Yesterday after a bomb scare, no explosives were found in the Port of Seattle The port set up a perimeter of nearly half a mile around one of its terminals Wednesday after bomb-sniffing dogs indicated that two containers from Pakistan could contain explosives, but none was found.
This type of scenario, where a WMD -in a worst -case-a nuclear device smuggled in through a USA sea port into the country, has long been anticipated by terrorism experts and I'd say it's America's Achilles heel
According to a report released this week by the RAND Corp, the scenario involving the detonation of a nuclear weapon at the Port of Long Beach in California would be catastrophic for the entire United States, leading to 10 times the economic damage caused by the Sept. 11 attacks,
RAND's Center for Terrorism Risk Management Policy examined the effects of a 10-kiloton nuclear explosion at the port. Such a blast could "devastate a vast portion of the Los Angeles metropolitan area" within 72 hours, kill 60,000 people immediately and expose another 150,000 to radiation, according to the analysis.
The explosion and fires could destroy the infrastructure of the Port of Long Beach and neighboring Port of Los Angeles, along with all ships docked at the two facilities. The ports handle about one-third of U.S. imports.
Some 2 million to 3 million people might also be forced to relocate from contaminated areas, and destruction of port area oil refineries could result in large-scale gasoline shortages. If all U.S. ports were subsequently closed for security reasons, there could even be global repercussions, the report warns.
"It would take years to recover economically" from such an attack, Michael Wermuth, RAND homeland security research director, told the Los Angeles Times. "It would take any number of years before some of the area close to ground zero could be rebuilt, and some of it would not be habitable for 20 years" according to the , Los Angeles Times,
See Full Report (72 pages)
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