Congressional investigators picked West Virginia as the home of a bogus company they used to get the necessary license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "to buy enough radioactive material for a small 'dirty bomb,' The Associated Press reports.
"Nobody at the NRC checked whether the company was legitimate and an agency official even helped the investigators fill out the application form," the AP article said, citing an interview with Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.
Also of interest from the article: "The GAO also tried to get a license from the state of Maryland, one of 34 states that the NRC has given authority to handle such licensing. Unlike the NRC, the Maryland officials said they wanted to visit the company, so the investigators withdrew their application."
The AP's H. Josef Hebert, who once worked out of the Charleston bureau, wrote the story.
In its version, The Washington Post focuses on West Virginia's role in the lead paragraph, and then explains the sting operation's rationale:
"they focused the sting on West Virginia in part to show how close to the nation's capital a terrorist could build a bomb. Such proximity would reduce the chance of detection during transport to a target...In addition, by operating from West Virginia, the GAO undercover investigators were required to deal directly with the NRC. That's because West Virginia is one of more than a dozen states...that don't have their own system for issuing licenses for the handling of radioactive material and monitoring those who apply for them."
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