Isn't the reason that this "Pentagon Papers" report surprises us because we haven't been permitted to look at the facts from a risk perspective? Isn't it true that we judge a person or group's performance by their past performance? If your baseball team had a pretty good record last year, then you can expect them to have a good one this year (barring huge trades, retirements... etc) If your utility has bumped it's finish date from September 1998 to December 1999, they have a record (a bad one). Are we really acting intelligently if we continue to rely on them? I find it highly irresponsible for anyone to put their family and children at risk when information like this is known to them.

-- Anonymous, August 21, 1999

Answers

Reporter,

Great thread title!

Saying "we haven't been permitted to look at the facts from a risk perspective" isn't quite accurate. Nobody ever stopped us from doing that. It's just that we haven't had our hands held and walked through the risks by our government.

The government has downplayed the risks, and in some areas I believe they have either misrepresented the risks or deliberately "failed to mention them".

This puts the burden on us to "look at the facts from a risk perspective". The difficulty here is getting the facts. The latest GAO report is the official set of facts and they don't look very good at all.

More data would be very helpful but just using the info given we can see the risk is very high indeed. As you say; "Surprise... It's Serious...

Steve

-- Anonymous, August 22, 1999