Taiwan says did not dismantle U.S. (nuclear) missile parts

[onehandle]

Source: Reuters

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's defense minister on Thursday said the island did not dismantle and examine nuclear missile parts mistakenly shipped by the United States, in an incident which has angered China and embarrassed Washington.

The U.S. military was supposed to ship helicopter batteries to Taiwan, but instead sent fuses used as part of the trigger mechanism on Minuteman missiles, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Taiwan returned the parts to the U.S. last week.

No nuclear material was shipped to Taiwan, Pentagon officials said.

Taiwan's Defence Minister Tsai Ming-hsien was asked in parliament by Nationalist Party legislator Lin Yu-fang whether the parts had been inspected by the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, a weapon's development body in Taiwan. "As far as I know, no," Tsai said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080327/wl_nm/taiwan_defence_dc

[soothsayer]

1. "As far as I know, no" isn't exactly the same thing as "No"

[daleo]

7. Yep, lying with the truth. n/t

[Kolesar]

2. At the beginning of his administration, bush sent a spy plane into Chinese airspace

And now at the end of his administration, he cannot resists f-ing with them again.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

3. 2nd major nuke blunder in a year

In August of 2007, six nuclear missiles were strapped to a B-52, their warheads intact. The plane then flew from Minot Air Force Base in SD to Barksdale in Louisiana. The missiles were unaccounted for (indeed, nobody even noticed they were gone, or had improperly been loaded without having their nuclear warheads removed) for HOURS, including sitting for hours on an unguarded tarmac. The DoD and the Air Force attempted to cover this up, but a leaker broke the story in Military Times newspaper.

Accidents do happen, but shouldn't we demand some stronger checks and balances on the most horrific artifacts this race has ever produced?

[kenny blankenship]

4. Are you sure? Because I was leafing through the morning paper

and saw ads for 16 different Taiwanese copies of the same American trigger design -all at super low discount prices. In the business section there was a college professor saying that when the price drops like this to below $2000 most middle class homes will start to want one, and when it drops to $199 everyone in the country will have one.

The thing you got to watch out for with those knockoff triggers is quality control. At those prices they just don't do QC testing at all. If you can shake it and it doesn't fall apart in your hand, it goes into a box for sale. The end user functions as quality control. Ya get what ya pays for.

[Ordr]

5. lol

[truthisfreedom]

6. Even though they had the parts for a year.

Ri-ight.