Source

Sept. 11 Panel Chief Warns of Nuclear Threat to U.S.
Reuters Mar 28, 2006
WASHINGTON - The United States has not adequately protected itself against the nightmare scenario of a nuclear attack by terrorists, the head of the panel that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said on Tuesday.

Former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean told a Senate panel that neither the Bush administration nor Congress has done all it can to protect American lives and the U.S. economy: “The size of the problem still totally dwarfs the policy response.”

Another expert, Stephen Flynn of the Council on Foreign Relations, outlined numerous security gaps in global trade and shipping. Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander, said the country is living on “borrowed time” for avoiding a so-called dirty bomb that could contaminate a financial district or residential neighborhood and wreak havoc on the economy.

They were among the witnesses before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations one day after the release of a government report that said that four years after the attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, federal undercover investigators were able to enter the United States with enough radioactive material for two dirty bombs.

Radiation monitors did detect the radioactive materials in investigators’ cars crossing the U.S.-Mexican and U.S.-Canadian borders in December 2005, but border patrol officials did not realize the shipping documents and permits were forged, the Government Accountability Office said in that report.

The commission disbanded in 2004 after conducting a comprehensive probe of the attacks. But its 10 members have remained active in promoting better national defense.

A dirty bomb could kill people in the blast’s immediate vicinity and spew radioactive material, making an area unusable. It could cause immense economic disruption, as other ports and transport routes could be shut down temporarily, just as air traffic was halted after the 2001 attacks.

“We’re not acting like a nation at war,” said Flynn, adding that security plans have not drawn on all the available technology nor the incentives in the private sector for closing security gaps.

Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, noted that a nuclear bomb would be far more devastating than a dirty bomb. A small amount of plutonium — smaller than a water glass that Levin displayed — could wipe out a city and kill millions.

Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, said the lack of nuclear screening at seaports is a “massive blind spot.”

Kean acknowledged that a nuclear attack is less likely than other actions, like the train and subway bombings in Madrid and London. “But a nuclear event is possible, and it would have profound and incalculable consequences.”

“Why isn’t the president talking more often about securing nuclear materials?” he asked. “Why isn’t the Congress focused? … Why aren’t the airwaves filled with commentary if everyone agrees that the crossroads of terrorism and nuclear weapons is the most serious threat to our security?”

Buck Sargent put a great article online today, about Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, the son of the bitter Cindy Sheehan. He also has an awesome, very touching video available as well, called Once Upon A Time in Mosul.

Take a moment. Read the article. View the video. You WILL be touched beyond belief.

As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, I have a large portion of my family that has served in the US Military here and overseas. I am proud of all of them. Fortunately, I haven’t lost any of them to combat. Unfortunately, many of my friends, neighbors, and associates have lost people in their lives to combat conditions.

Buck’s article should bring a tear to your eye…even more so with the video.

Rich

I read EVERY new posting on Michael Yon’s weblog. You may have heard of him…he took this picture.

Michael is one of the FEW real journalists telling the world “how it really is” over there. He has the FULL support of the soldiers, the commanders, and reminds each and every one of us that take the time to read his work, that IT IS WORKING over there…freedom is being felt, fought for, and Iraqis are themselves dying for it…side by side with our own military as allies. Pay attention to Michael. He speaks the truth, and our men and women in uniform over there, and over here, deserve that the facts they are losing life and limbs for, be heard. Below, comes another voice.

Today, a soldier’s letter home to his mom hit the web…and a very touching one at that. It’s about freedom. It’s about sacrifice. It’s about the BIG picture…the real world…what evil can be quelled, and who the men and women are that do it.

Read it below…and share.

Rich

The following is a letter sent to the Mother of an American soldier currently serving with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. Per his request - via his Mother - we offer it to you. We believe this is an extremely important letter and urge you to share it with everyone you know. Special thanks to Jack and Carol Ott for getting this to us:

Taste of Freedom:
A Soldier’s Letter to America
USA/SGT Walter J. Rausch & 1st Platoon 101st Airborne Division

Mom,

Be my voice. I want this message heard. It is mine and my platoon’s to the country. A man I know lost his legs the other night. He is in another company in our battalion. I can no longer be silent after watching the sacrifices made by Iraqis and Americans everyday. Send it to a congressman if you have to. Send it to FOX news if you have to. Let this message be heard please…

My fellow Americans, I have a task for those with the courage and fortitude to take it. I have a message that needs not fall on deaf ears. A vision the blind need to see. I am not a political man nor one with great wisdom. I am just a soldier who finds himself helping rebuild a country that he helped liberate a couple years ago.

I have watched on television how the American public questions why their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters are fighting and dying in a country 9000 miles away from their own soil. Take the word of a soldier, for that is all I am, that our cause is a noble one. The reason we are here is one worth fighting for. A cause that has been the most costly and sought after cause in our small span of existence on our little planet. Bought in blood and paid for by those brave enough to give the ultimate sacrifice to obtain it. A right that is given to every man, woman, and child I believe by God. I am talking of freedom.

Freedom. One word but yet countless words could never capture it’s true meaning or power. “For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.” I read that once and it couldn’t be more true. It’s not the average American’s fault that he or she is “blind and deaf” to the taste of freedom. Most American’s are born into their God given right so it is all they ever know. I was once one of them. I would even dare to say that it isn’t surprising that they take for granted what they have had all their life. My experiences in the military however opened my eyes to the truth.

Ironically you will find the biggest outcries of opposition to our cause from those who have had no military experience and haven’t had to fight for freedom. I challenge all of those who are daring enough to question such a noble cause to come here for just a month and see it first hand. I have a feeling that many voices would be silenced.

I watched Cindy Sheehan sit on the President’s lawn and say that America isn’t worth dying for. Later she corrected herself and said Iraq isn’t worth dying for. She badmouthed all that her son had fought and died for. I bet he is rolling over in his grave.

Ladies and gentleman I ask you this. What if you lived in a country that wasn’t free? What if someone told you when you could have heat, electricity, and water? What if you had no sewage systems so human waste flowed into the streets? What if someone would kill you for bad-mouthing your government? What if you weren’t allowed to watch TV, connect to the internet, or have cell phones unless under extreme censorship? What if you couldn’t put shoes on your child’s feet?

You need not to have a great understanding of the world but rather common sense to realize that it is our duty as HUMAN BEINGS to free the oppressed. If you lived that way would you not want someone to help you????

The Iraqi’s pour into the streets to wave at us and when we liberated the cities during the war they gathered in the thousands to cheer, hug and kiss us. It was what the soldier’s in WW2 experienced, yet no one questioned their cause!! Saddam was no better than Hitler! He tortured and killed thousands of innocent people. We are heroes over here, yet American’s badmouth our President for having us here.

Every police station here has a dozen or more memorials for officers that were murdered trying to ensure that their people live free. These are husbands, fathers, and sons killed every day. What if it were your country? What would your choice be? Everything we fight for is worth the blood that may be shed. The media never reports the true HEROISM I witness everyday in the Iraqi’s. Yes there are bad one’s here, but I assure you they are a minuscule percent. Yet they are a number big enough to cause worry in this country’s future.

I have watched brave souls give their all and lose their lives and limbs for this cause. I will no longer stand silent and let the “deaf and blind” be the only voice shouting. Stonewall Jackson once said, “All that I have, all that I am is at the service of the country.” For these brave souls who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including your son Cindy Sheehan, I will shout till I can no longer. These men and women are heroes. Their spirit lives on in their military and they will never be forgotten. They did not die in vain but rather for a cause that is larger than all of us.

My fellow countrymen and women, we are not overseas for our country alone but also another. We are here to spread democracy and freedom to those who KNOW the true taste of it because they fight for it everyday. You can see the desire in their eyes and I am honored to fight alongside them as an Infantryman in the 101st Airborne.

Freedom is not free, but yet it is everyone’s right to have. Ironic isn’t it? That is why we are here. Though you will always have the skeptics, I know that most of our military will agree with this message. Please, at the request of this soldier spread this message to all you know. We are in Operation Iraqi Freedom and that is our goal. It is a cause that I and thousands of others stand ready to pay the ultimate sacrifice for because, Cindy Sheehan, freedom is worth dying for, no matter what country it is! And after the world is free only then can we hope to have peace.

SGT Walter J. Rausch and 1st Platoon
101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

I don’t have many veterans in my family.

My brother Chuck (26 years Air Force), my sister Jana (6 years Air Force) and her ex-husband Chuck (4 years Airforce), my Uncle Bill (Vietnam, Airforce), my father-in-law Bill Page (Vietnam, Intelligence, Army), my stepfather-in-law Ken (Vietnam, Airforce Intell), and many of my best and closest friends.

Myself? Only three years of high school ROTC (which went for nought, at age 15, after a drunk driver crushed my right leg one afternoon…the military didn’t want damage goods…which includes potention weak spots after things get broken and rehealed). I did take the air force entrance exams and aced them (so said the recruiter) but the leg wouldn’t get past the physical.

But, I DID do 10 years as a federal employee…carrying mail as a city letter carrier in the mean streets of Dallas and Birmingham…and during that whole time got to work with some more great veterans.

I found this today, from the LAFD, and just wanted to share it with you…and all the veterans out there….

Thank you.

Rich