A new report on the August 30 incident in which six nuclear-armed advanced cruise missiles were effectively “lost” for 36 hours, during which time they were, against all regulations, flown in launch position mounted on a pylon on the wing of a B-52H Stratofortress, from Minot AFB in North Dakota across the continental US to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, has left unanswered some critical questions about the event.
Directed by retired Air Force Gen. Larry D. Welch, the task force’s Report on the Unauthorized Movement of Nuclear Weapons found plenty wrong with the way the US military handles its nuclear weapons, but appears to have dealt lightly with the specific incident that sparked the inquiry—only giving it a few paragraphs.
According to the report, when nuclear-capable missiles are placed onto a pylon assembly (in the case of the B-52, these pylons can hold six missiles), procedures call for a clear distinction to be made as to whether they are armed with nuclear weapons or with dud warheads. In the storage bunker, pylons with dud warheads are supposed to be encircled with orange cones like those used by highway repair crews, and placards announcing that the warheads are duds are supposed to be hung on all four sides. This reportedly was not done, leaving no distinction between one pylon containing six nuclear-armed missiles, and two others that had missiles carrying nukes.
A second failure was in record keeping. According to regulations for handling nuclear weapons, every step in moving a nuke requires written verification and manual checking. When the weapons were taken from storage racks and installed on the missiles, there should have been written records, including the serial numbers of each warhead. When a breakout crew moved the nuclear-armed missiles on the pylon and passed it to a convoy crew for removal from the storage bunker to the airfield for mounting on the plane, there was supposed to be a visual verification of the warheads by the convoy crew, and another written record of the transfer of ownership. When the convoy crew handed over the pylon to the crew chief for mounting on the plane, there was supposed to be another warhead verification check by the crew chief and another written record. Finally, the aircrew was required to verify the payload, warhead by warhead.
Reportedly, none of these steps were taken. In other words, there was a failure to check the payloads of the missiles not just once but at every step of the way—an astounding breakdown in controls and procedures, which at a minimum suggests that the US nuclear arsenal is as vulnerable to theft, extortion and nefarious misuse as those in the former Soviet Union or in Pakistan—not a pleasant thought.
A third failure, more systemic, which was identified in this latest report, was a general decline—even a breakdown—in the decades-long tradition of high standards and professionalism in the US nuclear force itself. The Strategic Air Command, which oversaw all nuclear equipment, has been eliminated, and command and control of nuclear weapons have been integrated into the regular forces, right down to the storage of nuclear devices themselves, which are now routinely kept together with conventional warheads—a recipe for disaster not just because of the kind of confusion that allegedly led to the Aug. 30 incident, but also because of the possibility of accidents in which a non-nuclear device could detonate, scattering nuclear debris. Furthermore, the report documents that the nuclear force, once a prime career choice for advancement-minded military professionals, has become a dumping ground for mediocrity—a place where military personnel go to be forgotten. Pilots of B-52s, for example, no longer even get nuclear certified—so unlikely is it that they will be called upon to fly nuclear missions, the report states.
The report is a catalog of failure and ineptitude, and should lead to a complete overhaul. But it is also failure itself.
This is because as disastrous as the picture it paints of America’s nuclear forces and handling procedures may be, the report also ignores the big questions that remain about the recent incident which led to the Welch investigation in the first place. Primary among these questions is why, if all the various teams that handled the six nuclear-tipped Advanced Cruise Missiles up at Minot, from the guards and handlers in the storage bunker to the pilots, failed to note that the warheads on the missiles were nukes, was the ground crew that went out onto the tarmac to service the plane after it landed at Barksdale able to spot them and identify them as nukes almost immediately upon arriving at the plane?
After all, the personnel at Minot knew they were handling weapons in a bunker, and coming from a bunker, that stored nuclear weapons, and so should have been on alert to the possibility. The crew at Barksdale, however, had absolutely no reason to expect nuclear weapons. Not only was the delivery of these cruise missiles to Barksdale part of a long, on-going routine process of ferrying the obsolete weapons in for decommissioning and destruction. In addition, for the last 40 years, it has been against military rules to fly nuclear weapons over domestic airspace except in specially outfitted military cargo planes. That is to say, prior to this incident no B-52 or other bomber has carried a nuclear weapon in launch position over US territory since 1967!
Given that history, one has to assume that the warheads on those six missiles on the pylon must have been literally screaming out that they were nukes, for the ground crew to have noticed.
Surely Gen. Welch and his colleagues should have addressed the question of why those Barksdale workers were so easily able to spot the “mistake” while, allegedly, no one in the chain of possession of the weapons at Minot managed to do it.
The position of the report was clearly, from the start, that this whole thing was a mistake. That is to say, it’s conclusion was foreordained. But we should know from the incredible, bald-faced lie about the reason for shooting down a spy satellite last week—that it posed an environmental and health threat because of a relatively small 1000 lb. fuel tank containing toxic hydrazine fuel that allegedly could make it to earth and then pose a health threat—that Pentagon explanations are often dishonest, or deliberately confusing. (Hyrdazine is no more dangerous than many toxic chemicals, and for someone to seriously be put at risk, he or she would have to walk up to the smoking tank after it hit earth, and hang around the noxious vapours breathing them in for some time—something few people would be likely to do. Moreover, the probability of an explosive fuel tank making it through searing re-entry to ground without bursting and releasing the material harmlessly in the upper atmosphere was always negligeable. The explanation for the $60-million missile shot was clearly a cover-up of a Pentagon scheme to test its space-warfare capability without having to admit what it was doing.)
Could the Minot nuke incident have been something other than a mistake?
A careful reading of the Welch report—both what it says and what it fails to say—has to leave that question unanswered.
Recall that back in August and September, the Bush/Cheney administration was, as it is now, ratcheting up the talk about an attack on Iran over its nuclear activities and over its alleged support for insurgent attacks on American troops in Iraq. While the military top brass, as well as the secretary of defense are known, for the most part, to oppose such plans, there certainly are some, particularly within the Air Force, who have a higher opinion of the effectiveness of airpower,
Recall too that in the weeks and days prior to and immediately following the Aug. 30 Minot nuke incident, no fewer than six airmen associated with Minot, Barksdale and the B-52 fleet died either in vehicle accidents or alleged suicides. One of the two suicides involved a Minot airman whose job was guarding the base’s nuclear weapons storage facilities. The Welch report doesn’t even mention this strange cluster of deaths—none of which has even been investigated by the military, according to local police and medical examiners contacted.
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
You have misrepresented the report by retired General Larry Welch as a Pentagon report. The report was requested by SECDEF Gates. Some of the members of the panel were retired military nuclear weapons experts. But the report content was not controlled by any official in the Pentagon.
For you to impugn General Welch, with "Whitewash" and "Maybe it’s asking too much to expect a retired general" is beyond the pale.
General Welch was the Commander-in-Chief of Strategic Air Command and Air Force Chief of Staff. He is the president of the Institute for Defense Analysis. He has served many years, with distinction, on the Defense Science Board. Yet you complain that he did not address the most outrageous treason theory since Dirk Pitt.
You can't cite the "decades-long tradition of high standards and professionalism in the US nuclear force itself" and then accuse one of its foremost leaders of malfeasance.
Usually I sign off with best wishes but in this case of shoddy logic and ugly commentary, I spurn such etiquette, Mr. Lindorff.
Form
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Form (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 25 comments)
on Monday, February 25, 2008 at 10:18:01 PM
The report was ordered by the Secretary of Defense--the head of the Pentagon--and as such it was a Pentagon report, regardless of who did it. If Gates had ordered it done by a bunch of Academics at Antioch College and paid for it with DOD money, it would be a Pentagon study.
As for your claim that because Welch was part of the elite SAC operation in its heyday, the report could not be a whitewash makes about as much sense as saying that because Dwight Eisenhower was a brilliant general in WWII, he couldn't have overseen the planning for something as boneheaded as the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, or the attempt to rescue French colonialism in Indochina after the end of the Japanese occupation of that region.
Welch and his team clearly did what they were assigned to do: wrote a report that blamed the biggest scandal involving US nuclear weapons in the history of nuclear weapons on low-level failures to follow the rules, and high-level inattention. There are other possibilities he should have at least investigated and shown to be not involved. He chose to ignore them.
That is a cover-up and a failure, whatever his past record.
Best wishes.
Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net
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Dave Lindorff (295 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 141 comments)
on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 7:54:30 AM
Our nuclear war fighting elite pulled the “Trigger” on us on August 30th of 2007.
What the mass of the population has yet to understand is that we are the “living Dead.” Plain and simple.
There is no “Professionalism” in The Air force: They would drop a nuclear weapon upon Americans as quickly as they would drop a ‘Nuke’ on Iranians.
The missing nuclear tipped cruise missile was launched that day and most likely the “ET” locked it out and shut it down. This is why Stevie boy Fossett took a ‘Dodge’ and hid; to allow the Air Force to find it’s missing cruise missile that they attacked America and Americans with that fateful day.
The decision was made long ago to exterminate the mass of humanity with nuclear weapons. They just have not been able to get around ET. ET said no to nuclear war and have so far prevented one from happening.
Keep up the good work Dave.
Once this event is understood by the mass, we will be able to deliver ourselves from such evil men.
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Patrick (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 365 comments)
on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 7:27:33 PM
