Shortly after noon on Friday, Feb. 7, the nation’s secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, announced that the nation had been placed on “high risk” of terrorist attacks. As he issued his dire warning, almost nobody in Washington knew that eight hours earlier, a team of heavily armed security agents of a hostile foreign government had landed on American soil. Luckily, the four men were not terrorists. They were defecting Cubans, agents of the Cuban coast guard, who arrived in Key West, Fla., aboard a 30-foot government patrol boat, the Cuban flag still flapping from the mast. Carrying two AK-47 rifles and full clips of ammunition, they docked their boat before dawn at the marina of the local Hyatt hotel, a short distance from the United States Coast Guard station. Undetected, the Cubans, still in their camouflage uniforms and black boots, marched into the middle of the sultry Florida resort town looking for someone to surrender to. The ability of a large, armed foreign patrol boat to enter American waters and dock is under investigation by the Coast Guard, which formally became part of the Department of Homeland Security on Saturday, along with the Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and 17 other agencies. Full Story
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