I chimed in earlier with my €0.02 on the ports issue. Americablog points out that the New York Times has run a column on what should be the common thread between both sides of the issue — a lack of existing port security.
Only 4 percent or 5 percent of those containers are inspected. There is virtually no standard for how containers are sealed, or for certifying the identities of thousands of drivers who enter and leave the ports to pick them up. If a nuclear weapon is put inside a container ” the real fear here ” “it will probably happen when some truck driver is paid off to take a long lunch, before he even gets near a terminal,” said Mr. Flynn, the ports security expert.[...]
“I’m not worried about who is running the New York port,” a senior inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency said, insisting he could not be named because the agency’s work is considered confidential. “I’m worried about what arrives at the New York port.”
That port, along with the five others Dubai Ports hopes to manage, are the last line of defense to stop a weapon from entering this country. But Mr. Seymour, head of the subsidiary now running the operations, says only one of the six ports whose fate is being debated so fiercely is equipped with a working radiation-detection system that every cargo container must pass through.
I wish that this aspect of the story would get a bit more play in the mainstream media. When you get down to it, that is the core problem. If we had decent security in place, ownership of the port operations would be a mostly moot point.
Yes, such security measures would be expensive. However, experience in Hong Kong suggests that it is doable. And if money is the issue — consider whether it would be cheaper to tighten security, or to clean up the mess if a nuke were detonated in the Port of Baltimore. (Imagine the loss of culture is Dundalk went up in a puff of radioactive smoke!)
However, this is an election year, so naturally the media and the politicians will hook on to the easiest-to-grasp aspect of this whole affair, magnifiy it, and run with it until the public becomes exhausted with the matter.