Aug 20, 2012
Intrusion embarrasses ‘Fort Knox of uranium’
from the China Post. It is news everywhere when the security of our nuclear weapons technology is shown up by two elderly nuns. Thank you to ALEC member (or ex-member depending on how much you believe their spokesperson) G4S, the owner of prison profitization operators, GEO and the company that could not provide their contracted security services to the London Olympic Games. It goes to prove the maxim, you get what you pay for.
Officials like to refer to the Y-12 National Security Complex as the Fort Knox for highly enriched uranium, which is why an unprecedented incursion by an 82-year-old nun and two fellow protesters has critics mocking the notion that the weapons plant is as secure as the site where the U.S. stores its gold reserves.
Operations resumed last week after being shut down over the embarrassing incident 18 days earlier. The Department of Energy has called on the contractor that runs the sensitive facility just west of Knoxville to explain why it shouldn’t be replaced.
Y-12 makes uranium parts for every warhead in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, dismantles old weapons and is the nation’s primary storehouse for bomb-grade uranium.
Officials insist that despite the more than two hours that the protesters went unchallenged on the facility, there was never any danger of them getting to materials that could be detonated on site or used to assemble a dirty bomb. ROFLMAO If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you that spans the Hudson River.
Peter Stockton, a former DOE adviser on nuclear security in the Clinton administration and a senior investigator with the Project On Government Oversight, said… “It is simply (expletive) unbelievable,”
One indicator of how serious authorities consider the July breach is how they’re treating the arrested trio…federal prosecutors have thrown the book at the three protesters, charging them with offenses that could carry cumulative prison sentences of 16 years for Sister Megan Rice of Las Vegas, Michael Walli of Washington and Greg Boertje-Obed of Duluth, Minnesota.
“That’s the reaction to the embarrassment,” said Ralph Hutchison, of the loose-knit Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance.
To read this article from the China Post, please click here
