The car was sent back to Azerbaijan, although smuggling nuclear materials is a crime under Georgian law.

Well, thank the Lord that they have that law. We all know just passing a law will stop the problem.

Next up, Banning guns in DC to stop the massive murder rate….

…Nevermind…

Because during the Clinton years it was determined that our intelligence people should not be getting into bed with the bad guys so he pushed legislation to prevent just that. Now the only ones who can associate with shady characters are elected officals.

LakeRuins on June 20, 2007 at 10:37 AM

This topic just came up on another site. IOs with sources and connections that might be considered “underworld” were pressured out, or forced to disconnect from their street contacts, or those contacts were threatened with being burned.

Yes, much better to have agencies full of boyscouts, without the most useful available sources.

How did the Georgians/Azerbaijans :
a) Identify what the radioactive material was?
b) Given that material is highly lethal, where the smugglers wearing protective suits and lead shielded car?
c) Were they glowing in the dark when they were discovered?
d) What was the nationality of the Azerbaijan smugglers, Muslims? (gotta ask it)
e) Given it’s relative location to Iran, why take it through Georgia?

Inquiring minds wanna know.

I was just thinking of those same people’s eventual DESTINATION.

shooter-

That failing to drive hard to secure these loose nukes (and related radioactive materials) by Clinton and Bush is a black mark on both of their legacies.

Doing 60% of such a job is a 40% failure.. which may prove 100% fatal.

Many well-meaning Americans believe that the US can afford to rid itself of several thousand “excess” nukes since the Cold War is over and Russia is now our “ally” in the war against terrorism. How well-balanced are the US and Russian nuclear arsenals today? Former Senator Sam Nunn and former Senate Majority Leader, Howard Baker, have written several articles citing estimates that Russia possesses a nuclear arsenal totaling approximately 40,000 warheads. In contrast, the US arsenal consists of no more than 10,000 to 11,000 total warheads, down from 30,000 in 1991. Equally disturbing is that according to sworn testimony by former Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, James Schlesinger to Congress in fall 1997, Russia continues to produce “thousands” of miniaturized nuclear warheads a year despite the fact that the US closed its nuclear production plants almost a decade ago.

from between 70,000 and 100,000 nukes in 1989-1991 down to what? less than 3,000 each…I doubt it…SO- WHERE ARE THEY , and the scientists?

Keep in mind that almost the entire time we should have been focusing MAINLY on this problem, just after the Soviet collapse, is when the Clintons were in the White House. But they were on an 8 year ‘cover my ass’ term and not concerned with much else.

do some searching …it’s… more than a little troublesome.

profitsbeard on June 20, 2007 at 11:29 AM

I was thinking more along the lines of somebody in their neighborhood. Like next door. A country with stong ethnic and religious ties.

Hmmmm.

Why shouldn’t we own it.
profitsbeard on June 20, 2007 at 10:15 AM

When the USSR fell apart, we bought like 60% of their nuclear warheads and material for power plants ( and to keep it under control) etc. but the facts are that there were so many thousands of nukes in USSR that no one in the world knows where they all are now. There are probably 3000 warheads in places unknown.
I believe I saw that 30,000 nukes were still in the ground, missiles, and almost all of them here. 5% of the nukes are in the other half dozen nuclear countries.
If only 2% of weapons grade nuclear material is unaccounted for today, that is still enough to kill Europe or America. ALL of either.
We should be spending much more time and money finding it.

What do you think is powering Russia and Putin today?
Nukes? nope…money from those nukes.

JackStraw-

Now who would be interested in a trigger…?

That would be those charming “newcomers” to America, right?

FYI, Beryllium is used as a “trigger” in nuclear weapons, to set off the atomic chain reaction.

Now who would be interested in a trigger for a nuclear weapon?

Burn the opium crop out of sight of the sellers to keep it off the market, but leave them with the impression that they had stuck a blow at the Great Shaitan.

And recycle the radioactive materials captured for our own arsenals/power plants, or decommission it, as needed, if it is mere dirty bomb grade material (x-ray machine junk, etc.).

The smugglers will be placing an advert in the Wanted Pages of the Baku Times: “Need 4 Mexican coyotes to transport delicate fissible materials into Georgia. Meet under the B&Q sign near the Maiden’s Tower on Friday. Pay is scale.”

Mindcrime on June 20, 2007 at 10:08 AM

To heck with that. I say we hire the Georgian customs officials to work over here…at least they know how to keep somebody from crossing the border.

Why don’t we have scores of CIA agents, posing as mafiosos/jihadists, scattered throughout the world, buying up this crap in the pretense of wanting to harm Amerika.
(Same with the Afghan opium crop.)
profitsbeard on June 20, 2007 at 10:15 AM

Because during the Clinton years it was determined that our intelligence people should not be getting into bed with the bad guys so he pushed legislation to prevent just that. Now the only ones who can associate with shady characters are elected officals.

It’s going to be sold to somebody. We can outbid anybody.

Why shouldn’t we own it.

profitsbeard on June 20, 2007 at 10:15 AM

Yeah, then we can use the opium to keep the little people down by including it in the various and sundry handouts we offer…

we can use that glowing stuff to further oppress our various and sundry colonies around the world…Imperial Swine that we are…

I’m fer it!

It’s from places like this that 9-11 type events happen; wannabe countries.

(Same with the Afghan opium crop.)

It’s going to be sold to somebody. We can outbid anybody.

Why shouldn’t we own it.