A NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE TO BEWARE
A cataclysmic recipe for disaster is an unhinged Stalinist dictator with nuclear weapons.
Enter North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, who continues to taunt the United States with a series of test launches of ballistic missiles and other weapons of mass destruction experts believe will soon have the ability to reach our shores.
On Boston Herald Radio’s “Adriana Cohen Show” yesterday, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said North Korea could place dirty bombs in a cargo container or shipping vessel that could detonate in a U.S. port.
“Or a real nuclear weapon. That’s possible, too,” Bolton said. “Either to get the same effect as if it were delivered by a ballistic missile. Or what many people fear, rightly I think, that it could be an electromagnetic pulse attack, which you could get with a tramp steamer with a very primitive missile that only has to take the nuclear weapon up 10,000 feet or so and detonate it there in New York Harbor, have an EMP effect, knocking out electrical grids and information, technology and communication. So in many respects the nuclear weapon delivered via tramp steamer, brought in across a border ... we don’t know how to deter people like that.”
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported North Korea is preparing for its sixth nuclear test.
“This is a product of eight years of the Obama administration’s policy — what they called Strategic Patience, which is a synonym of doing nothing — during that time the North Koreans detonated four of the nuclear tests,” Bolton said. “They’ve done five altogether. They’ve significantly increased their ballistic missile testing. … And we’ve heard last year from the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, echoed by the South Korean military, the conclusion the North Koreans are very close to the point where they can miniaturize one of their nuclear devices to the size that fits under the nose cone of a ballistic missile and that, in the very near future, they could hit targets on the west coast of the United States. ... So this is an imminent threat ... the risk of North Korea being able to threaten us directly I think is very palpable, very imminent.”
Politicians here in Boston and nationwide should be tightening port security, increasing protections to our critical infrastructure and honing emergency response systems. There’s no doubt nuclear terrorism could happen in our lifetime.
All Americans must have an emergency preparedness plan in place — just in case.
I shudder to think. Adriana Cohen is host of “The Adriana Cohen Show,” heards Wednesdays at noon on Boston Herald Radio. Follow her on Twitter @AdrianaCohen16.