Larry Johnson writing at TPMCafe: Staging Nukes for Iran?

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/05/staging_nuke_for_iran

Staging Nuke for Iran?

By Larry Johnson

Why the hubbub over a B-52 taking off from a B-52 base in Minot, North Dakota and subsequently landing at a B-52 base in Barksdale, Louisiana? That’s like getting excited if you see a postal worker in uniform walking out of a post office. And how does someone watching a B-52 land identify the cruise missiles as nukes? It just does not make sense.

So I called a old friend and retired B-52 pilot and asked him. What he told me offers one compelling case of circumstantial evidence. My buddy, let’s call him Jack D. Ripper, reminded me that the only times you put weapons on a plane is when they are on alert or if you are tasked to move the weapons to a specific site.

Then he told me something I had not heard before.

Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations. Gee, why would we want cruise missile nukes at Barksdale Air Force Base. Can’t imagine we would need to use them in Iraq. Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations?
His final point was to observe that someone on the inside obviously leaked the info that the planes were carrying nukes. A B-52 landing at Barksdale is a non-event. A B-52 landing with nukes. That is something else.

Now maybe there is an innocent explanation for this? I can’t think of one. What is certain is that the pilots of this plane did not just make a last minute decision to strap on some nukes and take them for a joy ride. We need some tough questions and clear answers. What the hell is going on? Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran? I don’t know, but it is a question worth asking.

[hlthe2b]

1. What the hell do we have to do to wake up our Dem Leadership?

This just scares the shit out of me!

[flpoljunkie]

3. I found it very disturbing, as well.

[movonne]

5. Unfortunately they are already awake... they are going along with

this...this could be the start of world war3...

[calimary]

6. Who the fuck knows with them anymore?

They're so worried about saving themselves for '08 that we may all be incinerated in the meantime.

[onenote]

2. and if this was so, the military would've denied the story

[valerief]

4. I read about it on the bbc site today and posted here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3498856&mesg_id=3498856

It scares the bejesus out of me.

[donkeyotay]

7. But this is what the media is selling us. It was just an oops.

"What is certain is that the pilots of this plane did not just make a last minute decision to strap on some nukes and take them for a joy ride."

This couldn't happen. Tell me this can't happen. "They" wouldn't let bush do this, would they?