc. If the bad guys have one of these weapons, it seems to me they have nothing to gain by delay. Every day they don’t use the weapon makes it more likely they will never get the chance. So… if they have it, why haven’t they used it?
Comment by steve M. (508203) — 8/11/2004 @ 7:27 pm
I don’t think we’ve got much of a choice.
Comment by Michael Williams (29f726) — 8/12/2004 @ 2:38 pm