The Air Force’s Friday report on the August 29-30 nuclear weapons incident which saw six armed cruise missiles flown across the continental US in launch position on a B-52H bomber leaves all the big questions unanswered, attempting to shuck the whole thing off as an “unacceptable mistake.”
To be sure, Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne and Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Maj. Gen. Richard Newton, said that after a six-week investigation, five officers, including Col. Bruce Emig, commander of the Fifth Bomb Group at Minot AFB in North Dakota, where the flight originated, have been relieved of duty, and 65 other Air Force personnel were also removed from their duties, and both Barksdale and Minot were decertified for their strategic nuclear responsibilities. But that’s still pretty small beer for an incident so serious it’s never happened before in half a century of nuclear weapons handling.
There are, at this point, no court martials being contemplated, and nobody’s been discharged from the military.
Put simply, six 150-kiloton warheads were improperly attached to six Advanced Cruise Missiles, all loaded onto a wing launch pod, and then mounted on the wing of a B-52 H Stratofortress at Minot, along with six similar missiles with dummy warheads, which were loaded onto a launch pod on the plane’s other wing, an all 12 were improperly and illegally flown across the country to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana.
The Air Force, following its “investigation,” is saying the same thing it said before the investigation: it was all a big “mistake”—the result of “widespread disregard for the rules” regarding handling of nuclear weapons.
A few guys at Minot “inexplicably” screwed up and loaded the nukes and then there were a chain of mistakes because no one else treated the nuclear-tipped missiles as if they were armed with nuclear weapons.
The trouble with this theory, or story line if you will, is that while nobody at Minot, supposedly, noticed what was happening—even though ground crew workers spent eight hours laboring to get the pod with the six nuke-tipped missiles mounted on the plane’s wing. This despite the warheads are clearly visible and identifiable by the silver coating they exhibit when viewed through a little window in each nosecone cover, and because there are red coverings on the nuke nosecones—once the plane got to Barksdale, the ground crew there, which had no reason on earth to suspect it was looking at nuclear warheads, spotted them immediately upon going to the plane.
They had no reason to expect nukes because for 40 years it has been illegal for the military to carry nuclear weapons on bombers over US territory, and indeed since 1991, it has been illegal to even load nuclear weapons on a plane, period, even for training purposes on the ground. (The weapons went unnoticed for 10 hours in Barksdale, but that's because no groundcrew visited the plane for that long, but when they did go to it, they reportedly spotted the nukes right off the bat.)
How can it be that Air Force ground crew people at Barksdale could spot the nukes in a flash while nobody at Minot—not the workers who mounted the warheads on the missiles in the heavily guarded bunker, not the guards who are supposed to guard those weapons with their lives and prevent any unauthorized removal from the bunkers, not the ground crew that loaded them onto the plan, and not the pilot and crew of the bomber, who are supposed to check every missile before they take off—noticed they were nuclear warheads?
The Air Force, at a press conference announcing the results of its investigation, didn’t answer this question. It appears they reporters at the session didn’t ask it either.
Certainly the AP reporter didn’t ask it, because if she had, she would surely have included the Air Force’s answer, or it’s non-answer, in her story.
Nobody, apparently, asked the Air Force either about six mysterious violent deaths of Air Force personnel from Minot and Barksdale, and from a mysterious Air Force Special Commando Group, all of which occurred in the days and weeks immediately before, during and after the incident. Two of those deaths—of the Special Commando Group officer and of a Minot weapons guard—were reportedly “suicides.”
In an article in the current issue of American Conservative magazine, currently on newsstands, I report that incredibly, no federal investigators from the Pentagon or the federal government even bothered to contact the police investigators or medical examiners who investigated those six deaths—an remarkable failure of due diligence, given the seriousness of this incident.
One retired Navy officer who contacted me during my investigation, who worked in electronic warfare, told me it would be simply impossible for those weapons to have been moved out of the storage bunker. He claims to know for a certainty that all nuclear weapons in the US arsenal are equipped with high-tech tags (“like they have at WalMart and Kmart only better”) that would instantly trigger alarms when the weapons are moved, unless they were deliberately disarmed.
So what we have is pretty clearly a cover-up here.
Dave Lindorff, a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006). His writing is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
October 19, 2007 -- Air Force report on "Bent Spear" will scapegoat junior personnel and prolong cover-up
WMR has previously reported on the August 30, 2007, incident in which five or six nuclear weapons were supposedly misplaced on advanced cruise missiles attached to the pylons of a B-52 that flew from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, was actually the result of an Air Force revolt against deploying the weapons to the Middle East for use in a surprise attack on Iran.
A number of knowledgeable sources have told WMR that six nuclear-armed cruise missiles left Minot but only five were accounted for at Barksdale.
Today, the Air Force is expected to announce the punishment of five Air Force officers said to have been responsible for the August 30 incident. In addition, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is expected to be briefed on the results of the Air Force's six-week investigation of the incident......
......The Bush administration is attempting to convince the media and the general population that the nuclear incident was similar to a stockroom mistake at a Wal-Mart. The story is being spun that the nuclear-armed missiles were mistakenly removed from a storage bunker in Minot, erroneously mounted on the wings of a B-52 bomber, mistakenly identified on the B-52's flight manifest, and flown across the United States for three hours and sat on a runway at Barksdale for several hours without anyone taking notice.
As former Navy weapons expert Robert Stormer wrote in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram earlier this month, "This is about how six nuclear advanced cruise missiles got out of their bunkers and onto a combat aircraft without notice of the wing commander, squadron commander, munitions maintenance squadron (MMS), the B-52H's crew chief and command pilot and onto another Air Force base tarmac without notice of that air base's chain of command -- for 10 hours."
WMR's sources, veterans of the Air Force and CIA, have agreed with the assessment that the August 30 incident was no mistake.
The most serious part of the Air Force cover-up is that the incident has apparently been downgraded to a "Bent Spear" incident -- a mistake involving the handling of nuclear weapons -- from an "Empty Quiver" -- an incident involving the seizure of a nuclear weapon, in this case the sixth nuclear weapon flown from North Dakota to Louisiana......
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Mac McKinney (42 articles, 68 quicklinks, 164 diaries, 1061 comments)
on Friday, October 19, 2007 at 11:01:01 PM
There is an interesting conspiracy theory that holds it was the work of Chinese hackers sending a message to the US.
This comes from one William Thomas, a self-described "award-winning journalist" who appears to be a plain and simple conspiracy theorist to me (I Googled him for a while).
Nonetheless, I find his supposition very intriguing.
Dave, as much as I respect your work, I think you should avoid detracting from its value by including debunked theories without providing any details as to their continued relevance.
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Peter Dearman (9 articles, 17 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 120 comments)
on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 5:18:03 AM
I am merely reporting a fact, which I have researched myself, which is that no federal official, whether from DOD or Air Force or FBI, has even bothered to contact the police investigators and the medical examiners who were on each of the five cases of untimely deaths involving base personnel at Barksdale and Minot in the weeks immediately preceding and following the incident, or the purported suicide on the day of the flight of a captain in the Air Force Special Commando Group. I'm suggesting only that given the seriousness of the incident and the unusual cluster of deaths, which include two suicides, one of a Minot munitions security guard, one would have thought the investigators would have at least questioned those authorities who looked into the deaths. Two of those investigators--of the two suicide cases--didn't even know about the B-52 incident, or of the other deaths in the same period, and said that it "would have been important" to have known those things when they were conducting their investigations.
that's not a theory. It's an obsevation . All those deaths may be coincidences. But they should be thoroughly investigated, no?
Furthermore, nobody has addressed my question about why the barksdale ground crew, which had no earthly reason to suspect that the Minot flight would have live nukes mounted on the missiles, was able to spot the warheads right away, while nobody in the chain of handling of those weapons at Minot is supposed to have noticed a thing.
Ridiculous.
That's not a theory either. It's an observation, and until somebody explains it in a credible way I stand by it.
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Dave Lindorff (340 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 157 comments)
on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 10:40:03 PM
Well, this reply has more details than I have read on any other page regarding the suspicious deaths. You should write an article on this specifically I think. People certainly were very interested in this allegation when it came out - interested enough that several "debinkings" appeared. But you seem to have assembled a more detailed picture.
My criticism is certainly not in your entertaining these possibilities, but that you put it in the above story without any support (such as given in your comment reply). This won't stand up to the "debunkings" which came up high on the Google searches I did.
Any chance you will write something on these deaths specifically?
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Peter Dearman (9 articles, 17 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 120 comments)
on Sunday, October 21, 2007 at 2:20:41 PM
"Theater" is a standard military term used for decades to refer to an area of operation or battle, such as the North African theater in World War II, or the Korean theater, and on and on.
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Mac McKinney (42 articles, 68 quicklinks, 164 diaries, 1061 comments)
on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 1:05:35 PM
You have done an excellent job at proving that this was no accident. When they make reports do they title one, "Ours", and one, "For the Media"? One time I wish that they would mix them up when they hand them out.
Anyway, here is one possible explanation, theory, speculation given what's going on: The U.S. is preparing to strike Iran to gain two thirds of the world's oil. Vladimir Putin said today, "The pointless U.S. war in Iraq was to steal the Iraqi oil. We are developing new nuclear missiles." These nukes zigzag. The U.S. plan here may have had 3 or more purposes:
1) To scare Iran into suspending the enrichment of uranium.
2) To get the American people desensitized to the thought that the United States is about to engage in pre emptive nuclear war.
3) The producers of "24" were using Minot and Barksdale to shoot an episode on location and wanted it to appear realistic.
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Karen Fish (55 articles, 13 quicklinks, 32 diaries, 60 comments)
on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 9:32:01 AM
Bush/Cheney to Putin and Khamenei: Accidents Happen
Lately I've been speculating about why anyone would try to fly six more nukes to the Middle East when the U.S. and Israel already have a lot of weapons within range of Iran. Maybe this incident was meant to be a not-very-subtle illustration of how easily "things happen." Decades back, a U.S. missile shot down an Iranian passenger plane "by accident." Iran got the message and did what they had to do, though nobody could prove it wasn't an accident. But that's another story. Now nukes are getting attached to the wings of a B-52 "by accident," and perhaps people like Putin and Ayatollah Khamenei are supposed to get the message that a nuke could fall off the wing of a B-52, too, "by accident."
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Rosa Schmidt Azadi (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 49 comments)
on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 10:05:01 AM
One minor point, havent thoroughly read all yet, but...
A military officer being "relieved of his duties" is equivalent to a discharge.
Such officers are temporarily assigned the duties of a low to mid level enlisted person and given a small amount of time to arrange a civilian job before being forced out, usually less than six months. For anyone in such a circumstance, it is over. And that is for those who have been accused of being derelict of things much less than care/storage/handling of nuclear weapons, the worst disgrace of the US Air Force in its history.
A lieutenant colonel or Colonel has usually spent over 20 years in the military. One who is a wing commander has a hope of becoming a general one day. Having it all abruptly end like this is a pretty huge blow and not to be minimized.
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Steven Leser (209 articles, 44 quicklinks, 32 diaries, 1372 comments)
on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 11:02:33 AM
In CNN yesterday the report stated 6 warheads a month ago it was 5.
Cnn clearly stated the mistakes were made at the loading point Minot. Then goes on to state that more airmen were being canned at Barksdale, this is I believe in retaliation for going public or some other sin we arent being told about.
I talked with Mike at military times the reporter that broke the story and he said the whistleblowers are fine, If it was really Mr. Hoffman I spoke to. What we have here is an unacounted for (the sixth of the five reported) nuklar weapon and a conspiracy or the biggest mistake since Dewey defeats Truman. People dying to cover bushco shenanigans is nothing new,(the clinton bush crime cartel has stacked bodies like cordwood) For some interesting insight on the kind of violence that gets covered up go to tomflocco.com and go down to the bottom of the site till you see a picture of Rep. Delay and read the story of the Rayburn Building shootout. Another good site for straight poop is madcowmorningnews.com Hopsinger will give insight into many more shenanigans.
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john riggs (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 424 comments)
on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 11:06:59 AM
This article comes from Tom Flocco.com CIA, French intelligence kill 4, capture 5 Israelis in NY subway attack Date: Thursday, October 6 Topic: Bush Corruption CIA, French intelligence kill 4, capture 5 Israelis in NY subway attack
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Jay Lovestone (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 103 comments)
on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 1:56:41 PM
Googling two sentences from Lindorff's "proof" ("The Secret Pentagon Report"" recent report that the Pentagon has a document, dated June 1, 2007, classified Top Secret, which declares there to be a developing "insurgency") these are the hits I get.
Sent the below to Dave Lindorff. Hal Turner is a neo-fascist racist, strike one.
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Jay Lovestone (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 103 comments)
on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 11:42:02 AM
These 6 nuclear tipped cruise missiles and all of the other nuclear weapons on this planet have our names on them; all of our names except for those who have reservations in the Mushrooms.
The "Mushrooms" are the temporary emergency shelters for our nuclear war fighitng elite to hide in during the well planned nuclear holocaust, that has been scheduled for us.
The truly High level powers-that we call "ET,"-thankfully, still have their computers monitoring our nuclear war fighting elite.
What we have just lived through is another in a long line of attempts to get a full blown nuclear holocaust underway.
We are the Living Dead.
In fact, we are now the 4th generation of the Living Dead.
Our nuclear war fighitng elite decided to exterminate the body of humanity with nuclear weapons way back in 1946.
It is quite possible that this may be the generation that will awaken to the truth.
One of the main reasons why our nuclear war fighting elite can not select a new strategy-one of Peace rather than war-is that they feel that they have gone to far, and there is no turning back now. They must either finish us off, and soon, or face the truth and bare the consequences of their decisions.
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.” John Kenneth Galbraith
Our nuclear war fighitng elite have placed their bets on their ability to kill us all before we figure it all out.
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Patrick (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 400 comments)
on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 3:04:05 PM
Nuklar attack is the least of our worries, check this
I hope it is not against the guidelines to post this link but this is the most important news in a while. When the congressman says "Oh Jesus" is what worries me.
