Loose nuclear weapons, more serious than first thought. A systemic security failure

September 23, 2007

Missteps in the Bunker

By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, September 23, 2007; A01

Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a sod-covered

bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with orders to collect a set

of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a weapons graveyard. They quickly

pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of which appeared identical from a cursory

glance, and hauled them along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.

The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane's wings, six on each

side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight officer

signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129 missiles. The officer

did not notice that the six on the left contained nuclear warheads, each

with the destructive power of up to 10 Hiroshima bombs.

That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during which the

missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air base that had no

idea nuclear warheads were coming. It was the first known flight by a

nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without special high-level

authorization, in nearly 40 years.

The episode, serious enough to trigger a rare "Bent Spear" nuclear incident

report that raced through the chain of command to Defense Secretary Robert

M. Gates and President Bush, provoked new questions inside and outside the

Pentagon about the adequacy of U.S. nuclear weapons safeguards while the

military's attention and resources are devoted to wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan.

Three weeks after word of the incident leaked to the public, new details

obtained by The Washington Post point to security failures at multiple

levels in North Dakota and Louisiana, according to interviews with current

and former U.S. officials briefed on the initial results of an Air Force

investigation of the incident.

The warheads were attached to the plane in Minot without special guard for

more than 15 hours, and they remained on the plane in Louisiana for nearly

nine hours more before being discovered. In total, the warheads slipped from

the Air Force's nuclear safety net for more than a day without anyone's

knowledge.

"I have been in the nuclear business since 1966 and am not aware of any

incident more disturbing," retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, who served

as U.S. Strategic Command chief from 1996 to 1998, said in an interview.

A simple error in a missile storage room led to missteps at every turn, as

ground crews failed to notice the warheads, and as security teams and flight

crew members failed to provide adequate oversight and check the cargo

thoroughly. An elaborate nuclear safeguard system, nurtured during the Cold

War and infused with rigorous accounting and command procedures, was utterly

debased, the investigation's early results show.

The incident came on the heels of multiple warnings -- some of which went to

the highest levels of the Bush administration, including the National

Security Council -- of security problems at Air Force installations where

nuclear weapons are kept. The risks are not that warheads might be

accidentally detonated, but that sloppy procedures could leave room for

theft or damage to a warhead, disseminating its toxic nuclear materials.

A former National Security Council staff member with detailed knowledge

described the event as something that people in the White House "have been

assured never could happen." What occurred on Aug. 29-30, the former

official said, was "a breakdown at a number of levels involving flight crew,

munitions, storage and tracking procedures -- faults that never were to line

up on a single day."

Missteps in the Bunker

The air base where the incident took place is one of the most remote and,

for much of the year, coldest military posts in the continental United

States. Veterans of Minot typically describe their assignments by counting

the winters passed in the flat, treeless region where January temperatures

sometimes reach 30 below zero. In airman-speak, a three-year assignment

becomes "three winters" at Minot.

The daily routine for many of Minot's crews is a cycle of scheduled

maintenance for the base's 35 aging B-52H Stratofortress bombers -- mammoth,

eight-engine workhorses, the newest of which left the assembly line more

than 45 years ago. Workers also tend to 150 intercontinental ballistic

missiles kept at the ready in silos scattered across neighboring cornfields,

as well as hundreds of smaller nuclear bombs, warheads and vehicles stored

in sod-covered bunkers called igloos.

"We had a continuous workload in maintaining" warheads, said Scott Vest, a

former Air Force captain who spent time in Minot's bunkers in the 1990s. "We

had a stockpile of more than 400 . . . and some of them were always coming

due" for service.

Among the many weapons and airframes, the AGM-129 cruise missile was well

known at the base as a nuclear warhead delivery system carried by B-52s.

With its unique shape and design, it is easily distinguished from the older

AGM-86, which can be fitted with either a nuclear or a conventional warhead.

Last fall, after 17 years in the U.S. arsenal, the Air Force's more than 400

AGM-129s were ordered into retirement by then-Defense Secretary Donald H.

Rumsfeld. Minot was told to begin shipping out the unarmed missiles in small

groups to Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, La., for storage. By

Aug. 29, its crews had already sent more than 200 missiles to Barksdale and

knew the drill by heart.

The Air Force's account of what happened that day and the next was provided

by multiple sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the

government's investigation is continuing and classified.

At 9:12 a.m. local time on Aug. 29, according to the account, ground crews

in two trucks entered a gated compound at Minot known as the Weapons Storage

Area and drove to an igloo where the cruise missiles were stored. The

21-foot missiles were already mounted on pylons, six apiece in clusters of

three, for quick mounting to the wings of a B-52.

The AGM-129 is designed to carry silver W-80-1 nuclear warheads, which have

a variable yield of between 5 and 150 kilotons. (A kiloton is equal to the

explosive force of 1,000 tons of TNT.) The warheads were meant to have been

removed from the missiles before shipment. In their place, crews were

supposed to insert metal dummies of the same size and weight, but a

different color, so the missiles could still be properly attached under the

bomber's wings.

A munitions custodian officer is supposed to keep track of the nuclear

warheads. In the case of cruise missiles, a stamp-size window on the

missile's frame allows workers to peer inside to check whether the warheads

within are silver. In many cases, a red ribbon or marker attached to the

missile serves as an additional warning. Finally, before the missiles are

moved, two-man teams are supposed to look at check sheets, bar codes and

serial numbers denoting whether the missiles are armed.

Why the warheads were not noticed in this case is not publicly known. But

once the missiles were certified as unarmed, a requirement for unique

security precautions when nuclear warheads are moved -- such as the presence

of specially armed security police, the approval of a senior base commander

and a special tracking system -- evaporated.

The trucks hauled the missile pylons from the bunker into the bustle of

normal air base traffic, onto Bomber Boulevard and M Street, before turning

onto a tarmac apron where the missiles were loaded onto the B-52. The

loading took eight hours because of unusual trouble attaching the pylon on

the right side of the plane -- the one with the dummy warheads.

By 5:12 p.m., the B-52 was fully loaded. The plane then sat on the tarmac

overnight without special guards, protected for 15 hours by only the base's

exterior chain-link fence and roving security patrols.

Air Force rules required members of the jet's flight crew to examine all of

the missiles and warheads before the plane took off. But in this instance,

just one person examined only the six unarmed missiles and inexplicably

skipped the armed missiles on the left, according to officials familiar with

the probe.

"If they're not expecting a live warhead it may be a very casual thing --

there's no need to set up the security system and play the whole nuclear

game," said Vest, the former Minot airman. "As for the air crew, they're bus

drivers at this point, as far as they know."

The plane, which had flown to Minot for the mission and was not certified to

carry nuclear weapons, departed the next morning for Louisiana. When the

bomber landed at Barksdale at 11:23 a.m., the air crew signed out and left

for lunch, according to the probe.

It would be another nine hours -- until 8:30 p.m. -- before a Barksdale

ground crew turned up at the parked aircraft to begin removing the missiles.

At 8:45, 15 minutes into the task, a separate missile transport crew arrived

in trucks. One of these airmen noticed something unusual about the missiles.

Within an hour, a skeptical supervisor had examined them and ordered them

secured.

By then it was 10 p.m., more than 36 hours after the warheads left their

secure bunker in Minot.

Once the errant warheads were discovered, Air Force officers in Louisiana

were alarmed enough to immediately notify the National Military Command

Center, a highly secure area of the Pentagon that serves as the nerve center

for U.S. nuclear war planning. Such "Bent Spear" events are ranked second in

seriousness only to "Broken Arrow" incidents, which involve the loss,

destruction or accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon.

The Air Force decided at first to keep the mishap under wraps, in part

because of policies that prohibit the confirmation of any details about the

storage or movement of nuclear weapons. No public acknowledgment was made

until service members leaked the story to the Military Times, which

published a brief account Sept. 5.

Officials familiar with the Bent Spear report say Air Force officials

apparently did not anticipate that the episode would cause public concern.

One passage in the report contains these four words:

"No press interest anticipated."

'What the Hell Happened Here?'

The news, when it did leak, provoked a reaction within the defense and

national security communities that bordered on disbelief: How could so many

safeguards, drilled into generations of nuclear weapons officers and crews,

break down at once?

Military officers, nuclear weapons analysts and lawmakers have expressed

concern that it was not just a fluke, but a symptom of deeper problems in

the handling of nuclear weapons now that Cold War anxieties have abated.

"It is more significant than people first realized, and the more you look at

it, the stranger it is," said Joseph Cirincione, director for nuclear policy

at the Center for American Progress think tank and the author of a history

of nuclear weapons. "These weapons -- the equivalent of 60 Hiroshimas --

were out of authorized command and control for more than a day."

The Air Force has sought to offer assurances that its security system is

working. Within days, the service relieved one Minot officer of his command

and disciplined several airmen, while assigning a major general to head an

investigation that has already been extended for extra weeks. At the same

time, Defense Department officials have announced that a Pentagon-appointed

scientific advisory board will study the mishap as part of a larger review

of procedures for handling nuclear weapons.

"Clearly this incident was unacceptable on many levels," said an Air Force

spokesman, Lt. Col. Edward Thomas. "Our response has been swift and

focused -- and it has really just begun. We will spend many months at the

air staff and at our commands and bases ensuring that the root causes are

addressed."

While Air Force officials see the Minot event as serious, they also note

that it was harmless, since the six nuclear warheads never left the

military's control. Even if the bomber had crashed, or if someone had stolen

the warheads, fail-safe devices would have prevented a nuclear detonation.

But independent experts warn that whenever nuclear weapons are not properly

safeguarded, their fissile materials are at risk of theft and diversion.

Moreover, if the plane had crashed and the warheads' casings cracked, these

highly toxic materials could have been widely dispersed.

"When what were multiple layers of tight nuclear weapon control internal

procedures break down, some bad guy may eventually come along and take

advantage of them," said a former senior administration official who had

responsibility for nuclear security.

Some Air Force veterans say the base's officers made an egregious mistake in

allowing nuclear-warhead-equipped missiles and unarmed missiles to be stored

in the same bunker, a practice that a spokesman last week confirmed is

routine. Charles Curtis, a former deputy energy secretary in the Clinton

administration, said, "We always relied on segregation of nuclear weapons

from conventional ones."

Former nuclear weapons officials have noted that the weapons transfer at the

heart of the incident coincides with deep cuts in deployed nuclear forces

that will bring the total number of warheads to as few as 1,700 by the year

2012 -- a reduction of more than 50 percent from 2001 levels. But the

downsizing has created new accounting and logistical challenges, since U.S.

policy is to keep thousands more warheads in storage, some as a strategic

reserve and others awaiting dismantling.

A secret 1998 history of the Air Combat Command warned of "diminished

attention for even 'the minimum standards' of nuclear weapons' maintenance,

support and security" once such arms became less vital, according to a

declassified copy obtained by Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of

American Scientists' nuclear information project.

The Air Force's inspector general in 2003 found that half of the "nuclear

surety" inspections conducted that year resulted in failing grades -- the

worst performance since inspections of weapons-handling began. Minot's 5th

Bomb Wing was among the units that failed, and the Louisiana-based 2nd Bomb

Wing at Barksdale garnered an unsatisfactory rating in 2005.

Both units passed subsequent nuclear inspections, and Minot was given high

marks in a 2006 inspection. The 2003 report on the 5th Bomb Wing attributed

its poor performance to the demands of supporting combat operations in Iraq

and Afghanistan. Wartime stresses had "resulted in a lack of time to focus

and practice nuclear operations," the report stated.

Last year, the Air Force eliminated a separate nuclear-operations

directorate known informally as the N Staff, which closely tracked the

maintenance and security of nuclear weapons in the United States and other

NATO countries. Currently, nuclear and space operations are combined in a

single directorate. Air Force officials say the change was part of a

service-wide reorganization and did not reflect diminished importance of

nuclear operations.

"Where nuclear weapons have receded into the background is at the senior

policy level, where there are other things people have to worry about," said

Linton F. Brooks, who resigned in January as director of the National

Nuclear Security Administration. Brooks, who oversaw billions of dollars in

U.S. spending to help Russia secure its nuclear stockpile, said the

mishandling of U.S. warheads indicates that "something went seriously

wrong."

A similar refrain has been voiced hundreds of times in blogs and chat rooms

popular with former and current military members. On a Web site run by the

Military Times, a former B-52 crew chief who did not give his name wrote:

"What the hell happened here?"

A former Air Force senior master sergeant wrote separately that "mistakes

were made at the lowest level of supervision and this snowballed into the

one of the biggest mistakes in USAF history. I am still scratching my head

wondering how this could [have] happened."

September 23, 2007

On Sep 23, 10:29 am, "Sid9" <s...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> Missteps in the Bunker

>

> By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus

> Washington Post Staff Writers

> Sunday, September 23, 2007; A01

>

> Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a sod-covered

> bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with orders to collect a set

> of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a weapons graveyard. They quickly

> pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of which appeared identical from a cursory

> glance, and hauled them along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.

>

> The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane's wings, six on each

> side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight officer

> signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129 missiles. The officer

> did not notice that the six on the left contained nuclear warheads, each

> with the destructive power of up to 10 Hiroshima bombs.

>

> That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during which the

> missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air base that had no

> idea nuclear warheads were coming. It was the first known flight by a

> nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without special high-level

> authorization, in nearly 40 years.

>

> The episode, serious enough to trigger a rare "Bent Spear" nuclear incident

> report that raced through the chain of command to Defense Secretary Robert

> M. Gates and President Bush, provoked new questions inside and outside the

> Pentagon about the adequacy of U.S. nuclear weapons safeguards while the

> military's attention and resources are devoted to wars in Iraq and

> Afghanistan.

>

> Three weeks after word of the incident leaked to the public, new details

> obtained by The Washington Post point to security failures at multiple

> levels in North Dakota and Louisiana, according to interviews with current

> and former U.S. officials briefed on the initial results of an Air Force

> investigation of the incident.

>

> The warheads were attached to the plane in Minot without special guard for

> more than 15 hours, and they remained on the plane in Louisiana for nearly

> nine hours more before being discovered. In total, the warheads slipped from

> the Air Force's nuclear safety net for more than a day without anyone's

> knowledge.

>

> "I have been in the nuclear business since 1966 and am not aware of any

> incident more disturbing," retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, who served

> as U.S. Strategic Command chief from 1996 to 1998, said in an interview.

>

> A simple error in a missile storage room led to missteps at every turn, as

> ground crews failed to notice the warheads, and as security teams and flight

> crew members failed to provide adequate oversight and check the cargo

> thoroughly. An elaborate nuclear safeguard system, nurtured during the Cold

> War and infused with rigorous accounting and command procedures, was utterly

> debased, the investigation's early results show.

>

> The incident came on the heels of multiple warnings -- some of which went to

> the highest levels of the Bush administration, including the National

> Security Council -- of security problems at Air Force installations where

> nuclear weapons are kept. The risks are not that warheads might be

> accidentally detonated, but that sloppy procedures could leave room for

> theft or damage to a warhead, disseminating its toxic nuclear materials.

>

> A former National Security Council staff member with detailed knowledge

> described the event as something that people in the White House "have been

> assured never could happen." What occurred on Aug. 29-30, the former

> official said, was "a breakdown at a number of levels involving flight crew,

> munitions, storage and tracking procedures -- faults that never were to line

> up on a single day."

>

> Missteps in the Bunker

>

> The air base where the incident took place is one of the most remote and,

> for much of the year, coldest military posts in the continental United

> States. Veterans of Minot typically describe their assignments by counting

> the winters passed in the flat, treeless region where January temperatures

> sometimes reach 30 below zero. In airman-speak, a three-year assignment

> becomes "three winters" at Minot.

>

> The daily routine for many of Minot's crews is a cycle of scheduled

> maintenance for the base's 35 aging B-52H Stratofortress bombers -- mammoth,

> eight-engine workhorses, the newest of which left the assembly line more

> than 45 years ago. Workers also tend to 150 intercontinental ballistic

> missiles kept at the ready in silos scattered across neighboring cornfields,

> as well as hundreds of smaller nuclear bombs, warheads and vehicles stored

> in sod-covered bunkers called igloos.

>

> "We had a continuous workload in maintaining" warheads, said Scott Vest, a

> former Air Force captain who spent time in Minot's bunkers in the 1990s. "We

> had a stockpile of more than 400 . . . and some of them were always coming

> due" for service.

>

> Among the many weapons and airframes, the AGM-129 cruise missile was well

> known at the base as a nuclear warhead delivery system carried by B-52s.

> With its unique shape and design, it is easily distinguished from the older

> AGM-86, which can be fitted with either a nuclear or a conventional warhead.

>

> Last fall, after 17 years in the U.S. arsenal, the Air Force's more than 400

> AGM-129s were ordered into retirement by then-Defense Secretary Donald H.

> Rumsfeld. Minot was told to begin shipping out the unarmed missiles in small

> groups to Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, La., for storage. By

> Aug. 29, its crews had already sent more than 200 missiles to Barksdale and

> knew the drill by heart.

>

> The Air Force's account of what happened that day and the next was provided

> by multiple sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the

> government's investigation is continuing and classified.

>

> At 9:12 a.m. local time on Aug. 29, according to the account, ground crews

> in two trucks entered a gated compound at Minot known as the Weapons Storage

> Area and drove to an igloo where the cruise missiles were stored. The

> 21-foot missiles were already mounted on pylons, six apiece in clusters of

> three, for quick mounting to the wings of a B-52.

>

> The AGM-129 is designed to carry silver W-80-1 nuclear warheads, which have

> a variable yield of between 5 and 150 kilotons. (A kiloton is equal to the

> explosive force of 1,000 tons of TNT.) The warheads were meant to have been

> removed from the missiles before shipment. In their place, crews were

> supposed to insert metal dummies of the same size and weight, but a

> different color, so the missiles could still be properly attached under the

> bomber's wings.

>

> A munitions custodian officer is supposed to keep track of the nuclear

> warheads. In the case of cruise missiles, a stamp-size window on the

> missile's frame allows workers to peer inside to check whether the warheads

> within are silver. In many cases, a red ribbon or marker attached to the

> missile serves as an additional warning. Finally, before the missiles are

> moved, two-man teams are supposed to look at check sheets, bar codes and

> serial numbers denoting whether the missiles are armed.

>

> Why the warheads were not noticed in this case is not publicly known. But

> once the missiles were certified as unarmed, a requirement for unique

> security precautions when nuclear warheads are moved -- such as the presence

> of specially armed security police, the approval of a senior base commander

> and a special tracking system -- evaporated.

>

> The trucks hauled the missile pylons from the bunker into the bustle of

> normal air base traffic, onto Bomber Boulevard and M Street, before turning

> onto a tarmac apron where the missiles were loaded onto the B-52. The

> loading took eight hours because of unusual trouble attaching the pylon on

> the right side of the plane -- the one with the dummy warheads.

>

> By 5:12 p.m., the B-52 was fully loaded. The plane then sat on the tarmac

> overnight without special guards, protected for 15 hours by only the base's

> exterior chain-link fence and roving security patrols.

>

> Air Force rules required members of the jet's flight crew to examine all of

> the missiles and warheads before the plane took off. But in this instance,

> just one person examined only the six unarmed missiles and inexplicably

> skipped the armed missiles on the left, according to officials familiar with

> the probe.

>

> "If they're not expecting a live warhead it may be a very casual thing --

> there's no need to set up the security system and play the whole nuclear

> game," said Vest, the former Minot airman. "As for the air crew, they're bus

> drivers at this point, as far as they know."

>

> The plane, which had flown to Minot for the mission and was not certified to

> carry nuclear weapons, departed the next morning for Louisiana. When the

> bomber landed at Barksdale at 11:23 a.m., the air crew signed out and left

> for lunch, according to the probe.

>

> It would be another nine hours -- until 8:30 p.m. -- before a Barksdale

> ground crew turned up at the parked aircraft to begin removing the missiles.

> At 8:45, 15 minutes into the task, a separate missile transport crew arrived

> in trucks. One of these airmen noticed something unusual about the missiles.

> Within an hour, a skeptical supervisor had examined them and ordered them

> secured.

>

> By then it was 10 p.m., more than 36 hours after the warheads left their

> secure bunker in Minot.

>

> Once the errant warheads were discovered, Air Force officers in Louisiana

> were alarmed enough to immediately notify the National Military Command

> Center, a highly secure area of the Pentagon that serves as the nerve center

> for U.S. nuclear war planning. Such "Bent Spear" events are ranked second in

> seriousness only to "Broken Arrow" incidents, which involve the loss,

> destruction or accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon.

>

> The Air Force decided at first to keep the mishap under wraps, in part

> because of policies that prohibit the confirmation of any details about the

> storage or movement of nuclear weapons. No public acknowledgment was made

> until service members leaked the story to the Military Times, which

> published a brief account Sept. 5.

>

> Officials familiar with the Bent Spear report say Air Force officials

> apparently did not anticipate that the episode would cause public concern.

> One passage in the report contains these four words:

>

> "No press interest anticipated."

>

> 'What the Hell Happened Here?'

>

> The news, when it did leak, provoked a reaction within the defense and

> national security communities that bordered on disbelief: How could so many

> safeguards, drilled into generations of nuclear weapons officers and crews,

> break down at once?

>

> Military officers, nuclear weapons analysts and lawmakers have expressed

> concern that it was not just a fluke, but a symptom of deeper problems in

> the handling of nuclear weapons now that Cold War anxieties have abated.

>

> "It is more significant than people first realized, and the more you look at

> it, the stranger it is," said Joseph Cirincione, director for nuclear policy

> at the Center for American Progress think tank and the author of a history

> of nuclear weapons. "These weapons -- the equivalent of 60 Hiroshimas --

> were out of authorized command and control for more than a day."

>

> The Air Force has sought to offer assurances that its security system is

> working. Within days, the service relieved one Minot officer of his command

> and disciplined several airmen, while assigning a major general to head an

> investigation that has already been extended for extra weeks. At the same

> time, Defense Department officials have announced that a Pentagon-appointed

> scientific advisory board will study the mishap as part of a larger review

> of procedures for handling nuclear weapons.

>

> "Clearly this incident was unacceptable on many levels," said an Air Force

> spokesman, Lt. Col. Edward Thomas. "Our response has been swift and

> focused -- and it has really just begun. We will spend many months at the

> air staff and at our commands and bases ensuring that the root causes are

> addressed."

>

> While Air Force officials see the Minot event as serious, they also note

> that it was harmless, since the six nuclear warheads never left the

> military's control. Even if the bomber had crashed, or if someone had stolen

> the warheads, fail-safe devices would have prevented a nuclear detonation.

>

> But independent experts warn that whenever nuclear weapons are not properly

> safeguarded, their fissile materials are at risk of theft and diversion.

> Moreover, if the plane had crashed and the warheads' casings cracked, these

> highly toxic materials could have been widely dispersed.

>

> "When what were multiple layers of tight nuclear weapon control internal

> procedures break down, some bad guy may eventually come along and take

> advantage of them," said a former senior administration official who had

> responsibility for nuclear security.

>

> Some Air Force veterans say the base's officers made an egregious mistake in

> allowing nuclear-warhead-equipped missiles and unarmed missiles to be stored

> in the same bunker, a practice that a spokesman last week confirmed is

> routine. Charles Curtis, a former deputy energy secretary in the Clinton

> administration, said, "We always relied on segregation of nuclear weapons

> from conventional ones."

>

> Former nuclear weapons officials have noted that the weapons transfer at the

> heart of the incident coincides with deep cuts in deployed nuclear forces

> that will bring the total number of warheads to as few as 1,700 by the year

> 2012 -- a reduction of more than 50 percent from 2001 levels. But the

> downsizing has created new accounting and logistical challenges, since U.S.

> policy is to keep thousands more warheads in storage, some as a strategic

> reserve and others awaiting dismantling.

>

> A secret 1998 history of the Air Combat Command warned of "diminished

> attention for even 'the minimum standards' of nuclear weapons' maintenance,

> support and security" once such arms became less vital, according to a

> declassified copy obtained by Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of

> American Scientists' nuclear information project.

>

> The Air Force's inspector general in 2003 found that half of the "nuclear

> surety" inspections conducted that year resulted in failing grades -- the

> worst performance since inspections of weapons-handling began. Minot's 5th

> Bomb Wing was among the units that failed, and the Louisiana-based 2nd Bomb

> Wing at Barksdale garnered an unsatisfactory rating in 2005.

>

> Both units passed subsequent nuclear inspections, and Minot was given high

> marks in a 2006 inspection. The 2003 report on the 5th Bomb Wing attributed

> its poor performance to the demands of supporting combat operations in Iraq

> and Afghanistan. Wartime stresses had "resulted in a lack of time to focus

> and practice nuclear operations," the report stated.

>

> Last year, the Air Force eliminated a separate nuclear-operations

> directorate known informally as the N Staff, which closely tracked the

> maintenance and security of nuclear weapons in the United States and other

> NATO countries. Currently, nuclear and space operations are combined in a

> single directorate. Air Force officials say the change was part of a

> service-wide reorganization and did not reflect diminished importance of

> nuclear operations.

>

> "Where nuclear weapons have receded into the background is at the senior

> policy level, where there are other things people have to worry about," said

> Linton F. Brooks, who resigned in January as director of the National

> Nuclear Security Administration. Brooks, who oversaw billions of dollars in

> U.S. spending to help Russia secure its nuclear stockpile, said the

> mishandling of U.S. warheads indicates that "something went seriously

> wrong."

>

> A similar refrain has been voiced hundreds of times in blogs and chat rooms

> popular with former and current military members. On a Web site run by the

> Military Times, a former B-52 crew chief who did not give his name wrote:

> "What the hell happened here?"

>

> A former Air Force senior master sergeant wrote separately that "mistakes

> were made at the lowest level of supervision and this snowballed into the

> one of the biggest mistakes in USAF history. I am still scratching my head

> wondering how this could [have] happened."

It is my speculation, and I profoundly hope I am totally wrong, this

incident was a prelude to a terrorist attack on a U.S. city with a

nuclear weapon. Such mistakes in handling live nuclear weapons NEVER

happen by accident -> the handling and inventory protocols are way too

strict and the military well knows how quickly their funds would be

cut off and their careers ended if they started losing or "misplacing"

such weapons.

This is very worrying because, of course, with the advent of a nuclear

"accident", martial law would have to be declared and elections

suspended.... You get the picture.

Citizen Jimserac

September 23, 2007

Sid9 wrote:

>

> Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a

> sod-covered bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with

> orders to collect a set of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a

> weapons graveyard. They quickly pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of

> which appeared identical from a cursory glance, and hauled them

> along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.

>

> The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane's wings, six on

> each side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight

> officer signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129

> missiles. The officer did not notice that the six on the left

> contained nuclear warheads, each with the destructive power of up to

> 10 Hiroshima bombs.

>

> That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during

> which the missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air

> base that had no idea nuclear warheads were coming. It was the first

> known flight by a nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without

> special high-level authorization, in nearly 40 years.

>

And if you believe this, I've got a bridge you will no doubt be

interested in. If nuclear weapons were moved, you can bet the farm

that it was authorized at the highest levels.

September 23, 2007

nobody wrote:

> Sid9 wrote:

>

>>

>> Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a

>> sod-covered bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with

>> orders to collect a set of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a

>> weapons graveyard. They quickly pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of

>> which appeared identical from a cursory glance, and hauled them

>> along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.

>>

>> The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane's wings, six on

>> each side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight

>> officer signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129

>> missiles. The officer did not notice that the six on the left

>> contained nuclear warheads, each with the destructive power of up to

>> 10 Hiroshima bombs.

>>

>> That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during

>> which the missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air

>> base that had no idea nuclear warheads were coming. It was the first

>> known flight by a nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without

>> special high-level authorization, in nearly 40 years.

>>

>

> And if you believe this, I've got a bridge you will no doubt be

> interested in. If nuclear weapons were moved, you can bet the farm

> that it was authorized at the highest levels.

Dream on.

Since the arrival of the bush,jr/ Republicans our

government has been marked by incompetentce

September 23, 2007

Sid9 wrote:

>

> Since the arrival of the bush,jr/ Republicans our

> government has been marked by incompetentce

The incompetence is on Capitol Hill. Those assholes do not handle

nuclear weapons.

September 23, 2007

Citizen Jimserac wrote:

> On Sep 23, 10:29 am, "Sid9" <s...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>> Missteps in the Bunker

>>

>> By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus

>> Washington Post Staff Writers

>> Sunday, September 23, 2007; A01

>>

>> Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a sod-covered

>> bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with orders to collect a set

>> of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a weapons graveyard. They quickly

>> pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of which appeared identical from a cursory

>> glance, and hauled them along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.

>>

Well, someone ordered their removal.

>>

>> A former Air Force senior master sergeant wrote separately that "mistakes

>> were made at the lowest level of supervision and this snowballed into the

>> one of the biggest mistakes in USAF history. I am still scratching my head

>> wondering how this could [have] happened."

>

> It is my speculation, and I profoundly hope I am totally wrong, this

> incident was a prelude to a terrorist attack on a U.S. city with a

> nuclear weapon. Such mistakes in handling live nuclear weapons NEVER

> happen by accident -> the handling and inventory protocols are way too

> strict and the military well knows how quickly their funds would be

> cut off and their careers ended if they started losing or "misplacing"

> such weapons.

>

> This is very worrying because, of course, with the advent of a nuclear

> "accident", martial law would have to be declared and elections

> suspended.... You get the picture.

This story is snowballing.

Minot, the most accident prone base in the world.

Minot AFB Clandestine Nukes 'Oddities' --By Lori Price

http://www.legitgov.org/minot_afb_nukes_oddities.html

The following section was compiled by 'The Pundit.'

Since the Minot story broke a week ago about the missing nuke

clandestine operation from Minot, we have the following (for those who

are paying attention):

1. All six people listed below are from Minot Air force base

2. All were directly involved as loaders or as pilots

3. All are now dead

4. All within the last 7 days in 'accidents' [Not all of them --LRP]

http://www.kfyrtv.com/News_Stories.asp?news=10465

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070915/BREAKINGNEWS/70915012

http://www.kxmc.com/News/161562.asp

http://www.kxmc.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=140988

http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2007/07/20/news/state/136489.txt

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/9679367.html

Of course, rightarded nut jobs will say this is paranoia, but our regime

is making us paranoid. There seems to be no limits in their evil, though

to give them a break, there seems to be no limits in the complacency of

Americans. Want to invade Iran? Go for it, no one is stopping you.

September 23, 2007

Would these be the same nukes being tracked by Valerie Plame, who was in

charge of counter-proliferation at the CIA, and who the dick&shrub

Administration outed?

rms

September 23, 2007

In article <bCvJi.74037$U24.59988@bignews5.bellsouth.net>,

"Sid9" <sid9@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> nobody wrote:

> > Sid9 wrote:

> >

> >>

> >> Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a

> >> sod-covered bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with

> >> orders to collect a set of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a

> >> weapons graveyard. They quickly pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of

> >> which appeared identical from a cursory glance, and hauled them

> >> along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.

> >>

> >> The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane's wings, six on

> >> each side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight

> >> officer signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129

> >> missiles. The officer did not notice that the six on the left

> >> contained nuclear warheads, each with the destructive power of up to

> >> 10 Hiroshima bombs.

> >>

> >> That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during

> >> which the missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air

> >> base that had no idea nuclear warheads were coming. It was the first

> >> known flight by a nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without

> >> special high-level authorization, in nearly 40 years.

> >>

> >

> > And if you believe this, I've got a bridge you will no doubt be

> > interested in. If nuclear weapons were moved, you can bet the farm

> > that it was authorized at the highest levels.

>

> Dream on.

>

> Since the arrival of the bush,jr/ Republicans our

> government has been marked by incompetentce

Fallacy of the Biased Sample.

--

NeoLibertarian

September 23, 2007

nobody wrote:

> Sid9 wrote:

>

>>

>> Since the arrival of the bush,jr/ Republicans our

>> government has been marked by incompetentce

>

> The incompetence is on Capitol Hill. Those assholes do not handle

> nuclear weapons.

What's in the article that you fear that you need to delete it ?