TERROR

Obama's New York nuke fears -- why we should all fear security lapses at world’s top terror target

By Michael Goodwin , New York Post
Published | Updated

President Barack Obama, center rear, gathered with G7 world leaders clockwise from center left, European Council president Herman Van Rompuy, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron, US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday March 24, 2014, in the sidelines of the Nuclear security Summit. In a day of delicate diplomacy he sought to rally the international community Monday around efforts to isolate Russia following its incursion into Ukraine. Nuclear terrorism was the official topic as Obama and other world leaders streamed in to a convention center in The Hague for a two-day Nuclear Security Summit. But the real focus was on a hurriedly scheduled meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized economies to address the crisis in Ukraine on the sidelines of the nuclear summit. (AP Photo/Jerry Lampen, POOL) (The Associated Press)

It’s simultaneously unnerving and reassuring to learn that President Obama worries about “a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan.” But it’s downright scary that security is tighter at ordinary office buildings than it is at the Freedom Tower.

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Twice in recent months, people sneaked into the world’s greatest terror target without being stopped. A teenager climbed up to the 1,776-foot spire last week, and three men parachuted from the building last fall.

One of the jumpers worked on construction there and knew how to evade security. But that wasn’t hard, according to an alleged accomplice, who said they sneaked through a hole in the fence that was covered with a tarp. He said it took “no effort whatsoever,” adding, “God forbid it was somebody else getting in there with intentions to harm New Yorkers.”

Yes, God forbid. Because apparently, security doesn’t.

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