Dave Lindorff: Nukes Over America: Just a Stupid Mistake. Sure It Is

[babylonsister]

Nukes Over America: Just a Stupid Mistake. Sure It Is
Submitted by dlindorff on Sat, 2007-10-20 02:32. General Discussion | Impeachment | Iran | Media

By Dave Lindorff

The Air Force’s Friday report on the August 29-30 nuclear weapons incident which saw six armed cruise missiles flown across the continental US in launch position on a B-52H bomber leaves all the big questions unanswered, attempting to shuck the whole thing off as an “unacceptable mistake.”

To be sure, Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne and Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Maj. Gen. Richard Newton, said that after a six-week investigation, five officers, including Col. Bruce Emig, commander of the Fifth Bomb Group at Minot AFB in North Dakota, where the flight originated, have been relieved of duty, and 65 other Air Force personnel were also removed from their duties, and both Barksdale and Minot were decertified for their strategic nuclear responsibilities. But that’s still pretty small beer for an incident so serious it’s never happened before in half a century of nuclear weapons handling.

There are, at this point, no court martials being contemplated, and nobody’s been discharged from the military.

Put simply, six 150-kiloton warheads were improperly attached to six Advanced Cruise Missiles, all loaded onto a wing launch pod, and then mounted on the wing of a B-52 H Stratofortress at Minot, along with six similar missiles with dummy warheads, which were loaded onto a launch pod on the plane’s other wing, an all 12 were improperly and illegally flown across the country to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana.

The Air Force, following its “investigation,” is saying the same thing it said before the investigation: it was all a big “mistake”—the result of “widespread disregard for the rules” regarding handling of nuclear weapons.

A few guys at Minot “inexplicably” screwed up and loaded the nukes and then there were a chain of mistakes because no one else treated the nuclear-tipped missiles as if they were armed with nuclear weapons.

The trouble with this theory, or story line if you will, is that while nobody at Minot, supposedly, noticed what was happening—even though ground crew workers spent eight hours laboring to get the pod with the six nuke-tipped missiles mounted on the plane’s wing. This despite the warheads are clearly visible and identifiable by the silver coating they exhibit when viewed through a little window in each nosecone cover, and because there are red coverings on the nuke nosecones—once the plane got to Barksdale, the ground crew there, which had no reason on earth to suspect it was looking at nuclear warheads, spotted them immediately upon going to the plane.

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/27884

[havocmom]

1. Just a stupid mistake, that took coordinated efforts of 70 people to make

Wow. It is amazing, the crap they expect people to swallow.

[babylonsister]

2. It HAS been swallowed, or ignored (by media whores). Or most people

are ignorant and don't even know this happened.

[daninthemoon]

3. That 70 people part really stands out, doesn't it? How many people

got nailed for Abu Gharab? There's a lot more to this story.
:yoiks: :nuke: :scared:

[babylonsister]

4. Yes, there is. I think there's lots of lying going on, too. nt

[HCE SuiGeneris]

5. Kicking

and recommending

[Cirque du So-What]

6. Proudly given a fifth recommendation

IMO not nearly enough editorials in this forum make it to the Greatest Page. This one definitely deserves to make the trip.

[Gregorian]

7. And then there is the leaked story.

This may be insignificant, but why was it leaked? Tell us that. Because mistakes are made every day. Big ones. Ones that cause death and dismemberment. But they aren't leaked. The leak itself generates doubt that this was just an error.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

8. "...no court martials being contemplated, and nobody’s been discharged..."

I expect all 70 involved will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I flew as a C-141 navigator in the '70s, and you wouldn't believe the hoops we had to jump through when we were just practicing moving nuclear devices, using dummy containers. We had an extensive checklist that had to be precisely followed, and included constant contact with flight ops via radio. The security personnel also took part to practice their own procedures.

And this was to practice loading and unloading a dummy device, which looked like a large loaf of bread covered with warning labels. I can't imagine any ground or flight crew following procedures they had made up on the fly.

BTW, nukes have been accidentally been dropped on the U.S. twice thus far: once on http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,868306,00.html">South Carolina and the second on North Carolina. "Nothing could be finer than to nuke the Carolinas in the mornin'"