Half Ton of Bomb Material Stored a Few Miles from the White House

[sabra]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/09/half_ton_of_bom.html

Half Ton of Bomb Material Stored a Few Miles from the White House

With virtually no questions asked, an undercover ABC News team was able to purchase a half ton of one of the world's most dangerous bomb-making materials and move it into a storage shed only a few miles from the White House and the U.S. Capitol.

Despite its use in the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, there are still no federal laws restricting the purchase of ammonium nitrate, a chemical fertilizer, widely sold at farm supply stores.

...

The results of the ABC News investigation are "a wake-up call that the American people and the Congress needs," King said. A law requiring sellers to record purchases has passed King's committee and is awaiting a vote by the full House.

Brian Ross' full investigative report will air Monday on World News with Charles Gibson and as part of an ABC News Special Report on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. (l0pm EST/9pm Central)

[woodsprite]

1. Hmmmm - ABC. Sounds like a Rove plant to me.

I thought that SOOOOO quick and realized that there are alot of other people who will be questioning anything that comes out of ABC now too. Sounds like something the Whitehouse asked them to do. I would say any credibility that ABC had is gone now.

[OzarkDem]

2. Like Clinton recommended?

and the GOP Congress refused?

[kurth]

3. Rove bugged his own office

in 1986 and blamed it on his opponent. Just remember that.

[madrchsod]

4. "With virtually no questions asked,..."

what questioned were asked? yes the gop has blocked any restrictions on purchases. an ammonium nitrate/fuel oil "bomb" blew up the math building at the university of wisconsin in madison in the late 60`s killing one person. the bomber was tried , sentenced, and was released several years ago.

[Tesha]

5. I guess I don't understand the excitement.

One could easily fit a half-ton (20 50-pound sacks)
of ammonium nitrate in the back of a (say) Dodge
Caravan and park it on Constitution Avenue, a lot
closer than "a few miles" from the White House.
Why did it need to be located in a shed a few
miles away in order to be newsworthy?

Or maybe one could find that 8 ounces of "Semtex"
that the Massachusetts State Police lost yesterday
at Logan Airport.

To quote an old commercial, "where's the beef?"

Tesha

[Jacobin]

10. Or you could fill up a lotta gasoline tanks

Its ABC fearmongering again

[orwell]

6. So that's where...

...they are storing the extra Path to 9/11 DVD's...

[maxsolomon]

7. an ABC news team was able to purchase a cell phone

which can be made into a trigger for a bomb, and CARRY IT INTO THE WHITE HOUSE!

OMG, freak out!

[SpiralHawk]

8. Brit Hume has the credibility of Bill O"Loofah Reilly. None

What a sell out he is.

[MrPrax]

9. "one of the world's most dangerous bomb-making materials!!"

"one of the world's most dangerous bomb-making materials!!"

Wait a minute..."a chemical fertilizer, widely sold at farm supply stores"

In another thread the WH is saying that enriched uranium was!!!!????

I am confused... :crazy:

[underpants]

11. Are there LEAST dangerous bomb making materials?

I mean a BOOM is a BOOM, right?

[MrPrax]

12. Depends...

On whether you need to start a war, I suppose...

In this day and age, mixing GatorAde, hair dye and batteries becomes becomes the Manhatten Project!!

I figure those items are located within a half mile of the White House as well...in that mall across the street from Congress, for instance. :eyes:

But your right...a boom is a boom and wish there was a lot less of them...

[Sal316]

13. ANFO is an effective explosive, but...................

..........it takes a substantial donor charge to make it detonate. Most, if not all, AN based propellants are classified as DOT 4.1 Flammable solids. ANFO is classified a DOT 1.5D. By way of comparison, most fireworks you can by for home use are 1.4G, a more restrictive classification. Things like C4 and other military explosives are usually classified 1.1, the most restrictive.

Just a quick bit on classifications is below:

Explosive (class 1) 49 CFR 173.50
1.1 Explosives (with a mass explosion hazard)
1.2 Explosives (with a projection hazard)
1.3 Explosives (with predominately a fire hazard)
1.4 Explosives (with no significant blast hazard)
1.5 Very insensitive explosives: Blasting agents
1.6 Extremely insensitive detonating substances

Flammable Solid (class 4) 49 CFR 173.124
4.1 Flammable Solid - wetted class 1 explosives, self reactive materials or readily combustible solids
4.2 Spontaneously Combustible Material - Pyrophoric or self-heating materials
4.3 Dangerous when wet material - gives off flammable or toxic gas or becomes spontaneously combustible on contact with water

Anyone who wants to discuss explosives chemistry really should have to take a test first. I've been doing it 10 years and whenever I hear stuff like this it makes my head hurt.

[CabalPowered]

21. Good info. Thanks.

:thumbsup:

[Thor_MN]

14. Any disel fueled truck with a 120 gallon fuel tank driving within

a mile of the White House would qualify as half a ton of the other component of ANFO, whooptie-freaking-doo. This is news only because the GOP and their corporate sponsers are desperately seeking fear in any factor.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

15. Not only that, but

you can buy bomb-making tools just a few miles from the White House and Capitol as well. I get mine at Sears - screwdrivers, wrenches, that sort of stuff. In fact, my house is a potential hotbed of making bombs. Just look at all those oscilloscopes, voltmeters, old cellphones.... Why, I could put some explosives in a Radio Flash wagon, tie them to the back of my bicycle, and be at the White House in an hour, easily. Truly, I am dangerous.

[bhikkhu]

16. banking on idiocy...

a friend with military training once demonstrated how easily "bombs" could be made, with some packets of non-dairy creamer. Anything that can burn and be dispersed in the air is a potential bomb.

[krispos42]

17. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Same thing, different decade.

Everybody was freaking out about a dozen nuclear missile in Cuba, 150 miles from Florida! OH MY GOD!!!

Yet, it is 1200 miles from Washington, DC. And did nobody notice that Soviet ballistic-missile subs were all over the Atlantic? I'm pretty sure that plenty of Russian boomers spend lots of time within 1200 miles of DC. And New York, Boston, Miami, Baltimore, Phildelphia, Norfolk, Atlanta, etc.

And now we're getting this crap. <sigh> There is nothing stopping anybody from walking up to a crowded check-in line at a major international airport with a suitcase full of explosives and detonating it before any security checkpoint. There is nothing keeping terrorists from attacking the security screens at stadiums, either. A ton of people are pressed outside the Metrodome here in Minneapolis, waiting to have the cops glance in their shoulder bags.... <boom!> couple of dead cops and a dozen dead baseball fans.

If the terrorists can't get to the target, they will start attacking the defenses of the target. We can see that in Baghad now. How many police-recruitment lines have been hit by car bombs and suicide bombers?

If you really want to start pointing fingers at every potential terrorist threat, start growing a lot more hands.

[133724]

18. Fretilizer???? BullShit?????

there is already enough Bull Shit @ 1600 Penn Ave to blow it up......

[Dem2theMax]

19. Hey America. Do you feel safer NOW?

How effing stupid can they get? Don't answer that. I already know. :crazy:

[goforit]

20. Is this Cheney's idea of blowing up Washington if election goes left?

Well....I wouldn't put it past him.

[MiniMe]

22. Its FERTILIZER. There are farms in Maryland and Virginia.

Fall is the season to fertilize. Perhaps they should just fertilize with the BS the GOP is spouting out.

[minnesota_liberal]

23. ABC? They were once a respected broadcaster, right?

Why would anyone believe their news stories anymore?