Well, if you buy the nonsense reported in the Washington Post, I have a bridge to sell you. According to Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus, the snafu involving missing nukes was just a bad mistake. They write:
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.
Sorry boys and girls, but that is nonsense. You do not walk into an ammo/weapons bunker and sort thru a bunch a cruise missiles like a college freshman searching their laundry basket in the dark for a pair of matching socks.
Despite the appearance of a meticulous report, Warrick and Pincus leave some enormous holes unfilled. Consider this, for example:
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.
So let’s see: not only did the munitions custodian officer lose track of the warheads, but an additional two-man team failed to record the pertinent data, and the pilots did not inspect the weapons. And now we learn that nukes and conventional weapons are stored together willy-nilly?
One main question remains unanswered? Why are such weapons being taken to Barksdale, Louisiana, which is the jump off base for Middle East ops? Just asking.
UPDATE:
(Going thru my mailbox came across the following from a friend and former B-52 pilot. The pilot’s views inform my observations)
Recently the news media reported a USAF B-52 taking off from Minot AFB, ND and landing at Barksdale AFB, LA with six nuclear weapons aboard. The big question is how or why this could happen?
First of all I have to say we are not privileged to all of the information and may never know the underlying circumstances of this occurrence. The Department of Defense declared this entire event was a mistake and would investigate what actually happened.
Obviously there are two possibilities: 1. this was an error and the events that occurred were a tragic mistake of far reaching proportions; and 2. the nuclear weapons were moved on purpose.
The United States has had nuclear weapons for over sixty years. Through out this time the tracking, storage and movement of these weapons has been performed without any type of security problem. The chain of custody procedures has been refined to the nith degree to insure that there will never be a mistake. The access to, movement of, and custody of these weapons is so tightly controlled, each serial numbered weapon has to be signed for when possession of it changes (from one person to another), then only after receiving a lawful order to do so. In order to load a nuclear weapon onto an aircraft the Weapon’s Depot Commander must receive a lawful order from above. The order is sent down (in writing) to one of the bomb shelter custodians and the weapon is signed out to a Loader. The Loader, loads the weapon onto an aircraft and will keep the weapon/aircraft under surveillance with the aircraft under armed guard by the Security Police in an isolated protected area until the Aircraft Commander performs his pre-flight inspection on the aircraft and signs a receipt for each of the weapons by serial number. Once delivered at their destination the Aircraft Commander would receive a receipt for the weapons by serial number from the receiving facility.
With all of the necessary orders and paperwork required just to move a nuclear weapon from one room in a storage facility to another, it can be stated with some sort of certainty that this was not a casual mistake as the Department of Defense has eluted to.
Then if the movement wasn’t a mistake, it obviously was done with some sort of purpose in mind.
The destination of the aircraft was Barksdale AFB, LA from which a number of the strikes on the Middle East have initiated. Speculation would lead us to believe the weapons were being stockpiled at this facility for a possible strike somewhere in the world. Additional speculation would also lead us to believe the strike was to occur in the very near future. Why else the need to forego the normal overland transportation procedures for nuclear weapons and risk flying them to their destination in violation of a treaty with the Russians. Also how is it the press was aware of this movement? After all who would be suspicious of a B-52 taking off from a B-52 base and a B-52 landing at a B-52 base. This event goes on many times each day for practice missions and training. Some one had to have leaked the information to the press that the U.S. was moving nuclear weapons by air in a treaty violation.
This leads us to two possible scenarios.
1. Whoever leaked the information would have been someone in a position of authority knowing what was going on and concerned the U.S. was actually attempting to use nuclear weapons somewhere in the world and wanting to stop it by exposing it. This someone would have had to have a security clearance of some kind and violated the trust under which it was issued thus being exposed to severe penalties and jail time for potential treason etc. Facing such severe penalties someone would have to be totally committed to his/her own conscience/moral beliefs. This preemptive exposure would put the U.S. on a difficult footing and loss of the surprise factor, thus potentially curtailing the mission.
2. The other possibility would be the information on the flight was leaked on purpose in an attempt to influence a foreign government, group or situation to move in a particular direction. That the U.S. was “Saber rattling” and the stakes were high enough to risk antagonizing the Russians to accomplish it. (With the possibility the Russians were supporting the action and willing to overlook the violation as exemplified by their lack of response in the entire situation.)
In either case we have only seen some minor actions taking by the Department of Defense in an attempt to say; well, by accident we left a few nuc’s laying around on some missiles we were going to destroy and they accidentally got loaded onto a plane that by some coincidence happened to be going to a base other than the one it was assigned to (we rarely fly B-52’s assigned at one station to another station). B-52’s usually take off from their home base, fly their mission anywhere in the world by aerial refueling and then return to the base from which they departed. Often these flights take over 20 to 30 hours. If this was a mistake what is happening to the general officers in the chain of command who would have had to issue lawful orders for the movement of those weapons and all those in the custodial chain who would have had to sign for each weapon as they gained possession of them? It just doesn’t add up. Especially when there is a line item in the budget before Congress to upgrade the missiles the Air Force says they were about to destroy. There appears to be too many loose ends still dangling. In addition to all of this did anyone notice how quickly this entire situation quieted down. Usually the press would play on such a world shaking event for months. They do for other things like the first birthday of Anna Nicole’s daughter. We’ve heard about that for weeks on end. But, for a world event with treaty violation implications, no protests from the other treaty signers or other major world players, we get about three days of news attention and it goes away. It seems the exposure has played its roles and has gone away with hopes all is forgotten.
In closing, again we are not privileged in knowing all of the facts and undercover goings on in this matter to be fully aware of what the real intent of this action, but it appears to be more than what the surface information appears.
I have one question that perhaps you can answer. In the WaPo article it said that the checked the missiles on one side of the plane, but "inexplicably" did not check the other side. I was under the impression that pilots did a walk through and looked over the entire plane. Are the missiles marked so that a thorough check would have revealed that they were armed?
September 24, 2007 7:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
The very prospect of this administration contemplating the use of nuclear weapons for any reason is scary as hell. In my lifetime (and probably in our history), this is far and away the most irresponsible and extremist administration the United States has ever known. I don't doubt they are foolish and criminal enough to use nuclear weapons on Iran in an insane bid to somehow snatch victory from the jaws of defeat they leapt into in Iraq.
I can think of no possible reason Bush and his overlord Cheney could possibly have even for thinking about using nukes. I do, however, recall distinctly how recklessly Cheney threatened the use of nuclear weapons against Saddam prior to our illegal invasion of Iraq. I was shocked at the lack of condemnation those repeated remarks received in the corporate media at the time.
I pray that any such attempt on the part of Bush/Cheney to use nuclear weapons against Iran or anywhere else would be resisted and/or exposed by the military and then the war criminals put behind bars where they belong. Surely the military leadership appreciates the insanity of using nukes better than anyone else and would not allow such an eventuality to come to pass.
September 24, 2007 7:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
My experience with nuclear weapons is more on the side of the communications systems for nuclear war, but, even there, a "two-man rule" is rigidly enforced. No alert or action message is ever supposed to be sent unless confirmed by two people, and often reconfirmed by the person that actually sends the order. For example, the National Command Authority consists of the President and Secretary of Defense, who must agree on a war order befor it goes forward, to the Chairman of the JCS, who gets the order into the communications system. He will also be cross-checked.
From what has been leaked, the key error, if it was an error, seems to have taken place with respect to the ammunition bunker. Nuclear and non-nuclear weapons are not supposed to be in the same storage "igloo", to prevent just this sort of confusion. Who decided to mix missiles going into the bunker? Who failed to exercise the two-man rule on taking them out, since if there was one nuclear weapon and 99 practice rounds, they all should be treated under the two-man rule.
Once those missiles left the bunker, the leaked reports said that everyone assumed they were practice rounds. At least in the Navy, there is a folk saying that "ass-u-me" is a way to make an ass out of you and me. Apparently, ground crew kept assuming.
Something that I don't know, and sounds suspicious, is that the flight crew should immediately have realized they had nuclear missiles. The warheads need to receive an arming code in a radioed Emergency Action Message. The crews have the EAM in a sealed envelope, which they open (two-man rule) to confirm. AFAIK, bombers do not arm the weapons before takeoff, so there has to be electronics between the warhead and the aircraft, to be able to send the arming code to the missile on the wing. If the arming system doesn't have a red light or equivalent that goes on when there is a live round, something was designed very, very badly.
Conclusion? I don't know what happened. If it was an error, or a small conspiracy, that has to be investigated. I want one or more Congressional committees, properly in executive session and cleared for TOP SECRET/SIOP-ESI/RESTRICTED DATA and possibly CRITICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS DESIGN INFORMATION, to confirm the Air Force and higher command (if the latter were involved, or didn't know but should have known) reports.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I pray that any attempt on the part of Bush/Cheney to use nuclear weapons..." You, and I and the rest of the world, finally, can only pray. Neither the Congress nor the Military of the United States, the only power structures that can stop the insanity of George Bush and Dick Cheney, have refused to act, ever. So, like the family at the bedside of a dying loved one, we pray because that's all there is left.
September 24, 2007 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is almost always true that the simplest and most obvious solution to a problem is the right one. Since for this to have been accidental requires a long string of highly improbable occurrences, and for this to have been intentional requires only a few obvious occurrences, it is almost certain that this was not an accident.
The odds that this was simply an accident are vanishingly small, or our entire method of handling nuclear armaments is extraordinarily careless and dangerous. But, if that were the case, there would, by now, have been at least one accidental nuclear weapon incident in this country, and I haven't read about any such thing.
The odds that, if this were an accident, it would result in a transfer of a nuclear device to a base that serves as a starting point for attacks on the Middle East, must also be vanishingly small.
It was no accident. And, given what we already know about the lunatics who run our government now, this can be said with some certainty to be a precursor to a nuclear attack on a Middle Eastern country - obviously Iran. Impeachment is off the table????? What should be on the table now is an unmentionable.
Hoppy in Sacramento
September 24, 2007 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Some aspects of the story seems plausible enough. They are decomissioning ACM's at barksdale and have been since march, so this work is supposed to be going on.
There are some items that do scream out to me as suspicious though:
First, that armed and unarmed missiles were stored in the same igloo. This is a big no-no, even with conventional weapons.
Second, that the six unarmed missiles was loaded on one wing and the six armed ones on the other wing, instead of being mixed. The probability of that is fairly low.
Third: That the sloppy inspector only checked the one wing with unarmed missiles.
September 24, 2007 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bush and Cheney will attack Iran after the primary elections but before Bush's term expires.
Lets remember that Bush and Cheney wanted to attack Iran and Syria after winning the Iraq war.
September 24, 2007 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, this explanation is BS, and once again the Washington Post is serving as the propaganda organ of the White House.
I'll repeat my previous theory. I don't think they're crazy enough to actually nuke Iran or anyone else. There's no way you can spin a nuclear first strike to your advantage.
But what you can do is essentially "wreck" some cruise missiles into suspected Iranian nuclear weapon facilities. Then when the IAEA detects all that weapon grade plutonium, they can assume that it came from the facility rather than one of the bombs used to destroy it.
It's the same principle as planting a gun on someone you just shot. If they do bomb Iran, they simply can't afford to not find evidence of nuclear weapons there. Not after Iraq. I suspect these six missiles were "off the books," already listed as destroyed, and were on their way to becoming evidence of Iran's nuclear program.
September 24, 2007 8:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
And to think we were worried about Russian loose nukes.
Sounds like the Dark Lord Deadend Dick in action. August isn't the time to roll out new products but preparations can go on in hopes that nobody notices. Bush was vacationing at Crawford.
Dr. Strangelove lives.
September 24, 2007 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
And leave the biggest mess in world history since WW2 for the next president.
September 24, 2007 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you know anything about Larry Welch or The Defense Science Board ?????.......................
Wiki says a lot about Welch, this being a key piece:
He's a former member Joint Chiefs of Staff ( Air Force).
currently president of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia.. also on the board of directors of CACI International .
which is the company that provided contracted civilian interrogators to Abu Ghraib,
and on the board of directors of the Henry L. Stimson Center, [3] a think tank which describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to enhancing international peace and security through a unique combination of rigorous analysis and outreach.
Defense Science Board being another Gov't/Military think tank.
Not exactly a neutral party to any military investigation.
September 24, 2007 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did you see this story from late Friday afternoon?
Do you know anything about Larry Welch or The Defense Science Board beyond what is available online? Basically, is Welch a realist or Cheneyite? What about the majority of the DSB?
September 24, 2007 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
hcberkowitz wrote: "If it was an error, or a small conspiracy, that has to be investigated. I want one or more Congressional committees, properly in executive session and cleared for TOP SECRET/SIOP-ESI/RESTRICTED DATA and possibly CRITICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS DESIGN INFORMATION, to confirm the Air Force and higher command (if the latter were involved, or didn't know but should have known) reports."
Seconded. Essential that Congress gets to the bottom of this, and asap.
September 24, 2007 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
The DSB is generally respected as an advisory panel. I was surprised, however, to go to its website and find that viewing the list of members required a password.
Welch retired in 1998, as Air Force Chief of Staff. Earlier, he headed the Strategic Air Command, but appeared to have been more associated with tactical fighters earlier in his career. His intermediate level staff assignments, however, should have familiarized him with general nuclear surety principles, but there's no indication he spent time, at an operational level, in a nuclear-capable bomber unit. Taking a list of activities in retirement, there's good and questionable:
In 1998 he spent several months on the Rumsfeld Commission, which reported to Congress on the ballistic missile threat to the United States.
Welch is currently president of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia.[1]. Very good reputation
He is also on the board of directors of CACI International,[2] the company that provided contracted civilian interrogators to Abu Ghraib. CACI takes on legitimate as well as problematic things, and has a much wider scope than its original narrow technical focus. Did directors know about Abu Ghraib?
on the board of directors of the Henry L. Stimson Center, [3] a think tank which describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to enhancing international peace and security through a unique combination of rigorous analysis and outreach.Very good reputation, especially in biological warfare counterproliferation.
He is also a member of the Defense Science Board.[5]
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Larry and you are correct.
It was no mistake.
Anyone who has ever worked around these would know better.
The systems are designed so that it must be very deliberate and intentional and goes through more than one step and more than one level of personnel.
September 24, 2007 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
One thing I have yet to see mentioned:
If these warheads shouldn't have been shipped to Barksdale, and aren't headed for ops in points beyond, they'll be returned, right?
Matt
September 24, 2007 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are far too many "convenient" mistakes. Responsible officer "makes a mistake" and signs out 5 or 6 nukes then everyone down the line becomes blind to the different color and weight of these nuclear weapons. Weight is a huge consideration for pilots. Barksdale? Why the staging area for Iraq to "decommision" nukes?
No, it looks far more sinister to me. Reinforced Tin Hat solution:
Rumsfeld-Cheney started by relaxing storage requirements which at a minimum, separated nukes from conventional explosives. Then Barksdale becomes the nuke cruise-missle "decommisioning" area by decree. A couple of authoritarian airmen sign on to the "sign-off".
Military Times said authorities first reported there to be "just" 5 nukes in 36 hour limbo. Then, somebody in the know leaks to the MT reporter that actually there were 6 nukes. Which is it? Are all the nukes accounted for right now? Wasn't there a Raw Story account of one of the airmen dying (or killed) on a recent leave? What?
Let's take it a step farther, what would be the best way to be able to nuke Iran and have most of America behind you. Why, a "homeland" nuke attack by Iran of course! An eye for an eye. We could afford to lose a liberal city to a nuke for the big authoritarian dreams. Just ask Bill O'Reilly who had no problem with a nuke in San Francisco.
So they steal a nuke, detonate it in a liberal city, make "solid" connection to Iran and let'er rip Dr. Strangeglove.
Too whacked you say? I would have said an aggressive war against a non-threatening country by an Administration composed of Constitutional vandals as whacked, and look where we are now.
September 24, 2007 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is nutty. By policy military people are not supposed to confirm or deny the presense or non-presense of nuclear weapons but this is a polite fiction. In practice you can always pick out the bunker that is nuclear capable or know when a ship is loading nuclear capabile munitions. The extra physical security features (fencing, lights) coupled by the rapid response to potential intruders (those marines will shoot you) are testimony to the fact that none of this is taken lightly.
If even a fraction of this sequence of events had occured in the Navy you can bet the Captain of the Base and the Captain of the Carrier would have been side by side on a plane to DC with or without briefing their replacements with the Commander of the Marine detachment in the seat behind. The Air Force is not the Navy and 2007 is not 1981, but it is impossible to accept that nuclear weapons handling could have broken down this badly. If this was true then you would expect dozens of officers up and down the chain of command to be relieved and every enlisted man to be facing an Article 32 hearing. Yet we are not hearing a peep.
Man if the Russians had done anything like this Washington would have gone off its nut screaming about unsecured nukes. If this is the new world standard for handling nuclear munitions God help us all.
But I have to think it was a stunt. The idea of seeding an Iranian nuclear facility with bomb grade material makes sense at one level but you wouldn't need this much material to do it. Sabre rattling makes the most sense but even that is odd. Because every ally we have is now looking at us with new eyes, particularly the nuclear ones. You don't play silly games with nukes.
September 24, 2007 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
My question is:
The best way to transport missiles slated for decommission is under the wing of an aircraft?
Seems unnecessarily risky...
Comments?
Randy
September 24, 2007 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wikipedia links to a July 2003 list of members of the DSB (pdf). No idea how accurate it currently is.
From things I've read, there seems to be an internal power struggle going on at the White House between older Bushies who fancy themselves the realists and the Cheneyites. Since so many people have served both BushI and BushII, it isn't always easy to tell from public information which camp a person favors. I was hoping LJ or one of his commenters might know.
September 24, 2007 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Corvid
If we don't impeach, we've pretty much lost our country, haven't we? For one thing, without impeachment, is the next president (Dem or GOP) likely to give up the powers and secrecy accrued under the Bush administration? I'd say no.
The Bush paradigm is validated unless we burn it out of the system. Given what Mr. Johnson is saying here, we can see the consequences of inaction. Impeachment cannot be optional.
September 24, 2007 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was a SP in USAF during the 70's and was involved in aircraft security with B52's and KC135 tankers. The B52's were sitting out loaded with nukes and JP4 and ready to fly. We would rotate the B52's on alert as well as the nukes on them.
The unused weapons are stored in a weapons storage area designated for nukes in bunkers with giant thick sealed doors. The whole process of taking weapons out to be rotated or bringing weapons back in on rotation is virtually fool proof....
So I have to say from my perspective that the probability that the story being told of a mistake is actually true is very very low. Too low to take seriously.
So what's Cheney REALLY up to?
September 24, 2007 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
This does scare me. I notice another item in the news that seems to fit a time line: the Isreali attack in Syria. It doesn't take too much to imagine how the two might be related.
dc
September 24, 2007 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Then when the IAEA detects all that weapon grade plutonium, they can assume that it came from the facility rather than one of the bombs used to destroy it."
That makes sense to me, except I thought it was the case (but maybe only on '24'!) that radiation from each countries nuclear weapons have specific footprints that would make it clear to the IAEA that the plutonium had come from the U.S.
Does anyone know if this is true?
September 24, 2007 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not only risky, but illegal.
It's a good question. If they were not supposed to be under the wing, why were they transporting them to Barksdale in the first place?
Either they were on their way to be decommissioned, in which case they should be been crated and flown on transport aircraft, or they weren't on their way to be decommissioned, in which case they shouldn't have been loaded on the airplane at all.
You can't claim it was both accidental and part of a scheduled decommission.
September 24, 2007 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but who is going to accuse the US of such an outlandish plot?
No, they'll bend over backward and rewrite the theory of relativity in order to prove that Iran had somehow produced weapon grade plutonium with the US atomic signature.
September 24, 2007 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whether it was an appalling accident or an appalling design to nuke Iran, what's really frightening is that a plane full of warheads flew thousands of miles and NOBODY WAS AWARE OF IT. Hello? 9/11 anybody? What if someone decided to hijack one of THOSE planes? Sounds like it would be a snap.
September 24, 2007 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Without going to people with government/military experience, where are you going to find anyone who has first-hand familiarity with nuclear weapons surety procedures? If you want a quick investigation of some things that involved legitimately classified information, such as the details of nuclear safeguards, where are you going to find people with a current security clearance? In the past, I had enough experience with nuclear command and control to know the message length, transmission priorit, and distribution of Emergency Action Messages (EAM), or orders to prepare or launch nuclear weapons, but I've never seen a real EAM.
As I've mentioned, IDA, where Welch has an operational rather than Board role, has a pretty decent reputation for objectivity. The Stimson Center isn't, as far as I know, government funded in any way. The definitely non-government Federation of American Scientists often cites Stimson work in the context of nonproliferation, and I'm familiar with creative Stimson work that allows detection of possible biological weapon preparation, without revealing trade secrets of legitimate genetic engineering.
There is a fundamental problem in monitoring intelligence and military affairs: almost anyone with deep knowledge has worked with them. I see it as a significant Congressional activity, exercising its check and balance role, to interview specialists and check their reputations for objectivity.
Simply because someone has worked, directly or as a contractor, for the military or government doesn't automatically mean they are biased.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
oh oh...looky here....
4 airman, 3 from the ND Minot base have died since July.
1 . Minot-based Airman Adam Barrs died on July 2.
2. Minot-based Airman Weston Kissel died on July 17.
(One died in a motorcycle accident while on leave in Tennessee.
The other was found dead in his home.)
3. Airman 1st Class Todd Blue was assigned to the unit that provides security for that bomber wing at Minot Air Force base. He died while on leave in Virginia.
Sept. 12, 07: ( possible he was a pilot, some sites say)
4. John Frueh, a B-52 pilot based in Florida, apparently committed suicide in a secluded area while on vacation on August 30. Although not widely known, John apparently was actually a Major with Air Force Special Operations Command.
Four deaths. One unexplained, one by accident and two by suicide.
These incidents are being investigated by a freelance writer...
http://www.topix.net/city/wytheville-va/2007/09/minot-base-officials-say-airman-dies-while-on-leave-in-va
Broken Arrow indeed.
September 24, 2007 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
If as you say that this couldn't have happened without a huge number of people signing off on it- shouldn't the question be: How does a plane get loaded with half nuclear missles and half not? Might the more worrying thing be that it is possible it did originally have 12 nuclear missles loaded and somehow arrived with only 6 nuclear war heads. The others having been replaced with the blanks at some point on the way. So then the reason that it has been kept quiet is the brass can't figure out who took them. It is safer to tell us a mistake was made rather than that OBL may have gotten nuclear war heads out of our back yard.
Unfortunately I wouldn't put anything past these guys including their incompetance extending all the way down into nuclear missle handling. Does anyone know where brownie is these days? In charge of nuclear weapons handling maybe?
September 24, 2007 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is Barksdale decommissioning the missiles or the nuclear warheads? They are separate parts.
In any case, they wouldn't use a B-52 for transport, except maybe if the missiles had no warheads and the plane was being transferred there anyway, and even then, would the Air Force do that?
September 24, 2007 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Larry Johnson: "One main question remains unanswered? Why are such weapons being taken to Barksdale, Louisiana, which is the jump off base for Middle East ops?"
The question you say is not answered is indeed answered. It was answered in the initial accounts of the Minot-Barksdale incident, and again in this article: The missiles are being decommissioned at Barksdale If you don't believe the answer, then you should provide some reason why we shouldn't accept it.
From the Pincus/Warrick article:
"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 question of where those six armed missiles are now does need to be answered. B-52s are based and serviced at Barksdale as well as Minot, so it's probably the case that some nuclear-armed missiles are stored there as well.
September 24, 2007 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
When did so many people on our side start flying black helicopters?
Yes this whole incident stinks, and needs a serious investigation, but it really does look like an unusually severe military fuckup - the result of people who have basically been going through the motions since we went off Cold War posture.
More to the point, the conspiracy theories just don't survive a shave with Occam's Razor. If they wanted to position nukes for potential use against Iran, just do it, using the normal procedures for nuclear weapons. Why come up with this incredibly roundabout and non-standard means of transferring the weapons, increasing the risk of a security breach. Which, under this theory, is exactly what happened, since we are talking about it.
September 24, 2007 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the plan was to rattle the sabre, whoever did the planning was willing to adversely affect several military careers.
If there were leaks motivated by conscience, it is to be expected that every possible effort is being made to find the leaker(s). It would be hard to keep disciplinary actions secret, wouldn't it? I hope so. We need to learn more, soon.
September 24, 2007 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Off the point, but very much on the mark.
Kevin Russell Cook
September 24, 2007 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
In principle I don't put anything beyond the Cheneyist extremists. But I believe that the more extreme scenarios here involving planting plutonium in Iran or creating a cassus belli by exploding one here founder on a factual point: I believe these materials are highly identifiable as to where, how and by whom they were produced. . I'm not a physicist so someone can correct me if I'm wrong, butI can't imagine a scenario in which the international scientific community would not be able to show the US's "fingerprints" all over such a conspiracy.
September 24, 2007 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Moving a warhead to be decommissioned -- attached to a fueled cruise missile in turn on a launch pylon on the underside of a wing?
Just doesn't seem possible. Any one out there familiar with how cruise missiles are armed with a weapon payload?
I assume the payload and the missile are relatively independent, and combined shortly before being loaded on a plane.
September 24, 2007 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
6 armed ( nuclear weapons ) missles came from Minot.
5 armed ( nuclear weapons ) missles were discovered
at Barksdale.
There is a question if missles are even de-commissioned at Barksdale ..does anyone know for sure?
Then...on Sept 7, CIA Director and General Michael Hayden, dressed in full military uniform, told assembled members of the Council of Foreign Relations:
"Our analysts assess with high confidence that al-Qaida's central leadership is planning high-impact plots against the U. S. homeland."
"We assess with high confidence that al-Qaida is focusing on targets that would produce mass casualties, dramatic destruction and significant aftershocks."
So, dead airmen, missing nukes, Bush desperate to jsutify his war on Terror, Bin Laden trotted out redently,
tho I have not seen any video , has anyone??? and at least 3 high placed officials have voiced warnings..
** dramatic destruction***
wow...how do you top the Towers falling???
get it?
September 24, 2007 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
@Larry: In your original post on the incident on September 5, you appeared not to know that the 2nd Bomb Wing is based at Barksdale (which would mean that nuclear armed missiles are already stored there).
Commenters to that earlier post (here and at No Quarter) mentioned the decommissioning going on at Barksdale.
I also note that your retired B-52 pilot friend's information that Barksdale is a jumping-off point for Middle East deployments became later in your post and ever since "the" jumping-off point, which given the number of U.S. air bases I very much doubt.
It's one thing to say that the Post story leaves some questions unanswered (or maybe even unasked). It's another to simply assert that the decommissioning explanation for the movement of missiles from Minot to Barksdale is bogus. Pincus has earned readers' trust. You need to put more facts on the table to insult his reporting and integrity the way you're doing here.
September 24, 2007 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I tend to agree with you. I'll bet it's happened before too. It may be rare, but perfect storms do occur. One person gives an initial sign-off and no one bothers to check it on down the line.
September 24, 2007 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did you read the Pincus/Warrick article? It says explicitly that not the case; the missiles are stored with warheads (dummy or nuclear) installed.
Given that, if it were up to me I sure as hell would store the nuclear-armed missiles completely separately from the dummy-equipped ones.
This incident puts us in an even more untenable position than we were already in to get huffy with other nuclear powers about storage and tracking of their warheads and nuclear material. Next thing you know, some cheeky Russian will be suggesting that independent inspectors be allowed to check up on our procedures...
September 24, 2007 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is exactly how they are transporting the missiles from Minot to Barksdale. They are about half way through the process of moving the 400 missiles. Every few weeks or so, a bomber flies up to Minot, picks up a load of missiles, and flies back to Barksdale. The missiles, with dummy warheads, are not particularly dangerous, and there is no need for all the added layers of security that you see for nuclear warheads. They probably could be crated ans shipped in a transport (or by land), but they are already on pylons, ready for loading on the bomber, and the Air Force probably doesn't see the need to spend time money, or manpower changing that.
September 24, 2007 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
First, let me adjust my tinfoil hat.
I wonder if this nuclear weapons incident was an advance relocation of weapons hoping to take advantage of an opportunity to respond to an Iranian provocation. Such a provocation might have been touched off by the Israeli attack in Syria on September 6. I do think that the US was aware of the attack before it was launched. We may even have been the instigators. The whole point might have been to provoke an Iranian response.
I know this possibility doesn't match the later speculations that nuclear activities were going on in Syria. However, before the suggestion that the target was North Korean support of a Syrian nuclear facility, one of the suggestions was that the raid was to block Iranian weapons being shipped to Hezbollah.
I also know that there are probably other (and likely better) ways for weapons to be moved into a site of tactical readiness than to move them on the wings of a B-52.
But, like several others, I can only imagine the wild machinations that this bunch of leaders we have might initiate. I don't trust them one damned bit!
jimbonita
Time for a change - Vote Democratic!
September 24, 2007 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Active cruise missiles are stored with their warheads attached. If they don't have active warheads (because they are slated for dismantlement or going to be used in a training flight) they have dummy warheads attached. The warheads are not being decommissioned, and, even if they were, they would not go to Barksdale, they would go to Pantex (in Texas), by truck, with lots of very visible security.
The key question (as you ask) is why the active missiles and missiles slated for deactivation were stored in the same igloo. I was talking to the Air Force guys who work for me this morning, and there's a relatively logical reason. The Air Force has cut around 40,000 personnel in the last few years. They can't cut flight crews, so they are cutting mostly maintenance and support guys. If you don't have enough guys to maintain and secure all your igloos, you may choose to consolidate and lower the number of sites where you store nukes. If you do that, you may have active and inactive missiles in the same igloo (and your loading crew may be so small and stretched that the guy just forgets to walk around to the other side of the bomber to check the missiles.)
This may not make any sense to those who think our military is operating like a fully well-oiled machine, but truth is, it is not, and mistakes happen when people are tired, short-handed, and really overworked.
September 24, 2007 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
The missiles are being decommissioned at Barksdale.
B-52s are in fact used to transport warhead-less missiles, and Barksdale, home of the 2nd Bomb Wing, is a B-52 base. So yes, the Air Force would and does do that.
What would be the alternative -- special crates that would hold unarmed missiles inside some even larger aircraft? The transport method makes sense. It's the storage and checkout procedures at Minot that seem slack beyond belief.
All this information is in the Pincus/Warrick article.
September 24, 2007 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
SeeDee..Per Mr. Berkowitz: "Simply because someone has worked, directly or as a contractor, for the military or government doesn't automatically mean they are biased."
Well-l-l, maybe not. But if that 'someone' has a personal financial stake in a matter under discussion and does not totally recuse him/herself from ANY DECISION RELATIVE TO THE 'MATTER' UNDER DISCUSSION, one would certainly be justified in being suspicious.
Given the Jack Abramoff/Duke Cunningham (et al.) 'defense contract' briberies, the current Pentagon investigation of ARMY personnel in the $6-Billion (at least) theft in Iraq' transition and police/military training organizations, can anyone be blamed for maybe/maybe not suspicions RE military/government money handlers?
September 24, 2007 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
SeeDee
I'd say that the 'investigative freelance writer' would be well advised to watch his/her behind very, very diligently.
September 24, 2007 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
"But, if that were the case, there would, by now, have been at least one accidental nuclear weapon incident in this country, and I haven't read about any such thing."
You're reading about it now. Why is it so hard to believe that this was the accidental incident?
September 24, 2007 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
I also note that your retired B-52 pilot friend's information that Barksdale is a jumping-off point for Middle East deployments became later in your post and ever since "the" jumping-off point, which given the number of U.S. air bases I very much doubt.
******************************************
Thank you! I noticed that bit of sleight of hand too - from "a" to "the" which is untrue.
This article talks about B-2s from Whiteman being sent on ME missions:
http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=1409
This talks about planes from Minot being staged at Guam, Europe and undisclosed locations for ME missions:
http://www.minot.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=3787
This talks about Barksdale planes going to the ME, but is consistent with planes from Minot being staged at intermedited points, in this case Diego Garcia:
http://www.militarynewcomers.com/BARKSDALE/index.htm
From all that I have read about B-2s, due to their support complexity most of their missions go round-trip from Whiteman. I would imagine that most B-52 support is based at intermediate points like Diego Garcia, Guam, etc. The Minot piece talks about their being "rotated" into Guam, likely replacing another unit
September 24, 2007 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why wasn't Barksdale expecting them? I don't believe in a conspiracy, but I am curious as to how this was so screwed up.
(And I know these screw-ups happen with frightening regularity.)
September 24, 2007 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for some informed sanity.
I was struck by this from LJ's ex-Buff-driver friend:
"The United States has had nuclear weapons for over sixty years. Through out this time the tracking, storage and movement of these weapons has been performed without any type of security problem."
I refuse to believe that statement. In the movement of thousands of "special weapons" over that long a period of time there have to have been some issues. Humans are fallible.
September 24, 2007 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
But according to the Warrick/Pincus piece 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.
Somewhere else I read that the paticular B52 in this incident wasn't designed to carry the dummies. It just gets all screwy, I admit. The whole point is to arm these bombers quickly, and if this one was dispatched to pick up dummies slated for decommission, on a routine mission, why didn't the dummies fit like they did in the previous 200/12 = 16.666 missions? I just can't imagine that the personnel in the loading crew weren't aware that there was something different about this mission. Let's give our flygirls and flyboys a little credit here.
Neoboho
September 24, 2007 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
SeeDee
FYI, Nell, the mere fact that Pincus appears in the Washington Post, and writing on ANY MATTER related to the Iran/Iraq/ME conflict(s) is all the proof one needs that whatever he (Pincus) writes on such subject might be just a tad tainted with The WaPo's never-ending efforts to justify the M-E criminal acts of Cheney, 'W' and their neocon 'planners'.
Whether the 'decommissioning explanation' holds water or not is largely irrelevant in this particular case.
BTW, did Pincus and/or WaPo touch on the 'strange untimely deaths of personnel connected to this mess? Or do you have some way of finding out such pertinent (co-incidental?) info?
September 24, 2007 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Depends what you mean by incident. There haven't been any accidental nuclear detonations, which would be hard to hide, or misplaced nuclear weapons, which would be unlikely to be reported.
There have been, however, quite a few bombs in crashed aircraft, or dropped as a result of an aircraft accident. One of the best known happened off Palomares, Spain, when a B-52 and a tanker collided. Three bombs hit land, and broke open, causing local contamination from their ingredients, scattered by their high-explosive components detonating; there was no nuclear reaction. One bomb fell into the ocean and was retrieved only after a major salvage operation.
Other cases include a couple of bombs lost at sea (off Tampa, IIRC), which were not recovered but are believed to have buried themselves in the ocean floor. I don't think bombs in a crash at Thule, Greenland, were recovered, but reasonably can be believed to be deep under ice. More bombs were in crashed aircraft and caused local contamination.
Some of the older incidents probably came close to a nuclear reaction, but newer bombs and warheads have high explosives much less sensitive to other than deliberate detonation. Other safeguards do exist, and have been described in sufficient detail to suggest that even if terrorists stole a modern bomb, they would essentially have to scavenge the materials and build a new bomb. The reason for this is a series of interlocks (Permissive Action Links) in the guts of the bomb, which can only be activated with codes the crew doesn't have, and reaching the PAL components would mean tearing apart things with critical tolerances. Also, the more miniaturized recent devices have less material than earlier ones, so someone would have to be a very good designer to make use of the contents.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
SeeDee
Cheney & friends' propaganda to incite the American public against the Iranian people, is SO-O-O remeniscent of another time I remember vividly:
I lived through the era of Spring thru' September, 1939...and, believe me, the ongoing propaganda war conducted by Hitler and Goebbels falsely accusing the Poles of one provocation after another..culminating in an 'attack' launched by the Polish 'armed forces' in late August, 1939, on German soil (the German Army itself was responsible) which was used to order the Wehrmacht's invasion of Poland is a sort of de ja vu.
Except this time, instead of the bad guy being a brutal dictator basing his rule on 'racial purity', at least one of the 'bad' guys is named Dick Cheney and he is Vice-president of the U.S. of A.
Is our Congress just going to let Deadeye Dick manipulate us into yet more misery and criminality...I'm still waiting for even more forceful statements fom our Democratic Senators reigning in this 'Darth Vader'.
September 24, 2007 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have absolutely no financial interest in any defense-related firm, and my computer-related stocks went underwater in the dot-com crash. I could make you a really good offer on $65 stock options from Nortel, 10,000 shares worth.
But I've certainly worked on military projects, some in strategic command and control, some in WMD (mostly chem-bio). Does this make what I say automatically suspect?
Don't assume that the criminal and old-boy network tendencies of this Administration apply to any in history.
Again, where are you going to find expertise on such things as nuclear safety procedures in the military? I worked only with the communications, about 30 years ago, with systems that are mostly retired. There are some details that I would not discuss in an open forum, but most are safe enough.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are three bases with operational bombers with a nuclear role: B-52's at Barksdale and Minot, and B-2's at Whiteman AFB in Missouri.
ICBMs, obviously, have nuclear weapons, at five operational bases: Minot, Hill Air Force Base, Utah; Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana; F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming (very big area that is in several states)
Missile submarines not at sea or in major overhaul will be at Bangor, Washington or King's Bay, Georgia. It is not public if carriers any longer carrier nuclear weapons. Attack submarines could carry nuclear cruise missiles, but they probably don't routinely do so.
A number of the bombers and submarines might make forward deployments to Guam and Diego Garcia.
Tactical weapons have largely been retired, but are almost certainly in the UK, possibly elsewhere in Europe, and at bases in the US. There are several depots for ready or reserve weapons in the US, plus the assembly/reassembly plant at Pantex, near Amarillo, TX.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was supporting the mistake thesis after you first broached this subject, Larry, but now it seems to be falling apart.
The odds: How many levels of the failsafe regime failed in this incident? What are the statistics? Off the top of my head: Igloo management didn't check the identity of the missiles; loading crews didn't notice they were loading two classes of missiles (one class which didn't fit), pilot did a visual check of only one side (the benign missiles); and it looks like the wrong type of B-52 was slated for the mission - one that was set-up to carry the nukes and not the dummies.
So the mistake argument seems to be incredible. But then, what? A staged mistake aimed at a bigger slice of the military budget for the AF? A false-flag conspiracy? Theft?
What I'm looking at is that if the mistake theory is being pushed by the Pentagon, and it wasn't mistakes, then the real cause has to be pretty horrible, or say, more horrible than the mistake theory. Given a choice, military institutions usually act in their own best interests. At any rate, one has to imagine something that is much badder than the breakdown of nuclear failsafe systems.
Neoboho
September 24, 2007 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
They weren't going to use any nukes. No such luck Larry. 8-)
September 24, 2007 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not so sure. While I was surprised to hear that any weapons igloo had mixed nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, the explanation of cutbacks affecting maintenance and support people, and leading to consolidation, is plausible if irresponsible.
My suspicion is once the missiles left the igloo not under nuclear weapons surety procedures, people started seeing what they wanted to see, rather than checking. I am a little puzzled, so far, about the missiles fitting or not fitting--as I had understood, this type of missile had one airframe, into which a dummy or real warhead could be inserted.
The B-52 itself has some weirdnesses. I find it hard to believe that loading a nuclear weapon doesn't bring up a weapons control panel indicator. That the pilot was checking by himself, however, suggests that the crew didn't believe they were carrying nuclear weapons, because the two-man rule would have gone into place.
I wouldn't want to fly with a pilot, however, that didn't do a complete walkaround of an airliner or private plane before takeoff. That would mean the pilot or copilot would check all 8 engines, all pylons, any electronic warfare pods, etc.
It also confuses me to hear of B-52's not being configured to carry nuclear weapons. For a time, the fUSSR even insisted that museum displays of B-52's be counted as nuclear-capable aircraft as part of arms control procedures. There is bilateral on-site inspection as well as satellite photography. A lot of procedures have been based on B-52s and B-2s being nuclear capable, and B-1s not.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
With bar coding technology available, it's hard to believe that critical steps of the operation relied mainly on eyeballing.
September 24, 2007 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I normally have a small alarm that chimes in and warns me of potential conspiracy hoaxes, it has remained alarmingly silent over this event. This scares me.
What worries me even more are two alarming facts - One: Somehow over 50 years of security protocal & procedure evaporated completely and at all levels during this one event. Two: This administration has demonstrated an unsettling frequency of disregarding rules, laws, and procedures by circumventing them entirely and planting hand-picked agents to carry out thier tasks.
What troubles me most in this fiasco is that if all of the entrenched procedures were able to slip this badly, does this not raise the likelyhood that the final guard (that EAM) might also be circumvented by a hand picked crew or two? Hell maybe all but the crew miraculously think they're dummies, but this seems improbable.
Is it me or does this entire event smack of Tom Clancy? It's incredibly impossible to imagine but has just enough fact tied to it with duct tape & bubble gum to let us pretend it could. I'm just waiting for Harrison Ford to show up, explain the twisted surreal plot & save the day. Or, we could just lock these idiots running this country up. Whichever you please.
September 24, 2007 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
It strikes me as peculiar that they would use a B-52 to transfer ALCM's from one base to another. I wouldn't think they would use an expensive delivery platform like a B-52 to haul freight.
September 24, 2007 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "it can't be an accident" theory is not well supported by evidence. Getting speculative about WMDs can be hazardous, no?
For those who say that an string of mistakes of this complexity can't possibly occur, well, maybe we don't hear about the many near-misses in a leaky system. As for actual accidents/incidents, there have been published cases of around 40 major incidents in the nuclear program, despite quite a bit of official secrecy. In short, it's a mess.
These incidents are not widely known, but well documented:
http://www.cdi.org/Issues/NukeAccidents/accidents.htm
September 24, 2007 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
3. Airman 1st Class Todd Blue was assigned to the unit that provides security for that bomber wing at Minot Air Force base. He died while on leave in Virginia.
Sept. 12, 07: ( possible he was a pilot, some sites say)
******************************************
Couldn't be a pilot. Airman is an enlisted rank - pilots are all officers.
Tell you what. Find out the number of accidental deaths/suicides at about a dozen airbases of comparable size over the same period we'll compare them and see if this is anything out of the ordinary. Data you've presented here doesn't mean anything by itself.
September 24, 2007 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
More to the point, the conspiracy theories just don't survive a shave with Occam's Razor. If they wanted to position nukes for potential use against Iran, just do it, using the normal procedures for nuclear weapons. Why come up with this incredibly roundabout and non-standard means of transferring the weapons, increasing the risk of a security breach.
******************************************
Exactly. There's your Occam's Razor argument.
September 24, 2007 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read a rash of articles this morning, and for the life of me, I can't fine the article that mentiones the "wrong" bomber item. But the proof seems to be in the pudding, if I'm seeing things accurately. The six dummies wouldn't load easily, calling for part of 8 hours work. The nukes did load properly. So there must be some difference in the pylons, unless we have an asymetric B52 in our arsenal.
But honestly, your skepticism is well taken. We only have Wapo's version of the loading delay - and I don't think it we know the source of that tidbit.
Neoboho
September 24, 2007 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
So far, there are a lot of unexplained things. I suppose the EAM arming code could be given to collaborators, although it would take more than just a few people to do it. As the system is designed, the National Command Authority has the EAMs to authorize particular "packages" in the SIOP. The next level down at the Pentagon have the separate EAMs to confirm an NCA order, and also change our nuclear readiness level. At this point, the exact sequence of orders gets into classified areas, but I'd suspect at least one or two more sets of intermediate codes would have to be issued and accepted before the actual arming codes went to a bomber crew. Different parts of NSA prepare the various codes, which go out by different messengers.
The W80 warhead on this missile type is a variable-yield thermonuclear weapon, possibly using boosted fission, the latter AFAIK always on a plutonium "primary", at the low end. The radiation products from even a boosted-fission plutonium explosion is inconsistent with Iran's known capabilities, which would use uranium. There are some persistent reports that getting boosted fission to work is harder than it seems, and that India, Pakistan, or both had what were called "fizzle yields" of tests of boosted fission.
Remember, Russia, China, France and the UK, powers that have thermonuclear and boosted fission weapons, are going to get samples of fallout from any "Reichstag Fire" (Gleiwitz is a better analogy, but I digress). They know how to interpret the results, and it wouldn't be consistent with anything Iran -- and quite possibly Pakistan and North Korea -- could depend on making, even if it was "just" boosted fission. Israel is rumored to have boosted fusion and even thermonuclear, but the last thing Israel wants is being thought to have nuked Iran.
If the US were going to use nuclear weapons at all, I wouldn't expect these particular weapons to be used, certainly not against the nuclear facilities. If the B-52 were penetrating Russian defenses, it might use a nuclear cruise missile to suppress defenses ahead of it, but Iran's would easily be suppressed with conventional precision-guided weapons.
The Iran scenario just doesn't hold together for me, but that isn't to say that Cheney might not have come up with some other weird scenario...perhaps Iranian agents, posing as missile technicians at Minot, sneaking ACM missiles out, and having them...delivered to Minot? As I got further into that, I started to hear that Bob Newhart routine involving the transatlantic telephone call from Sir Walter Raleigh to his agent, whose side you hear. Walter-baby (agent-speak) is trying to describe this great stuff he's found, called tow-back-oh, and the agent is in utter disbelief about what you do with it. If you had never heard about snuff or cigars, what would you think of someone who told you what to do with them?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I too thought the story reeked to high heaven...
Here is the thing. If you read between the lines of the story, these were twelve missiles that had been set aside for transport based on an order/paperwork separate and distinct from the order/paperwork used by the crew that took the missiles out of the igloo...
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...
in other words, the missiles were already a single "set" which made it possible to "quickly" move them out of the igloo.
Now, there is simply no way that the military creates "sets" of a dozen missles, half nuked up, and half with dummy warheads.
But Warrick and Pincus completely ignore what happened prior to the morning the missiles were loaded --- but that is when the real problem happened, because either people were given paperwork saying that nuclear-armed missiles were to be combined in a set with non-armed missiles for transport, or paperwork was issued saying that 6 nuclear tipped missiles were supposed to be disarmed, THEN staged as part of a set with 6 other non-nuked missiles -- but the orders to disarm the missiles was completely ignored.
And since taking warheads out of nuclear armed missiles is probably a fairly specialized job that would generate specific orders for specialized personnel, and LOTS of paperwork about where the warheads themselves should be stored AFTER the warheads had been removed, I think its safe to say that there was no paperwork saying that the missiles should first be disarmed.
Now, one of the supposed safeguards is that "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."
This is the exact same information (bar codes, serial numbers) that the people who were assigned to stage the missiles for transport would have been given in order to identify which missiles to pull.
And unless it was the intent to move nuclear armed missiles, there would have been a whole lot of paperwork associated with each bar code/serial number about disarming the missiles prior to them being staged.
There is simply no way that the paperwork given to the crews that moved the missiles, and the pilots that flew the bombers, could have indicated that the missiles were armed UNLESS it was intentional.... UNLESS the people who staged the missiles had paperwork saying to PREPARE armed missiles for transport.
September 24, 2007 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
This incident may have been a number of things- all bad- but it was not a treaty violation. I don't see where this is a violation of the START Treaty to have a cruise missile being carried from one base to another. I have checked with colleagues who work that treaty and they concur.
Had it been a violation, be sure that we would have been called on it.
September 24, 2007 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, using Buffs to transport (unarmed)missiles is pretty plausible. These things are very large and heavy, so might even need more than one transport aircraft to move the full load, and transports are in high demand. The missiles are also designed to be securely attached to a B-52's wing. By transporting them in another aircraft you'd need to spend a lot of time and energy boxing the things up properly.
Finally, since Minot and Barksdale are both B-52 bases and both have maintenance crew and facilities for the aircraft it makes sense to use them for these milkruns. Gives the crew some flight hours too.
September 24, 2007 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. The treaty is concerned with the number of designated nuclear-capable strategic aircraft on the US side, which are B-52's and B-2's. If there was a B-52H in storage somewhere and it was reactivated, that could count against the treaty. If a B-52H had crashed and the mothballed aircraft replaced it, once the Russians confirmed the other aircraft had been destroyed, there would be no violation.
It is the number of archers, not the number of arrows, that is counted by the treaty.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. Crews need flight time for proficiency, and flights aren't always simulated bomb runs with low-level flying or distant firing of cruise missiles. It makes some sense that the warheads might be removed and transferred by secure transport, but not the missiles, especially with a practice warhead -- you want a dummy warhead even for simple flights, as not having the weight of a warhead in the missile can affect weight and balance, which affect flying characteristics.
The failures started in the igloos, or decisions, perhaps cost-based, to put nuclear and non-nuclear platforms in the same igloo. Even if no nuclear weapons are involved, the pilot screwed up if he was doing the walk-around and didn't inspect every part of the aircraft.
Without knowing how the ACM is armed and what electronics connect it to consoles in the aircraft, I don't know if something failed or the crew ignored nuclear-on-board signals that should never have been ignored.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the WaPo article it said that the checked the missiles on one side of the plane, but "inexplicably" did not check the other side.
Dummy warheads mass the same as nuclear warheads? That's surprising if true.
September 24, 2007 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure. You'd want them to mass the same, otherwise, there could be different flying characteristics of with loads of dummy and real missiles. Train like you fight, fight like you train.
Shouldn't be all that difficult to accomplish, because the exceptionally dense nuclear materials are a small part of the "physics package", which also contains fairly light high explosives, probably very light beryllium, light aluminum "levitation" supports for the pit, etc. You might not even need depleted uranium, but lead or steel might do.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I trust Larry Johnson, but I have to point out, there have been quite a few predictions of attack on Iran (Sy Hersh, for instance) with dates that have come and gone. This either means we aren't planning an attack, or we're getting reports of Cheney's machinations to make it happen by the "cooler heads" of the Bush Administration -- and you know how batshit insane a plan has to be for a Bushie to blow the whistle.
In my gut, I know Cheney is this stupid, and that these guys are like rabid, cornered animals. They'll do anything in desperation to vindicate their obvious failure. Anything. And we have to take anything like this seriously.
When do we know when they're REALLY gearing up for war? How do we know when to put the brakes on?
What we learned from Iraq is that these guys are smart enough to have the discussion about the wisdom of their actions AFTER they've already been done.
September 24, 2007 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, all we will ever know about this incident is what the military choses to let us know or what they decide to try to foist off on us. It may be years before we actually know the facts, if we ever do.
Hoppy in Sacramento
September 24, 2007 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
SeeDee
Mr. Berkowitz: I do NOT assume anything and, certainly no implicit criticism of your relationship(s) with government 'contractors/contracts' was intended.
(re-reading my post, I am puzzled as to why you think any comment was aimed directly..or even indirectly..at you.)
But it is fairly common knowledge to remember the Reagan years and the $600 monkey wrenches and $800 toilet seats...and without going to reference materials, there have been OTHER instances of 'war profiteering' in our history involving 'defense-industry contractors' less- than-honest Military,Naval and government personnel, and notable attempts to cover up such malfeasance.
Personally, I admire your obvious expertise in the technical aspects of many discussions that take place on this site.,,,(and I would not want to be involved in info containing classified material).
As for the military and its PRESENT contracting procedures, given the 'no-bid' re-newable contracts, the rush to form new contractor corps by little Bush-friendly pols at the outset of the Iraq invasion, and the HUGE sums of DOLLARS now known to be missing or mis-appropriated, it seems to me the entire PENTAGON should be closed...at least until the crooks could be singled out, arrested and punished.
September 24, 2007 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I like the explanation that they were being moved about to position them for use at a later, or maybe sooner than later, date. That, though worrisome and disgusting, is more believable than the "It's just a weather balloon" type of explanation from our government.
September 24, 2007 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps I misunderstood, and, if so, I apologize. There was a flavor, however, that anyone who had ties with the military or government was unable to be objective. IDA and the Stimson Institute have decent reputations, and a board member at a diversified contractor is not going to be aware of all operations. With a think tank by Stimson, the scope of work is narrow enough that directors may well know about the major research.
Military procurement is complex. There's no question that some things were corrupt. I'm afraid I don't remember specifically the toilet seat and wrench, but do remember a hammer and coffeemaker of high cost. Some idiot in procurement insisted on putting out a Request for Quote for a hammer, which often is about one page of what the government actually wants, and an inch-thick pile of compliance documents, certifying that innumerable and irrelevant laws and regulations have been met -- and are expensive to fill out.
A rather expensive coffeemaker, however, had to fit in a specific space aboard a P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, which hunts submarines, often low off the water in heavy weather. The coffeepot and filter had to have restraining straps so a lurch wouldn't scald the crew or equipment. Electrical power to the machine had to be 28 volt DC, for which standard heater coils were not calibrated. Even if a 28VDC to 120 VAC inverter were used with a commercial coffeemaker, the inverter would have to be aviation rated. Sometimes, there is a reason for expense, although the original design engineer for the aircraft would have been wise to provide 120 VAC power in the galley.
Unquestionably, the current procurement process, especially for services rather than equipment, is needful of a searching Congressional review.
There are crooks in the Pentagon. There are also hard-working patriots. The problem is telling the difference in a timely way. Unfortunately, there are bad people in the world that could exploit such a shutdown. Yes, there have been service-wide aircraft or even base shutdowns, typically for a day when a safety-of-life factor was involved, but necessary missions were still flown.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
SeeDee
Yeah, Memekiller, when one reviews the offensive deployment of ADDITIONAL Naval Task Forces, the drumbeat of how many IED's and other weapons the Iranis are pouring into Iraq (mostly UN-PROVEN), the continuing chorus of saber-rattling rhetoric of people like Lieberman, McCain, Cheney and the oft-repeated reminder from Bush and Condi that 'no option is off the table', the 'mistake' involving the nukes takes on a more worrisome hue.
September 24, 2007 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
There would be no need for the weapon to detonate, and thus no need for arming codes. It would just need to be dropped onto a large Elbonian facility, and that facility then bombed with a slug of conventional weapons including some intended to start fires. The resulting cloud could then be sampled by a "neutral" observer who just happened to be in the vicinity and poof - justification for the attack on Elbonia.
sPh
September 24, 2007 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn. Scott Adams rather than George Orwell.
Cheney would have to be getting scientific advice from a physicist equivalent of Wolfowitz, if he didn't understand that the Russians would be delighted to present a fallout analysis to the UN. I suppose the US could dig out the Little Boy blueprints and then prepare the fission products of a gun-type uranium fission system.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
SeeDee
"there was a flavor"...now, now, Mr. Berkowitz, you know by now that some (only some, BTW) of my posts need to have a 'grain of salt' to enhance the 'flavor'.
September 24, 2007 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
:-)
Ah. When I lost a wallet a few years ago, I most mourned the loss of several handwritten cards friends had written for me. The Thai and Hindi ones read "this is a crazy American. When he says he wants it what we would call hot, he means it. He will not sue you."
The Japanese one said, I am told, "He will enjoy our food, but respectfully asks it not be fugu and it be dead."
On a very different level, I enjoyed a classical Mexican restaurant in Manhattan, whose appetizer menu featured "Genuine American nachos, adapted for the Mexican palate."
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 24, 2007 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
New slogans for the 2008 recruiting drive:
You can find your future in the ChairFarce....
Aim higher, and a little more to the LEFT, next time.
OHMYGOD, don't push that!
Zoom, zoom!
Yes, you can do a line of crank off the dash of a B-2, it's all good, George does it all the time...
Off we go, into the...where the _____ARE we going, Bob?
What do you MEAN, you can't FIND it?
-----------
American tax dollars at play, no, make the 'defense' budget nine HUNDRED billion, worth every penny, right?
LOL
September 24, 2007 9:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Based on the current morale level throughout the chain of command I have no doubt that this was a simple breakdown in procedure.
(former AF Vet from a century ago)
September 24, 2007 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
SeeDee:-)
Strange co-incidence...almost! I once ate at a Mexican Restaurant in Omaha, NE, whose printer, in error, had listed 'Genuine Mexican MACHOS, Prepared to American Tastes'.
Not what I ordered...and I did NOT call the error to the waitress's attention.
September 24, 2007 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Be prepared! The International Day of the Nacho (IDN) is around the corner - October 13th. The festivities will be in Piedras Negras, Cohuilla. I hear the nativity scenes are especially charming.
I live on the Mexican border, and I can say with some authority that Nachos, among many other things, are neither Mexican or American. The border has its own rules, and own food. In 1943, for example, Ignacio Anaya invented the Nacho for some military wives from Eagle Pass. True, he used tortillas...but he smothered them in Wisconsin Cheese.
Around here we have donas (pronounced dough nahs) - tasty little deep fried pastries with a hole in the middle. Obviously inspired by the bagel. Very sweet. Some are covered in ancient Aztec chocolatl, very Mexican.
Neoboho
September 24, 2007 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, things would be far far worse than they were during WW2 when we had a government transition.
Let's look at the rosy state of things -
India, Pakistan & Isreal have nukes now and everyone else wants the "get out of US Invasion for free" card too. Russia is an utterly criminal mess which could fall rapidly in nearly any direction. Oh, and they have a whole mess o'nukes too. Europe wants little to do with any of our messes. Africa is a humanitarian disaster that can easily be equated to the horrors the Jews suffered in Europe only less mechanically executed. Iraq is far worse than it was even under Sadaam. The Kurdish situation has both Turkey & Iran on edge. Our military is worn out & we have virtually zero international credibility. Our economy & government have been highjacked by privatization junkies that all hope to OD very soon. And our press & general population are too lazy or ignorant or both to really care all that much about any of it (unless gas prices top $3.00 a gallon). I'm sure Cheney & pals probably think "what could one more little war do" except make more money & prevent their Arabian boogieman from "holding the worlds oil hostage". Then again if they get any more successful there may be no oil or world left to worry about. Idiots...
This all sounds far more dire that what Truman was handed or even what Roosevelt walked into. At least as I see it it is.
September 24, 2007 10:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
This quite possibly could raise frightening questions.
September 24, 2007 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pilots walk the entire plane as part of the pre-flight. They're at that point assuming responsibility for the plane and crew to be in proper condition and ready for flight. Regardless, before that, there would be several such checks made in regards to maintenance, movement, and change of possession.
As Larry's post makes clear, the procedures regarding the handling of nuclear weapons go to the ninth degree of redundancy.
As I said here: http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/05/staging_nuke_for_iran#comment-296983
already, there's really no chance this was an accidental move. It was either
1) A deliberate pre-positioning leaked by a whistle blower.
2) A deliberate leak for political leverage, saber rattling against perhaps Iran or Syria.
September 25, 2007 1:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whenever Walter Pincus's name appears on a Wapo byline, you can be sure that administration/CIA approved propaganda is being disseminated.
September 25, 2007 1:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please. If push ever came to shove the only reliable way to take out a submarine is with a nuke. This isn't WWII where destroyers are going to sail around launching depth charges hoping to make a sub spring a leak.
It is a pretty good bet that any ship with an anti-submarine mission, which would explicitly include carriers, has nuclear weapons on board when deployed. Our treaty obligations with countries like Japan and Australia keep us from discussing this fact openly, but I sincerely doubt that either those countries governments or security forces are really in the dark.
And while attack submarines may or may not have nuclear cruise missiles you can bet they have nuclear tipped torepedos.
The Chinese and the Iranians have submarine capability to take out a US carrier and even the North Koreans could conceivably get lucky. If we really are sending carrier task groups to the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf that are not fully equipped to handle all contingencies then somebody has some 'splaining to do.
My Navy days are long done and were performed in the waning years of the Cold War, but I have a hard time believing that the fundamentals have changed. The Navy really is not set up to have one posture for peacetime and a totally separate one for war time, there is no realistic way to rush nuclear weapons to the front when the front is a carrier task group half way around the world. (This is particularly true for deployed submarines.)
September 25, 2007 2:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
For example, the National Command Authority consists of the President and Secretary of Defense
You are forgetting Cheney and no, I'm not snarking. According to many sources, Cheney gave the OK-to-shoot-down order on 9-11.
September 25, 2007 2:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
This has Cheney's fingerprints all over it. The planning and preparation involved to execute this nuke shell game is probably the source of all the press coverage in Europe about the U.S. preparing a strike against Iran. Thankfully, someone had the good sense to blow the whistle.
On a side note, I am not gullible enough to believe this was a case of "bumbling ineptitude" or "carelessness" or another sign of the "strain of war" on our military.
It's Bush and Company doing what they have consistently done since taking office: Whatever they want, regardless of the constitution, the courts or the legislature.
And it is true: the only way to stop these evil twins is unmentionable -- but not unthinkable.
Morgan
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
-- William Lloyd Garrison (1805 - 1879)
September 25, 2007 6:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
As what is probably one of the more truthful bits of US advertising, Black & Decker's power hammers (essentially a small jackhammer powered by electricity rather than a compressor) were branded the Macho III and Macho V.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 25, 2007 6:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, your logic train does not match with the reality of how cruise missiles are stored and how the crews train to load them. First, you need to recognize that the storage/loading procedures are designed to allow everything to happen very quickly, if the national emergency calling for their deployment occured. Until 1991, bombers sat alert on their runways, that meant they were fully loaded with their weapons, and their crews sat in an alert facility just off the runways, waiting for the bells to go off. Bombers were pulled off alert in 1991; this was designed to reduce the costs (primarily manpower and security), and to reflect the changed international security environment. What it did, essentially, was increase the amount of time it would take to get the bombers into the air. But that time is not infinite; the ACMs were stored with warheads attached and in sets ready for loading, so that, when the bell went off, they could be loaded quickly (in hours.)
Now, once the decision to retire the ACMs came down, the process was developed whereby they would be shipped, on pylons, to Barksdale. The Air Force already had procedures to remove the active warheads and replace them with dummies because they use dummy warheads in training. So, this operation happens relatively frequently, and independently of the bomber loading procedures. So, when the crew picked up the missiles, they expected to see fully loaded pylons in the igloo, and they were supposed to make sure they picked up sets with dummy warheads, not real warheads. Also, if you look at the pics, you can see that they really had to pick up two sets of missiles, since each pylon holds six missiles. Here's the screw-up. One of the sets came from the side of the igloo with active warheads, instead of the side with dummy warheads. Why? That's the question (also there's the question of why both types were in the same igloo, but I've addressed that before, probably due to cost/consolidation of manpower). Why, though did they take the wrong missiles? Did their orders send them to the wrong "pile" of missiles, or were active warheads put in the wrong pile earlier in the process? Who knows, but this is the first key question, followed quickly by the second, Why didn't anyone notice the active warheads on the missiles when they were on their way out of the igloo.
All the surmising in the world won't answer the questions unless you know what the real process and real procedures are.
September 25, 2007 6:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is one area where I do have some experience, and, while most analysts agree that blue-water operations are the only place tactical nuclear weapons might not escalate, they are long gone for the purposes you describe.
The B57 bomb/nuclear depth charge was the primary air-delivered nuclear weapons. While the US goes on about "will not confirm or deny", the reality is that if a Naval installation has nuclear weapons, there will be a Marine detachment protecting something with a little different name -- Naval Magazine, or Naval Weapons Station. Those stations and detachments are gone from the bases for land-based P-3 maritime patrol aircraft. The S-3 carrier-based fixed-wing antisubmarine (ASW) aircraft are largely gone from carriers, with a few tanker or VIP transport versions possibly around. Seahawk helicopters are the main shipboard (carrier, cruiser and destroyer) ASW aircraft.
The primary US antisubmarine weapons are the Mark 46 lightweight torpedo, which is being replaced by the Mark 54, which has better performance in littoral waters. These are torpedoes that can be air-dropped, launched as a last resort from surface ship torpedo tubes, or, in the more modern version, with the VL-ASROC rocket delivery system fired from a Vertical Launch Tube. VL-ASROC has a published range of 28 kilometers for the rocket part, which delivers the homing torpedo near the target, at which the Mark 54 takes off. VL-ASROC and air-dropped torpedoes operate far enough from the surface vessel to have a chance of getting the sub before it can fire a long-range weapon.
US attack submarines, two of which are normally attached to a carrier task group, use the Mark 48 ADCAP heavyweight torpedo, which are a good deal more powerful and longer ranged.
Very few operational naval officers liked having nuclear antisubmarine weapons, for several reasons. Practically, they required special handling, security, etc., which makes the current missile flap even more dubious -- nothing, historically, was left to chance with nuclear weapons. Operationally, they were quite likely to kill a submarine that fired one, even if it used the standoff SUBROC. They were also a danger to ASW ships using them.
I fully recognize that littoral warfare in the Persian Gulf is hazardous, and if Cheney does provoke an attack, it would be a lousy place to employ carriers. There are some important installations, such as Bandar Abbas, which could be hit from a carrier outside the Gulf. I need to do some map analysis, however, to see if carrier-based aircraft have the range -- lower than they used to be -- to reach the targets in northern and central Iran. Even F/A-18E/F aircraft aren't as capable or long-ranged as heavy bombers staged from the US and places like Diego Garcia. If there are bases, even the Air Force F-15E aircraft is more capable as a bomber.
I really don't believe there is any strong evidence to believe any naval vessel other than a carrier has nuclear weapons on board, and, if they do, they are B-61 tactical and B-83 strategic bombs, which have no underwater capability. Vertical Launch Tubes on submarines and surface ships, as you point out correctly, can only be reloaded with nuclear Tomahawks at a base or by a tender, but the improved targeting accuracy, and in some cases more effective explosives, really has done away with the need for tactical nuclear weapons in most situations.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 25, 2007 7:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not forgetting Cheney, although NCA authority would not be required for engaging with conventional weapons. There are reports that Bush formally delegated his NCA role while he was traveling back from "My Pet Goat", but I can't confirm them.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 25, 2007 7:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
"it looks like the wrong type of B-52 was slated for the mission - one that was set-up to carry the nukes and not the dummies."
What are you talking about here?
The nukes and the dummies are the warheads attached to the exact same kind of missile, which the B-52s all can carry. Read the WaPo story: it was one of the pylons that they had trouble fitting onto the plane. It's the same kind of pylon for the same kind of missiles; only the warhead is different.
September 25, 2007 7:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is simply the reverse of the truth. Pincus was one of the only reporters to pass along skeptical analysis of the administration's case for a weapons threat from Iraq in 2002 and 2003, and his stories were buried deep in the paper while the Post put prowar articles on page one and cheerled the invasion on the editorial page.
Walter Pincus is one of the best reporters in the business.
The author of this post and several of the commenters are putting dents in their own credibility here. Disappointing.
September 25, 2007 7:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
"everyone down the line becomes blind to the different color and weight of these nuclear weapons. Weight is a huge consideration for pilots. Barksdale? Why the staging area for Iraq to "decommision" nukes?"
1. The missiles are the same color; the warheads inside (visible only through a stamp-sized window) are silver if nuclear, painted if dummy.
The article makes reference to the fact that the nuclear missiles should have been marked red, but weren't.
2. The dummy warheads are the same weight (or close to it) as the nuclear ones; that's the sole reason for their existence inside the missiles -- so that test flights with them are the same as real flights.
3. Barksdale is not "the staging area for Iraq." It is the home of the 2nd Bomb Wing, as Minot is home of the 5th Bomb Wing. B-52s are based there, and I assume there are also missiles, nuclear-armed and not, stored there too. Which makes it a sensilble place for decommissioning. The missiles in question have been in the process of being decommissioned there for over a year.
Those determined to see the worst have to discount inconvenient facts and twist neutral ones into sinister harbingers. If anyone's wondering how the neocons convince themselves and the gullible of the reality of nonexistent threats, the process is on display in this post and this thread.
September 25, 2007 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
The B-52's that fired the first missiles (along with Navy missiles) in Desert Storm flew out of Barksdale, but they could just as well have flown out of Minot. Since they have essentially worldwide range with midair refueling, carrying lightweight missiles, the distance to Iraq isn't that different between the two bases. Barksdale is also the location of the headquarters for all US bombers, the 8th Air Force, so there's more command oversight there than at Minot. Minot is also an ICBM base.
When carrying heavy bombloads, it is more efficient to get closer to the target. During Desert Storm, there was some very low-profile temporary B-52 basing in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. More commonly, they, as well as B-1 and B-2 bombers, use Diego Garcia or Guam as forward staging bases.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 25, 2007 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
But it is fairly common knowledge to remember the Reagan years and the $600 monkey wrenches and $800 toilet seats...and without going to reference materials,
****************************************
The $600 toilet seat has turned into quite an urban legend. The problem was that the nomenclature for the assembly being procured was incorrect. Next time you fly on a commercial aircraft go to the lavatory. You will see that the toilet seat is attached to a large fiberglass assembly that is fastened into the bulkhead of the aircraft. The proper technical term for this entire assembly is "toilet shroud." That's what was being purchased - not just a toilet seat.
When I worked in aerospace I bought stock shrouds for B-737s and the going price was $1100. Looking at the size of the assembly $640 for a shroud is a decent price.
http://www.answers.com/topic/toilet-seat-2
September 25, 2007 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
SeeDee
So Pincus' stories of skepticism in 2002 and 2003 were 'buried deep in the paper'? And what prominence was given this 'smooth-over' story by Pincus RE the mis-handled(?) nukes.
And rating of reporters, it seems to me, is a game based on personal assessment and preferenceas well as consideration of skill, veracity and intelligence.
My comment on Pincus' story, at any rate, was based more on the fact that it is a WaPo production, not which reporter wrote it.
September 25, 2007 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
If this was truly a mistake, and the weapons should not have been moved from their original site, it stands to reason that the weapons would be returned to their normal site by standard methods.
I, for one, have heard nothing about any attempt to "correct" this mistake by returning the weapons to their normal storage area.
Given the high amount of security associated with such weapons, such a return to storage would seem to be a high priority.
September 25, 2007 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for bringing this up. Even the "monkey wrench" was very likely to be a specialized tool that had to fit in a limited volume while being able to apply a considerable torque. I, too, worked in the aviation industry, and learned that simple things can be very expensive due to the special requirements they have to meet.
Hoppy in Sacramento
September 25, 2007 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, how would you explain the trouble they had loading the dummies? If one wing loaded fine, and the other didn't, something's different, no? So there are two issues here, as far as I can imagine. Mechanical and electronic connections. If the pylons are 100% standard, then the electronics may vary. At any rate, something has to be different, period.
At any rate, that's where the "wrong b52h" idea comes from. On the face of what we know, if Wapo is correct, the airframe was configured, mechanically and/or electronically, to quick loads the missiles with the nuclear warhead.
Neoboho
September 25, 2007 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I worked in spares sales for a while for one of my aerospace employers. They were absolutely terrified - as they should be - that the price for a particular spare wouldn't pass the "newspaper test". We had to review the parts with senior management so we didn't have nomenclature problems like with the toilet seat and that the prices sounded reasonable. There were many piece parts that we didn't make that we would have only marked up the price and passed through to the USAF. On many of these we refused to sell them and told USAF to go direct to the manufacturer. This angered the USAF as they wanted to do "one stop shopping" with us.
As a large company we had a high overhead and sometimes the numbers legitimately added up to what looked like a higher than reasonable price. On some of these we unilaterally cut the price so it looked better.
I won't deny that there is waste and fraud in Federal procurement, but having worked 17 years for two of the largest contractors, I saw a genuine concern that bad publicity would cost far more than the dollars gained on questionable practices.
September 25, 2007 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aside from the massive breakdown in procedures, the difference in pylons is hard for me to swallow. Even if the dummy warhead didn't connect to the nuclear arming control panel -- a bad idea for training -- a rational designer would put on the appropriate connectors so cables didn't dangle, and just didn't carry signals.
Had there been different pylons on two different aircraft, I just might believe it. While I don't remember if it finally was agreed upon, one of the arms control proposals was to make nuclear weapons capable aircraft have differences, not easily changed, from non-capable ones that would not go under the treaty limitations. AFAIK, however, this missile (the ACM) does not have a conventional capability. The earlier ALCM did have a conventional variant, and there were conflicting proposals that this might be done for the ACM, but the proposals do not appear to have progressed.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 25, 2007 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
But as I said before, who would dare believe America would dare plant nuclear material on Elbonia?
Once you admit such a nefarious plot was hatched, you'd have to admit anything is possible.
They'd rewrite the laws of physics first.
Back in the day, it was ok to slaughter captured peasants but bad form to execute a captured noble - because it might give the peasants the wrong idea about the divine right to rule. The same would apply here. You admit to the world that the US dropped plutonium on Elbonia in order to frame it, and people might get the wrong idea about what governments might be capable of for the sake of politics.
September 25, 2007 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes Nell, subsequent posts have have convinced me also that the weight remains the same (dummies are of the same weight as the nuclear warhead they substitute for) and that perhaps the look of the dummy missles are identical (true?) to the look of the potentially active (were they active?) nuclear payload missles, the "only" difference being a small window on the side which said, in effect, "death to many" or "a-ok".
You seem to be on this post to squelch any notion that there's monkey-business afoot in our military, or higher. Do you have an agenda? My agenda? Make sure the Nells of the world don't patronize us into complacence while the liars who hold the reins destroy all we have worked for and believe. Accepting nuetral "facts" at face value is what got you into the Iraq War.
I have no trouble with facts supposedly "inconvenient" to my view. What you have presented to this blog has done nothing to assuage my fear that the suspicious handling of nuclear weapons by an administration of demostrated criminals is something to always be vigilant about and never submit to the "daddy knows best" opiate.
Nell, get your investigative hat on and be skeptical, it will help you in the end, and you will be correct more often in the near term.
Here's some questions that I would like you to answer:
1)What do the warheads look like in storage?
2) What is the process for moving, checking out or sending airborne a nuclear missle? Steps, personnel etc.
3)What are the minimum number of failures needed for this to occur the way its been reported so far and at what critical points did one or more military personnel have to make an obvious and vital error?
4)What were the direct roles of the airmen from Minot who have died in the last three months in operations relevant to this incident? Roles regarding storage, movement or loading of nuclear warheads and/or missles. Were they part of this incident?
5)Why did they start storing dummies and nukes in the same place or were they? If so, when did it begin and who ordered it? Rumsfeld?
The answers to these questions may or may not help me believe that our daddy has it all under control.
September 25, 2007 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll try answering a few.
picture. Figure a very heavy, skinny trash can, about a foot in diameter and 3 feet long. Probably in some cylindrical container when in storage, to make it a less awkward shape and perhaps provide handles or lift points.
Any warheads containing plutonium would be kept some distance apart, to prevent stray neutrons for getting them excited--nothing explosive, but heating and unreliability, plus effects on people.
In a general way, the first rule is "no lone zone". Nothing is ever authorized to be done with a nuclear weapon, be it physical, issuing orders, or working on the communications, other than by at least two people in the Personnel Reliability Program.
I have more of an idea about the processes for launching it. There are, IIRC, some published Air Force manuals, perhaps partially redacted, about shipping warheads in the US. You can also find descriptions of the road transport procedure.
Still, if it was expressed purely as logistical or training, I suspect an order from the Wing Commander or possible 8th Air Force commander might be enough. If it was an actual nuclear weapon, that absolutely, positively would have to be countersigned, probably both at the sending and receiving ends.
There are some very key questions here. Did any of the ammunition storage people think they were dealing with training rounds? One of the keys to this mess is at what point people assumed they were dealing with a training round, unless all were involved in a plot. Once the handling assumed no nuclear, people might see what they expected to see.
Regardless of whether he looked on the wrong side or not, the pilot should be grounded for doing an incomplete walkaround. Private pilots know about doing thorough walkarounds.
I can think of several scenarios, but the most critical place is at the ammunition bunker, if, by accident or design, they pulled out a live loaded pylon. Ammunition technicians, certainly. Logically, if there were nuclear weapons in the igloo, it had to be two technicians, plus two and possibly more guards. Again, the key thing is when people started assuming it was conventional, and I don't know who is ordered to double or triple check things coming out of an igloo.
I don't know and can't find out how both training and live rounds connect to the weapons control panel on the B-52. From everything I've heard, once a nuclear weapon goes on boards, various panels light up. There are switches under covers, or perhaps with key-operated locks. A big question: would the training round light them up? I'd think so. Could both, if there was tampering, announce they were dummies? Yes, but more people involved -- no one is going to talk about the electronics involved, although Congress should be able to get a description in closed session, with qualified independent experts advising the committee.
I have no idea about either. The latter would have had to be at a fairly high level, probably in multiple organizations. I don't think it would get to SECDEF level.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 25, 2007 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I think it is a little naive to think that Russia would (even assuming they have a library of Savannah River and Hanford isotope signatures) automatically stand up and denounce the attacker of Elbonia - they might well have other games to play with that information.
I am 97.3% certain that this was a massive systematic accident along the lines of the Challenger launch decision (book about which see), but the problem is that there are so many drums beating for war with Iran right now, and many of those beating the drums have now been documented as being deliberately deceptive for quite a while, that it is difficult to say that Occam's Razor applies.
sPh
September 25, 2007 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
William of Occam probably, from time to time, cut himself while shaving.
Seriously, I was thinking less that they would have a library of US signatures, as much as the US would have to go through a significant effort to leave the signature of a early uranium fission bomb, even if it fizzled.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 25, 2007 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Russia recently announced that it was resuming strategic bombing patrols but then later said these were not nuclearly armed. It has caused a number of incidents in which NATO countries have scrambled interceptors. Russia's Air Force has said the Bear bombers are practicing strategic bombing with Cruise missiles over the Arctic. The flight of the nukes began in Minot, ND.
If arctic patrols source from Minot, I am wondering if the US "mistake" was a veiled yet intentional deterrence signal?
September 25, 2007 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
One argument for keeping bombers is that you can signal with them. There's no good way to get across, to the other side, that you've told your ICBM and SLBM crews to move their chairs a foot closer to the launch panel.
OTOH, given that B-52's fly missions, refueled of course, of over 30 hours, the distance between Arkansas and North Dakota, with the B-2's in the middle in Missouri, doesn't make a lot of difference.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 25, 2007 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
RichMc461
Once upon a time I was in charge of the weapons storage area at Barksdale (1986-1989). I had the pleasure of surviving the intial operating capability with the ALCM at the 2nd BMW. A few of the guys I started out with in 1986 on that endeavor did not make it. The General mentioned in the Post article, General Habiger, was the wing commander of the 2nd BMW at that time. It was rocky going. We were under intense pressure to become operational and had minimal time to achieve that capability.
I can't say beyond a shadow of a doubt that what happened with the Air Launched Cruise missiles was not part of a conspiracy but I think it is highly unlikely.
Larry Johnson relies on the advice of a pilot friend to reach some of his conclusions. One that he made was that in 60 years we have not had any similar security incidents with nuclear weapons. Well that is just not so. The plain fact is that those incidents were reported in classified reports and generally not made public. If we all had access to the reports and investigations the Air Force maintains we would find out that a few more have taken place. Granted they are few and far between.
The idea that someone should have been looking for a nuclear ALCM when the whole mindser, the setting in which they were taken to the aircraft, the checklists used, and all of the other indicators tell you this is a non-nuclear shipment is kind of a stretch to then expect people to be looking for a nuke. I'm sure that after this incident procedures will change to make sure there are multiple redundant checks to make sure somethng like this does not happen again.
Another thought, Larry Johnson is operating under the assumption that it was crucially important to get these missiles to Barksdale for some kind of clandestine mission. The unstated assumption here is that Barksdale does not have whatever Minot is shipping to them. At present the Air Force has 2 remaining B-52 wings, the 2nd Bombardment Wing at Barksdale and the 5th Bombardment Wing at Minot. When last I checked Minot was a single wing and Barksdale a double wing. In other words Barksdale had more than twice as many aircraft assigned as a single wing. Another thing to consider is that being that it was a double wing Barksdale has more igloos in which to store missiles. Also the storage area at Barksdale is considerably larger than Minot's. Barksdale also has more igloos, many of them remnants from the deactivation of the Aviation Depot Squadron that was once assigned there. I can't think of anything Minot could ship Barksdale that Barksdale would already not have more than enough of on its own. Had the situation been reversed, had Barksdale been shipping something to Minot Larry Johnson might be on to something. But the mere fact that Minot shipped something they were not supposed to to Barksdale does not raise any warning flags for me.
It also makes sense to consolidate the demilitarization operation at one base. I am sure the operation requires specialised equipment and specialized training. Rather than move the operation to Minot it is probably easier to move Minot's ALCMs to Barksdale.
There are many postings here trying to understand all of this. Like the post immediately prior to this one. For example, "I, for one, have heard nothing about any attempt to "correct" this mistake by returning the weapons to their normal storage area." We are not in the habit of advertising where we have our nuclear weapons and when we move them. There is nothing that would preclude Barksdale from being able to use the W-80 warheads that were inadvertently transferred so it is not a categorical imperative that they be moved back to Minot. But if they are I would not count on being notified when the move takes place.
The post story does not really go in depth to indentify where the mistake was really made. There are many elements to this and the story just does not tell us enough to know how this really took place. Yes, the handling crew that took the missiles to the aircraft should have caught the fact that one of the pylons had W-80s installed as opposed to dummy warheads. But there are many other players in the game. Had this been a transfer of nuclear assets the Munitions Custodian officer (actually a Munitions Accountable Supply Officer or MASO) would have been more involved. But for the most part the MASO or his/her subordinates would have been more involved in creating the paperwork to support the transfer of the missiles than verifying these missiles did or did not have nuclear warheads still installed in them. Maintenance specialists assigned to the Integrated Maintenance Facility (IMF) would be the ones to remove the W-80 warheads and put them in containers and install dummy warheads in place of the W-80s. These technicians and their managers would then submit appropriate documentation (probably now done electronically) to the MASO to say the warhead and missiles are no longer associated. Then there is Munitions Control, an entity that should know the status of each pylon in storage and which missiles are on each pylon. Munitions Control also maintains oversight of the daily work activity of the munitions flight and should have some insight as to whether the work to remove the warheads had been done prior to shipping the missiles.
Beyond question something went wrong. Was this a conspiracy? I don't see anything that tells me to be looking at this incident and expect that as an outcome. That someone spilled the beans after the incident took place. As a nation we are notorious for leaking secrets. I see nothing in the fact that this story was leaked and somehow became public knowledge that supports a conspiracy theory.
Victor Hugo once said, "Great blunders, like large ropes, are made of many fibers. An indepth investigation of this incident would reveal all of the various checks and procedures that did not work. Quite likely, one crucial error precipitated all those that followed. That may well explain the relaxed security...because the missiles were not nuclear...or at least so they thought.
September 25, 2007 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
There has been a nuclear weapons incident in this country!
B-47 a-bomb fell on house in Mars Hill, S.C, in 1958 and the
TNT in the bomb caused an explosion and injuries.
A Perfectly Understandable Mistake
Esquire Magizine
Turns out that instead of the pin Kukla grabs the emergency-release lever. The bomb drops onto the bomb bay doors with Kukla on top of the bomb. The co-pilot would later remark, “I wouldn’t even try to imagine what he was feeling in those seconds.” With the combined weight of Kukla and the bomb, the doors give way and the bomb and Kukla begin to drop. Having better luck now Kukla manages to grab onto something and stop his fall towards Earth.
HistoryPodcast 1 -The Only Atomic Bomb