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A Logistics Error that Could Have Sparked WWIII
Do you remember the Cuban Missile crisis? That little situation where WWIII almost happened when the Soviet Union started shipping nuclear warheads to Cuba.
History almost repeated itself this last week based on a logistics error that took place in 2006 when a government contractor may have mistakenly shipped Nuclear warhead fuses to Taiwan. The situation is like the mirror image of the Cuban Missile crisis.
One nuclear superpower ships nuclear warheads to an island off the coast of another nuclear superpower. This time it was the US doing the shipping and China having to decide whether or not there was malevolent intent.
One of the differences however, seems to be that this time in history an contract was to blame for the mistake (or possibly scape-goated). While the 24 hours news cycles this week were busy covering Presidential Candidate verbal snafu's they failed to pick up on a logistics snafu of much greater significance.
The fact that the US as a country mistakenly sent Nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan is not at question. The how and why is definitely up for grabs and a number of lawmakers are calling for an investigation and Secretary of Defense Gates is calling for a full inventory of the Nuclear arsenal, which you would think would happen regularly anyway.
It would appear that EG&G, who acquired URS Corporation, may have been responsible for the contracts that would have included this mistaken logistics shipment.
That is a pretty significant mistake to make. Its not like shipping elliptical machines to the wrong sporting goods distribution center. Regardless we will definitely hear more about this as more facts come out during the investigation. This will likely end up on the hill in another Congressional investigation.
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