Missteps in the Bunker (Minot, ND) p. AO1

[rodeodance]

Source: wpost



Missteps in the Bunker

By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 23, 2007; Page 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.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201447.html?hpid=topnews

[frogcycle]

1. 'security failures at multiple levels in North Dakota and Louisiana, '

kinda like all those coincidences on 9/11...

[acmavm]

2. Okay. Whatever. Are the still in Louisiana? What next?

Wonder if they'll decided that since they're already in Barksdale, they might as well just send them over to the Middle East 'just in case'?

:sarcasm:

[hack89]

3. Don't you think there are plenty of nukes in the ME already? nt

[acmavm]

18. Of frigging course I do. And Israel is the one who has them. I just wonder

if they smuggled the damns things over there yet so that we can do Israel's dirty work.

[hack89]

21. I meant US nukes.

how many subs with Tomahawks, for example, are in the area.

As an aside, why do you think we have to use nukes? Our conventional forces are more than enough to take care of Iran.

[acmavm]

22. Oh. US nukes. I sure do. And again I'l reiterate, they're in Israel. BUT,

as for conventional weapons and warm bodies, the military is pretty tied up with Afganistan and Iraq. And the bush**/cheney (or cheney/bush** rather) administration just 'may' be out of power in a year or so and they have to get in their war against Iran and or Syria. And Israel is doing the initial dirty work as we speak. Those nukes will come in damn handy, don't you think????

[hack89]

23. I see no need for nukes.

the air force and navy are not tied up in Iraq and would love an opportunity to grab some headlines.

there will be no nuclear attack on Iran.

[leftchick]

4. and we are supposed to believe this?

<snip>

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."

:eyes:

[Robbien]

6. That was my first thought, but Walter Pincus wrote this story

He is one of the few people at WaPo I believe is trustworthy.

[leftchick]

8. I agree

then at the end there is this. It seems the bush administrations incompetence has spread to the military....


<snip>

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."


not very comforting!

[Robbien]

9. Did you read the part where we are too busy in Iraq

that we are way behind the schedule in destroying the nukes so they are piling up but the budget is set for the scheduled amount of nukes.

So of course the extra live nukes are crammed in where ever there is space I assume.

[martymar64]

11. Incompetence is what happens when you purge the good generals

Stalin did this in the 30's, leaving only yes men, making it easier for hitler to get as far as he did when he invaded russia.
Bush has done the same thing, leaving the US more vulnerable than it has been since before pearl harbor.

[Minstrel Boy]

13. There are good reasons to be wary of Pincus

He has a long and unambiguous relationship with the interests of the Intelligence establishment.



Pincus returned to the Washington Post in 1975 where he specialized in writing about the CIA and the intelligence community. Pincus always defended the activities of the CIA and criticized Seymour Hersh for his "advocacy journalism" when he tried to expose the illegal activities of the agency. He also condemned the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) and in February 1977, described it as "perhaps the worst example of Congressional inquiry run amok." In 1979 Deborah Davis published Katharine the Great. Katharine Graham persuaded the publishers William Jovanovich, to pulp the book. As well as looking at the life of this newspaper proprietor, Davis explored the relationship between the CIA and the Washington Post. Davis also became the first journalist to expose Operation Mockingbird. She also named Walter Pincus as being one of the journalists willing to promote the views of the CIA.

...

Pincus also helped George H. W. Bush and Robert Gates during the Iran-Contra investigation. In an article published in July, 1991, Pincus called for the Senate to approve Bush's nomination of Gates as director of the CIA. In 1992, Pincus falsely claimed that "special prosecutors have told former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger that he might face indictment on felony charges in the Iran-Contra scandal, unless he provided them with evidence they believe he has against former President Reagan... The dramatic attempt to get a former cabinet officer to turn on his commander-in-chief occurred a few days ago as Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh tried to conclude his five and one-half year investigation of the affair." A few days later Pincus wrote that Lawrence E. Walsh was considering indicting Ronald Reagan. This was again untrue and Walsh argues in his book, Firewall, that Bush was using Pincus to spread disinformation on the investigation. As Walsh pointed out: "Of all the sideswipes that we suffered during this period, the false report that we were considering indicting the nation's still-admired former president hurt us the most."

....

Walter Pincus also led the attack on Gary Webb when he published his series of articles on CIA involvement with the Contras and the drug industry. After Dark Alliance was published Pincus wrote: "A Washington Post investigation into Ross, Blandon, Meneses, and the U.S. cocaine market in the 1980s found the available information does not support the conclusion that the CIA-backed contras - or Nicaraguans in general - played a major role in the emergence of crack as a narcotic in widespread use across the United States."

The Washington Post refused to publish Webb's letters when he attempted to defend his views on the CIA. This included information that Pincus had been recruited by the CIA when he was at Yale University in order to spy on student groups at several international youth conferences in the 1950s. Later, Geneva Overholser, the Washington Post ombudsman, criticized Pincus and other reporters working for the newspaper: "A principal responsibility of the press is to protect the people from government excesses. The Washington Post (among others) showed more energy for protecting the CIA from someone else's journalistic excesses."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/MDpincus.htm

[al bupp]

19. Thank you, sir

As always you provide ample documentation to support your assertions. I, for one, appreciate the insight into yet another of the ways the government has managed to spread its propaganda and suppress embarrassing revelations.

Clearly, the weight of strange coincidences regarding the transport of nuclear weapons beggars imagination in its improbability and disregard for long-standing protocol and begs for some explanation beyond simple incompetence, great as that may be in the current administration.

Nonetheless, pieces such as those by Mr. Pincus serve to soft-pedal and down-play any suggestion of nefarious intent just long enough for attention to wander to other topics, such as the overwrought travails of people named Simpson to take their place in the short-spanned attentions of the American public.

[Dover]

29. Simple Error My Ass

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/24/simple_error_my_ass

[Jackpine Radical]

20. Pincus = CIA. That is all.

[sandnsea]

25. Thank you n/t

[TheWraith]

27. Care to offer any proof of that ridiculous assertion? NT

[Jackpine Radical]

28. See Minstrel Boy's edifying post above.

[Robbien]

5. "Air Force officials apparently did not anticipate that the episode would cause public concern"

"No press interest anticipated."

Huh? How the heck would anyone think that? Only people who lose live nukes I guess.

[pinto]

7. While there is widespread skepticism, I think the story is just what it seems,

A series of fu's by personnel grown blase, and careless, with handling these weapons.

from the same article:

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.

<snip>

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.

[The Magistrate]

12. Oddly, Sir, This Really Is The Result Of A Good Thing

Namely, the disappearance of real fear of, and planning and preparation for, the use of nuclear weapons. In the days of the Cold war, when the possibility of such weapons use was real and faced daily by personnel in S.A.C., the drills would have been strictly adhered to, and every person involved intimately familiar with them. Now, they are just one more infrequently invoked bit of mumbo-jumbo in 'the book', that no one really needs to be too up on unless a commander gets some bee in his bonnet one Tuesday....

[pinto]

14. Interesting point. As one who grew up with 'air raid Friday' drills,

that omnipresent threat of total, mutual nuclear war was very real for the public, as well.

[The Magistrate]

15. Sometimes, Sir

It seems to me that the thing was so much a part of us, and of the culture around us in those days, that people miss it now that it is gone, like a lost love or a phantom limb, and in many cases search for substitutes to aussage a sense of incompleteness now that the real fear is gone....

[Earth_First]

10. You know, from a 'cursory glance'

Interesting, I didn't know that the military has become so laid back that the system now allows orders to be performed by 'cursory glance'.

Not the military I remember.

[Canuckistanian]

16. This article raises more questions than it answers

How did nuclear and non-nuclear devices end up in the same storage area?

And I know a bit about how the military works with regard to weapons. EVERYTHING has an identification number and NOTHING gets moved without an order tying THAT piece of equipment to THIS particular shipment. Even in storage, there is a specific protocol for obvious reasons. You wouldn't store explosives right next to nuclear devices, even if they looked exactly the same. I don't buy the spokesman's "routine storage of nuclear and non-nuclear together" story.

Also, the fact that the 6 non-nuclear devices seemed to be properly checked and were all on ONE side of the B52 and the nuclear ones were on the OTHER side and NOT checked seems extremely suspicious. Why were there apparently two different procedures?

Like the article said, it was a whole chain of events that failed simultaneously that let those weapons onto that aircraft.

[mainer]

17. If we nuked a US city, the terrorists would be blamed.

There were so many screw-ups that produced this situation, you have to wonder if someone WANTED a mistake to happen. Nothing like another 9/11 to keep the GOP in charge.

[HuffleClaw]

24. if by 'the terorrists' you mean iran... n/t

[daleo]

26. I don't believe it

It is like saying that a series of mistakes led to $100 million worth of diamonds being accidentally taken out of a bank vault and left on the curb. Things this important aren't left up to chance.