NewsMax - Monday, Apr. 15, 2002

On September 11, Americans discovered that a civilian airline jet could be turned into a flying bomb.

Now, the respected Economist magazine is warning that container ships could be the next terrorist vehicle.

Each year, more than 7,500 commercial vessels make approximately 51,000 port calls, off-loading six million loaded marine containers in U.S. ports. Current growth predictions indicate the container cargo will quadruple in the next 20 years.

One serious worry is that terrorists might use one of these ships to transport and then explode nuke in a major U.S. port -- perhaps crippling the U.S. economy as the nation's stream of commerce stops in a self imposed protective embargo.

And the experts agree there is no silver bullet to prevent such a catastrophe.

Already, the U.S. Coast Guard is employing highly sensitive equipment to check ships for radioactive material. But such checks are not fool-proof, nor can the Coast Guard scan all ships for the potentially lethal material.

Another concern is that the terrorists may use an oil tanker as a way to collapse the U.S. economy.

Noted journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave, in a special "Off the Record” briefing to NewsMax readers warns that terrorists have already talked and bragged about being able to explode a fully loaded oil tanker as it passes through the Straits of Hormuz.

Such a disaster, de Borchgrave says, would close the narrow straits, and send the world economy into a tailspin. For more on de Borchgrave’s revelations, click here.

But just how likely are such attacks?
Ominously, an al-Qaida manual discovered in the United Kingdom said seaport workers could make good recruits.

Furthermore, bin Laden is said to own a fleet of freighters, already put to use smuggling explosives into Africa for the 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya.

Other unhappy factoids: the Philippines, home to more than one militant group, is the world's biggest crew supplier. And Indonesia, headquarters for many radical Muslim groups, comes in second at supplying crews for the nettlesome container ships.

But the worst news is that the vulnerability of the critical supply line has already been illustrated -- in spades. Italian authorities recently found a suspected al-Qaida member inside a sealed container headed for Canada.....

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[b]DId anyone see the 60 minutes program a few weeks ago talking about his?[/b]

Franklin
[url=http://www.survivalforum.com]SurvivalForum[/url]

I agree that it is a tremendous threat...

It ranks in the top three (in my eyes)

1.) being the LACK of preparation of the people
2.) Ports, etc..
3.) Computer Networks (which run telecommunications, electric grids, financial systems, etc.)

Franklin

Keep postin' those GREAT IDEAS on the internet, folks!

Thaa-anks!

Gee Bus-Master, those stupid terrorists would NEVER have thought of it themselves, would they?  I mean, if it wasn't for Tom Clancy they would never have gotten the idea to fly a plane into a building, right?  BTW, since they're so dumb, how did they learn to fly 767's?  

Container ships an easy way to sneak-in a large bomb?  I hate to say something positive about Senator Fritz Hollings, but he has been saying that for over 10 years.  Of course, anyone from South Carolina that's visited Charleston, SC could figure that out for themselves after looking at the huge piles of containers.  According to Hollings and if I remember the numbers correctly, less than 0.01% of the containers are inspected.  I'm still not concerned, because other than a nuclear bomb, a bomb the size of a container couldn't harm much more than the large warehouse it was stored in.z