US Nuclear Plants Laughable ‘Security’ Exposed

Thirty-three Cubans landed in the cooling canals of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant at mid-day Thursday, Florida Power & Light reported to nuclear regulators.

Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant is shown June 30, 2009, near Homestead, Fla.

SUZANNE K. MAST LEE/AP

BY JOHN DORSCHNER

jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com

The site is supposed to be protected by around-the-clock security, but the report indicates that at 1:28 p.m. on Thanksgiving day a member of the Cuban group called the Turkey Point control room saying they had landed in the canal area with 29 adults and four children.
The control room then called plant security, “who located and assumed control over the Cuban nationals without incident.” Security called Miami-Dade police for assistance. Police arrived at 2:25 p.m., which then called U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
FPL did not immediately respond to a Herald question about why its security forces had not intercepted the Cubans before they landed.
After the 9/11 attacks, federal authorities demanded that nuclear power plants beef up security to make sure terrorists couldn’t get close to the reactors.
In 2005, FPL officials told Herald reporter Curtis Morgan that the plant was strongly protected. “A small private army patrols the grounds. Each guard, clad in black body armor, totes an automatic weapon and is trained to drill holes in targets — or torsos — at long range through darkness, fog or smoke,” Morgan wrote.
“Bulletproof towers, painted gray, occupy strategic positions to scan the perimeter or lay down crossfire. The plant. . . is ringed with barricades to stop vehicles and fencing to snare invaders,” Morgan wrote.
Terry Jones, the man in charge of Turkey Point, told Morgan: “Should the bad guys penetrate our outside perimeter, they’re going to encounter considerable resistance.”

Pakistanis Laugh At Weak U.S. Nuclear Safeguards

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Pakistanis were laughing as a sensitive list of U.S. nuclear sites was mistakenly posted on Internet, the latest in a series of American nuclear security breaches that Pakistanis say places the United States as the world’s most dangerous nuclear power.
In 2007 a U.S. air force jet flew across the country without the pilot realizing he was carrying nuclear warheads more than ten times the Hiroshima bombs.
Pakistan’s nuclear community is yet to commit any blunders of this scale, although a Pakistani newspaper reported last week that the U.S. government secretly recruited 12 Pakistani scientists and technicians in 1978 to plan sabotage from within designed to look like a nuclear accident. The ISI aborted the CIA plan. Pakistan’s President Zia telephoned President Carter and strongly protested.
So if Pakistan ever came close to a nuclear accident, it was because of American mischief.
The U.S. media has been running an anti-Pakistan demonization campaign since 2007 and has intensified it in recent weeks with deliberate official and intelligence leaks, portraying Pakistani nuclear safeguards as weak and trying to convince the world that Pakistan was unable to protect its weapons.
The U.S. campaign is based on lies and cooked intelligence at best. Pakistan’s nuclear command and control system is probably the most advanced in the world, building on the work of the earlier nuclear powers. In fact, independent nuclear experts realize that the Pakistani nuclear command structure is more advanced than the one India has. India is a late entrant to the nuclear safeguards debate.  U.S. officials were stunned during the negotiations for the U.S.-India nuclear technology transfer deal to discover how inadeuqate Indian nuclear safeguards were.