Kerry: Nuclear Terrorism Is Gravest Threat to U.S

Nuclear terrorism is the gravest threat the United States faces, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said on Tuesday as he offered a plan to secure atomic arsenals and materials around the world.
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In the second of three speeches on national security, Kerry is expected to propose a new high-level White House job to oversee efforts to prevent a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons and recommend speeding up a current program to secure nuclear material in the former Soviet Union.
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"Have we done everything we could to secure these dangerous weapons and materials? Have we taken every step we should to stop North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs? Have we reached out to our allies and forged an urgent global effort to ensure that nuclear weapons and materials are secured?"
...
"The honest answer, in each of these areas, is that we have done too little, often too late, and even cut back our efforts," he said.
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http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=872264&tw=wn_wire_story

:silly:
I've seen the light.:)

Nation from this threat. ...Oscar

Nukes are serious indeed.

But far more destabilizing is the US taste for empire. The reason we're worried about terrorists is because our nation's plutocracy is busy inspiring the old ones and creating new ones. Leave Iraq; stop backing Arab despots; stop funding the colonization of the Palestinians by the Israelis; desist from the economic exploitation of the third world; cease planting military bases in lands where they are unwanted; and we'd be not completely safe but much, much safer.

(with at best a fresh coat of paint)
...so it's not likely he'd rank it thusly.

As the "only superpower", it should be this easy.

Of course, greed likes to tell reason to go fuck itself on a regular basis, so...

A good friend of mine is an expert on post-Cold War Russia and sits on a civilian terrorism advisory panel. According to her, there are DOZENS of briefcase sized nukes from the USSR that are unaccounted for that the US gov. has been denying for years. No one, I repeat, NO ONE knows where they are.

It would have been a worthy investment, would have boosted the russian economy and secured the weapons when it was still possible to find them all.

100% what she's told me. Twice (because I didn't believe the first time.)

I trust her. I've known her for 15 years. Maybe her info's bad, but she lived over there for years and graduated (PhD) top of her class from a top-3 institution.

Just putting it out there -- not all of us post bullshit.

She's also told me that since I live in NYC I should (as she has) buy an inflatable raft for when the real shit goes down so we can hop in the river and float to rescue.

I should also say that she's pro-Kerry, although socially and militarily she's a bit more to the right than I'd like her to be.

All true. Promise.

Dems

You got it. Too bad our "leaders" don't.

right Rummie?

n/t

Does anyone think the broadcast media will pick up on this story and note the Bush PR flip/flop on this topic followed by the Bush inability to actually do what was promised? Prior to 911 Bush ignored former GOP Senator Baker's bi-partisan commission suggestion to increase this spending 50% to $3 B a year, as Bush instead tried to slow or eliminate several cooperative arms reduction projects, complaining that the Russians were not doing their share, but then in the summer of 2002, he pledges $10 billion over 10 years (to 2.5 B per year or 3.0 B ?) to a global partnership for rooting out weapons of mass destruction and now claims credit for Libya agreeing to eliminate its development of nuclear weapons.

With the Kerry speech coming, Bush notes the fact that spending here has been relatively flat at $2 B, and last week restarts the $ 0.5 B program to retrieve nuclear materials that the U.S. and former Soviet Union sent to more than 100 nations for use in research reactors. Heck, per Harvard's Belfer Center less nuclear material had been secured since Sept. 11 than in the two years before the terrorist attacks. Indeed, the agreed elimination of the 68 tons of USA/Russian cold war plutonium was put off during the Bush years over Bush's demand that(1) the Russians assume blanket liability in case of an accident or sabotage at Russian arms centers, and (2) that favored American contractors must have access to Russian materials before the already purchased fences and electronic sensors and other "quick-fix" materials could be moved from warehouses and installed in Russia to provide protection from theft by terrorists.

But will Broadcast media notice and report any of this?


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-kerrywmd1jun01.st ...

Kerry Will Target Threat of Weapons
The Democrat plans to outline a policy to help keep mass-destruction devices out of terrorists' hands, contrasting his approach with Bush's.

By James Rainey, Times Staff Writer


<snip>Kerry plans to deliver an address in Florida today outlining what advisors say is a more aggressive policy for finding, securing and destroying such weapons that could threaten the safety of the United States.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will argue that even a relatively nominal increase in the U.S.' annual investment of less than $1 billion would reap enormous security benefits, according to experts who have been advising Kerry on the issue.

That money would be used to secure weapons and dangerous materials that often go lightly guarded in Russia and other states that made up the Soviet Union — efforts collectively known as "cooperative threat reduction."

The Massachusetts senator also will call for a high-level presidential appointee to lead the threat reduction push, for more police and firefighters to beef up the ranks of "first responders" to any mass attack in the U.S., and for revamped diplomacy in Iran and North Korea to slow nuclear programs in those nations.

Kerry has previously proposed significantly accelerating the time frame for securing "loose" nuclear materials that the Russians had agreed to store or eliminate. He wants those efforts accomplished within four years, instead of the 13 years projected in one recent study."<snip>

Is the US.

so do many of us. :scared:

in a light colored summer suit...brightened his look a lot.
His speaking style was crisp, better than its been.

One remark caught my ear.....he talked about eliminating the threat of a "mushroom cloud."

For a minute there, I thought it was bordering on a new "fear" angle, one the Bushies haven't used yet....

the US.