Is Fort Drum vulnerable to a nuclear terrorist strike using “suitcase” devices smuggled across northern borders?

While New York Congresswoman Claudia Tenney continues to hold news conferences attacking the president for his neglect of migrant crossings in her district, she fails to address the more ominous threat of nuclear terrorism targeting Fort Drum, home of the 10th Mountain Division, also in her district. In doing so, she is proving herself to be just as irresponsible.

Long forgotten on this vital issue are the 80-pound suitcase devices capable of delivering a 10-kiloton blast at virtually any location. According to media reports, until 1997, U.S. Intelligence did not even know that the Russian-made version even existed. In the carry-on luggage of a team of commercial jet passengers, these devices could have delivered a far greater devastation on 9-11

It is well known that rogue dictators had gained access to the Soviet nuclear arsenal long before a joint effort by the United States and Russia to remove it from separating Soviet republics. Nearby terrorists in the Middle East were among the looters exploiting the vulnerability of nuclear oversight during the unexpected break-up of the former super-power.

Concealed in a tungsten shaft, such a device might avoid detection before delivering a holocaust in Times Square as many experts have feared. But when combined with the daily volatility of the current Ukraine war on Russia’s border, is anyone concerned about the potential use of such devices on our own border with Canada, a vast country that also borders Russia?

During an earlier term in her former district, Congresswoman Tenney attracted national attention with an observation that mass shootings were being committed by Democrats. In her new district, shouldn’t she now be mindful of the more logical observation that a weapon of mass destruction could easily be employed by a terrorist at Fort Drum?

Yet despite my news releases on the subject, neither the media nor the relevant representative is giving it the slightest interest. After tracking the congresswoman’s recent tour on the migrant issue among communities in her district, I decided to accentuate this threat with a hand-delivered copy of my 2014 novel, Voyage to Armageddon, to her Oswego office. Still no interest.

This novel relates my relevant experience as a lake mariner only nine months after 9-11. I accomplish it through the adventures of a group of career women who cross our border repeatedly without any customs check. In the hull of their new motor yacht is a nuclear device affixed to a 150-gallon gas tank. The goal is to achieve a detonation at a Manhattan pier.

However, a similar plot in rural upstate would be so much easier to complete and perhaps effective in unleashing a nuclear exchange as Vladimir Putin has already risked. There are endless opportunities to transport a nuclear device among the Thousand Islands archipelago on our northern border. That is a central theme of my novel and one that should command top priority in domestic security.

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