Good thing Taiwan is an ally

Maybe helicopter batteries look exactly like ballistic missile fuses. In any case, the U.S. military clearly needs to be more careful with its secret nuclear materials in the wake of news that Taiwan mistakenly received four such fuses instead of the batteries it ordered. Beyond the question of how such a mistake of importance to national security could happen: How could nobody in the United States miss the items for 18 months? Not surprisingly, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered an inventory of all nuke-related materials.

8 Comments

  1. Regular
    Posted March 28, 2008 at 8:18 am | Permalink

    Oh, I think someone is in trouble. :)

  2. Phantom
    Posted March 28, 2008 at 10:09 am | Permalink

    Wonder how many nukes have been inadvetently shipped out, what an incompetent administration. So busy looking for non-existent nukes in arab countries, they don’t even keep track of our own stores.

  3. Phantom
    Posted March 28, 2008 at 10:10 am | Permalink

    Bigger question is why didn’t Taiwan inform us of the boo boo?

  4. Phantom
    Posted March 28, 2008 at 10:10 am | Permalink

    Instead of telling us they kept demanding their batteries be shipped too. Were they wanting more fuses?

  5. lindainks55
    Posted March 28, 2008 at 10:14 am | Permalink

    Aren’t too many past allies no longer an ally once we’ve armed them sufficiently?

  6. gster
    Posted March 28, 2008 at 10:23 am | Permalink

    PREZ BUSH EXPLAINS TAIWAN CONTROVERSY!!

    “Ya’ll got it wrong. I couldn’t store those things in my office anymore, and since we have a warehouse in Taiwan, we worked out a solution. Since Taiwan is an ally, we allycuted those items to them for storage. No big deal, its a perfect understandimification!”

  7. Doug
    Posted March 28, 2008 at 10:55 am | Permalink

    Republicans went ‘ballistic’ when, during the Clinton administration, there was a question about nuclear security. Naturally the Republicans will yawn this time.

  8. J R
    Posted March 28, 2008 at 5:32 pm | Permalink

    Huh?

    NO wingnuts here?

    Heh ya know how Rush is playing this one?

    “It wasn’t an accident. This was designed to send a signal to China.”

    No this is the sort of foul up you get when the military (or any organization for that matter) is trying to juggle too many balls.