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Home Front: WoT
'What if' the port bomb had been real?
2006-08-20
Seattle gets a little nervous, but doesn't draw the appropriate conclusions. Still waiting for that one magic law that will fix terrorism with a wave of a cop's hand. And it's an election year ....
Can you imagine seeing a mushroom cloud while driving along Interstate 5?
“ What if a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb exploded at the Port of Seattle's Terminal 18 on Harbor Island? ”


That scenario is worth thinking about in light of last week's incident when the port was evacuated after a bomb-sniffing dog implied an explosive device was hidden in a cargo container. We were lucky. This incident turned out to be nothing.

But do we think enough about the "what if"?

"What if" is exactly what scenario planning and analysis are all about. Last week (on the same day as the port evacuation), The RAND Center for Terrorism Risk Management Policy released its study about the Port of Long Beach, "Considering the Effects of a Catastrophic Terrorist Attack."

"We chose to analyze a terrorist nuclear explosion in a shipping port because it seemed quite plausible, although the actual probability of such an event is impossible to calculate," the study said. "We chose a 10-kiloton explosion because it is possible to obtain such a yield with a relatively crude unboosted design."

RAND figured that within 72 hours, about 60,000 people would have died from the blast or from radiation poisoning; 150,000 more people would have been exposed to hazardous radiation; 6 million people would try to evacuate the Los Angeles area; and 2 million to 3 million people would become refugees requiring relocation because of fallout.

Seattle's narrow traffic patterns would make escape from such an attack even more deadly. It would be hard for us to escape -- especially if we were all trying to evacuate at once.

"There has been a growing effort to limit the opportunities for terrorists to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States," RAND said. "Specifically, new initiatives to improve the security of the container shipping network have been proposed, but the challenges are large. ” Each day, 20,000 shipping containers from ports all over the world are unloaded in the United States. Given that there are 361 operational seaports in the country, it will be difficult to implement comprehensive in-port security programs."
Which is why the maligned Bush administration effort actually is better. We can't inspect every single container (and the Dhimmis know it), but we can screen shippers, ships and operators. And we can whack terrorists abroad.
The study said recent security efforts are better -- but untested. What's more, the scale of an attack at the Long Beach port would be significantly greater than 9/11 with direct economic costs exceeding $1 trillion.

"There has been a growing effort to limit the opportunities for terrorists to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States," RAND said.
Consider the conflict between security and trade. If there were an attack (at any port), there would be an immediate call to shut down all U.S. ports until security could somehow be improved. "In contrast, parts of the business community might advocate an early opening of the ports. However, financial and real estate interests may require financial risk protection before shipping could resume, and this would be almost impossible to acquire following the Long Beach explosion," RAND said. "At the same time, there could be a large-scale exodus from U.S. port cities by local populations fearing a second attack. Taken together, these results suggest there are reasonable prospects for extended closures of all U.S. ports ... at least for periods of substantially reduced operations."

And what if people wanted to leave Seattle because it is a port city, too? Gasoline will be in short supply throughout the region because seven refineries in the Long Beach area would be closed -- about a quarter of the region's gas and 18 percent of the jet fuel supply.

RAND predicts the nation's port system -- even if it were able to reopen -- would be unable to pick up the balance of Long Beach's cargo. Ports in the L.A. area account for 70 percent of the West Coast container traffic, and it would require double shifts in Seattle, Tacoma and Oakland to make up just 80 percent of that lost capacity. That is, if the government even allowed the ports to operate beyond enhanced security.

"We know we're vulnerable," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in the Senate last month when she called for that body to move forward the GreenLane Maritime Cargo Security Act. "Terrorists have many opportunities to introduce deadly cargo into a container. It could be tampered with any time it leaves a foreign factory overseas to when it arrives at a consolidation warehouse and moves to a foreign port. It could be tampered with while it's en route to the U.S."

The GreenLane bill would set standards for port security and provide new funding for ports to ramp up efforts. More important: The bill is a clear message to the Department of Homeland Security to make port security a top priority.

The incident in Seattle last week and the new RAND study ought to compel the Senate to move this legislation quickly. Before the view from I-5 is a mushroom cloud.
Posted by:lotp

#12  RAND figured that within 72 hours, about 60,000 people would have died from the blast or from radiation poisoning; 150,000 more people would have been exposed to hazardous radiation; 6 million people would try to evacuate the Los Angeles area; and 2 million to 3 million people would become refugees requiring relocation because of fallout.

Too bad they didn't attach a cost estimate to this assessment. Does ONE TRILLION DOLLARS sound too far fetched? To cite the venerable Mrs. Davis:

Issue an unequivocal proclamation to all rogue regimes and terrorist sponsors that a single terrorist NBC (Nuclear, Biological or Chemical) attack on American soil will result in all notified nations being summarily glassed and Windexed. No negotiations, no apologies, no further notice. Glassed and Windexed on the spot.

Then sit back and watch these twisted f&cks scramble to rein in nutjobs like Kim and Ahmadinejad.

An attack like the one proposed by the RAND Center would set our country back a solid decade. I refuse to accept the risk of this. It is why we need to begin exterminating all jihadist Islamic clergy like the cockroaches they are.
Posted by: Zenster   2006-08-20 21:20  

#11  I agree with you Pan and Grom. We should have thrown in with the IDF and smoked the Hezbots once and for all. The only satisfaction we have now is the clear and undeniable verification that the Lebs and Hezbot are co-conspirators.
Posted by: Besoeker   2006-08-20 19:35  

#10  Gromgoru's right. We can harden this country until we can not move, a tactic that will never work. We, again, need to take the fight to our enemy. We have to make a decision here in America, do we want to live like this waiting for the next strike or do we have the strength to do what needs to be done to make America safe? If we want safe travel and no fear of terrorists we must get to destroying Iran. I don't care if gas goes to $10 a gallon, I want these crazies dead before they destroy a large segment of the US with a WMD.
Posted by: 49 pan   2006-08-20 19:31  

#9  The only sure way to stop a terrorist is at the sourse.
Posted by: gromgoru   2006-08-20 18:34  

#8  Here's a thought, BAN all imports and inspect all returning export sealand containers at sea! Phuech China and all the rest. We can make all we need right here in the good ole USA, and they decide they don't want our products, so be it.
Posted by: Besoeker   2006-08-20 17:05  

#7  3000-plus die in New York, Washington D.C., and a lonely field in Pennsylvania, and they yawn. One (luckily) false-alarum in their own port, and they "get religion".
Posted by: Fordesque   2006-08-20 15:33  

#6  We can't inspect every single container

But there is a lot we can know about every single container.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-08-20 13:07  

#5  Defense in depth can include remote sensing via unmanned equipment offshore.
Posted by: lotp   2006-08-20 13:01  

#4  Bombay,
That would cost more than my "Waterworld" set.
Posted by: Kevin Costner   2006-08-20 12:50  

#3  Thanks to all these containers being offloaded without checking, not only port cities, but any city, is at the same risk. If you're very close you won't see any mushroom cloud. Only the flash of bright light.
Posted by: SOP35/Rat   2006-08-20 12:47  

#2  Should build military platforms far enought out that any detonation would not harm the coasts.

Enforce all traffic through the platforms for inspection prior to the correspondng port. Continue coast guard patrols and coastal inspection.

At least there would be two physical layers of defense.
Posted by: bombay   2006-08-20 10:59  

#1  Are you kidding me??? Hitting Seattle it would get rid of half the moonbat liberals and most of my inlaws!!!!

Just kidding, I love you guys, really.
Posted by: 49 pan   2006-08-20 10:52  

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