Charming

Government investigators smuggled radioactive materials into U.S.

Two teams of government investigators using fake documents were able to enter the United States with enough radioactive sources to make two dirty bombs, according to a federal report made available Monday.

The investigators purchased a "small quantity" of radioactive materials from a commercial source, according to a Government Accountability Office report prepared for Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican.

The investigators posed as employees of a fictitious company and brought the materials into the United States through checkpoints on the northern and southern borders, the report stated.

Prediction: Although this is a searing indictment of the administration’s apathy toward genuine security issues, and underlines its criminal incompetence in failing to protect the country against nuclear terrorism, the Rightwing Noise Machine will in no time be spinning this as highlighting the urgency with which we must past the president’s proposed immigration reform, even though one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.