Holy C**p

I wondered how long it would take someone to try this. The Washington Post reports:

The failure to detect uranium shipped by a news organization through two U.S. ports revealed serious deficiencies in the federal government's system for screening cargo, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general reported yesterday.

Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin began the review of customs and border protection procedures at the request of House Democrats after ABC News twice successfully shipped about 15 pounds of depleted uranium into the country in cargo containers.

"Improvements are needed in the inspection process to ensure that weapons of mass destruction or other implements of terror do not gain access to the U.S. through oceangoing cargo containers," according to the four-page report made public yesterday.

ABC News said depleted uranium is a harmless substance that can be legally imported and gives off a radiation signature similar to that of highly enriched uranium, which is used for nuclear weapons. The network said it shipped the lead-encased uranium in a teak trunk, along with other furniture, from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Los Angeles last year. It shipped the same material from Europe to Staten Island, N.Y., in 2002.

I don't think you need to live in a port city, as I do, to realize how this continuing vulnerability demolishes the President's pretense that "We're doing everything we can to protect our borders and ports." Relying on terrorists to write "very dangerous nuclear material" on the bill of lading is not a credible defense.