Military Nuke flyover U.S. tied to 'diminished strategic focus'

Military Nuke flyover U.S. tied to 'diminished strategic focus'

www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Air Force mistakenly flew nuclear weapons across the United States last year as a result of eroding discipline spawned by a diminished strategic focus on nuclear weapons, officials said on Tuesday.

A panel of Air Force and independent investigators told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the increased importance of conventional combat missions since the 1991 Gulf War has undermined nuclear-related training and experience.

"The turning point of this diminished focus began when aircraft came off nuclear alert status," three Air Force officers headed by deputy Air Force chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Daniel Darnell, said in a written report to the panel.

"Training in nuclear procedures became less frequent without the daily activity required by nuclear alert conditions coupled with the expanded commitments of dual-tasked units," they said.

In one of the U.S. military's worst nuclear mix-ups, six nuclear missiles were mistakenly loaded on an Air Force B-52 and flown 1,400 miles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

(visit the link for the full news article)

That's the best excuse they could come up with? Diminished focus?!? These were NUCLEAR BOMBS being carried right over the general populations!

This creeps me out, and I think there's a LOT more to this story than we're being told. What else is new.

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 12-2-2008 by DimensionalDetective]

I hope people are paying attention to this! It was swept under the carpet quickly. I think we're being set up for a 'simulated' attack of gigantic proportions. And they just got caught with their hands in the cookie jar this one instance. They're hoping it will just go away and everyone will go back to their slumbered state.

So an armaments crew just wanders down to the bunker, pulls out 6 nuclear armed cruise missiles (I always thought the warheads were stored detached from the missiles?) then hands them to the loading crew. The loading crew make no attempt to question the fact they are loading nuclear tipped missiles onto a B52.
Then, the B52 crew, on their walk around pre-flight inspection just shrug at the sight of 6 cruise missiles hanging off the pylons and don't identify them?

And it's simply Diminished focus? Are they kidding?

Kind of like forgetting that doobie in the ashtray of your car huh? Don't forget they employ fresh out of GED, kids so without direct oversight any sort of garbage like this can and does happen.

Another good catch DD! s/f'd

Well, fortunately we can give them some credit for at least doing investigations and taking action to correct this atrocity:

As a result of the mix-up, four Air Force officers -- three colonels and a lieutenant colonel -- were removed from their posts while 65 other Air Force members lost permission to handle nuclear weapons.

Three official investigations showed problems at both bases, saying well-established nuclear checks and balances were either ignored or disregarded.

Darnell assured the Senate panel that Air Force policies are sound and the nuclear mission strong. But he said the military service is implementing more than 120 improvements recommended by investigators.

It makes me wonder though about other countries, and whether they could suffer from similar mistakes. Take Pakistan for instance. If all hell breaks loose over there, wouldn't it be possible for their guard to be let down long enough for a weapon to fall into the hands of a terrorist group?

And that poses another question on preemptive warfare... Simply, where does it end? If a country possessing these weapons can be deemed unstable enough to present a grave enough risk, then why shouldn't that country be invaded and the weapons secured, or alternatively the weapons destroyed preemptively? That's another problem with preemptive ideology- it is self-escalating.

Sorry that got off topic, but back to the bombers. Could that have been an attempt by the NWO to deliver the big boom(s) false flag, which might have been stopped by vigilant eyes in the military? The report says they were never armed, and thus posed no real danger. But I believe those weapons can be armed mid flight, can't they?

according to at least one website, 6 of the officers involved in the loading of the nukes have died since that incident happened. You can find the information here:

Minot AFB Clandestine Nukes 'Oddities'

Tela

That's EXACTLY what I think happened True American! I need to do some more digging, but from what I remembered, several of the personnel involved with this died weird deaths, and / or were restationed into obscurity, not to be heard from again. This has all the makings of an EPIC conspiracy, and subsequent cover-up.

[edit on 12-2-2008 by DimensionalDetective]

Dimension, see my post above yours.

Tela

reply to post by Telafree


YES! There it is! Thank you telefree! Something is VERY wrong with this entire scenario. Be prepared and suspicious people, it will certainly behoove us all in these times...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Air Force mistakenly flew nuclear weapons across the United States last year as a result of eroding discipline spawned by a diminished strategic focus on nuclear weapons, officials said on Tuesday.

and also

"Training in nuclear procedures became less frequent without the daily activity required by nuclear alert conditions coupled with the expanded commitments of dual-tasked units," they said.

is a very "hollywoodian" spin out of the situation, in my view.

I fail to understand how people can actually believe any of these.

Peace

The last time my "Focus" was THAT "Diminished" was when I had an arm-load of Demerol in preparation for surgery!

Even then, I think that the presence of a Nuclear Weapon! might have had a remarkable clarifying effect on my "Focus" (if not my bladder/bowels!).


Again, based on everything we have been lead to believe (by our government and those familiar with the protocols) this incident Had to have involved much more than "just" a break-down of discipline.

What about the "Non-human" safe-guards and security systems involved? Surely the alarms, monitors and tracking systems are not subject to "disciplinary laissisitude"?

Or did somebody just "turn off" all the bells and whistles that are supposed to go off when a nuke is moved?

If that's the case:

Who was it? When was it done? How were they able to get away with it? And most importantly...


Why did they do it?!


The answer to any of these questions could mean the difference between life and death for tens of thousands.

That could have been potentially a nuclear disaster,makes you wonder when you see planes in the sky what they are carrying.
Little things like this should NEVER happen no matter what,i know they said they were unarmed but like some one questioned..can they be armed from the air??
A nuclear missle should be only handled by TRAINED personel who know the risks of something like this happening.
I bet once they knew they were in the air they sweated a bit.

when i was in the navy in the 80's, i was on the nimitz (see my small post on it regarding todays incident.) ANY time there was a "special weapons" movement, the ship was locked down tighter than a virgin. if a "weapon was being moved, crew not involved were almost literally told not too leave there areas. if pier side, no one could leave or come aboard until movement was completed.

my point? movement of weapons are VERY controlled and monitored. this stinks to high heaven. you just do not have in the military 6 nukes just loaded on to a plane and say Ooops! did not mean for that to happen!

My God, have you guys seen this ATS Premium thread about this incident?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

MUST READ ALERT!!!

I had no clue it was even there till now. I am trying to figure out how I missed it...

reply to post by TrueAmerican



Are you freaking kidding me?!? So one of those Nuclear missiles is ROGUE? Where the hell is the media on this?!? I can't believe the non-reporting on this!!!

It almost guarantees that something really bad is being set up, and it's not some foreign 'insurgent' planning it...PEOPLE---PAY ATTENTION TO THIS...WE HAVE A ROGUE NUCLEAR BOMB UNACCOUNTED FOR. GET READY...

Thx for the link TA!!

You are quite welcome DD.

And now with that information, just think how much more pertinent your article here is! This is scary as hell.

I am now recalling a certain comment that was made from a military source during my investigations of the 911 event: that nearly 1/3 of the military is watching the administration like a hawk, and that they better not try anything.

6 nuclear warheads with variable yields up to 150 KT. Hiroshima: 13 to 15 KT.

After that thread, it appears that this saintly element inside our military may have acted just in time, and saved the lives of several million people.

Diminished strategic focus? Ha, if it's so diminished, then why is the administration so hellbent on attacking Iran- over yup, nuclear weapons.

So you missed that article too, DD? Man, we need a button for ATS premium articles...

reply to post by Illahee


I am going to have to guess that you were never in the military. You can't honestly think that they just have random kids, "Fresh out of GED", in charge of all of the aspects it would take to pull this off? When I was in the Marines, they had enough checks and balances in place that you couldn't even check the incorrect rifle out of the armory. Much less, accidentally load 6 nuclear warheads on a plane.

The fact that they they think this is a plausible scenario is just amazing to me.

as the ATS premium link quite brilliantly says - you cannot , at all , mistakenly load 6 nuclear warheads onto 6 ACM`s then fly them 1400 miles without alot of people knowing what happened - and 6 of them are now dead.


dead men can`t tell tales.

I'm not buying the whole 6 versus 5 thing yet, but here is what Gen. Larry Welch and others said concerning the incident:

Panel Cites Drop in U.S. Attention to Nuclear Arsenal

The Defense Department is displaying a "precipitous decrease in attention" to the security and control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, according to a Defense Science Board task force that examined the broader causes behind the U.S. flight in August of a B-52 bomber that inadvertently carried six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads.

"The decline in DoD focus has been more pronounced than realized and too extreme to be acceptable," the task force said in a report released yesterday by its chairman, retired Air Force Gen. Larry D. Welch, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

...

The Welch panel pointed out that Air Force colonels, Navy captains and mid-level civilians are now responsible for managing the Pentagon's nuclear programs -- a task that during the Cold War was handled by senior flag officers or senior civilians.

More...

Based on the following Navy Times article, I think the "precipitous decrease in attention" not only involves security and control issues, but basic knowledge issues of even the Generals on the panel:

Generals grilled on Minot nuclear mishap

In an odd exchange, Levin also asked the four Air Force generals whether the nuclear tipped missiles could have leaked plutonium if they had been dropped from the B-52 during its flight from North Dakota to Louisiana.

Not one of the officers could answer the Senator’s question confidently before Nelson, and later Levin, pointed out how a B-52 crashed over Spain in 1966 with nukes aboard causing the missile’s high explosives to detonate spewing plutonium into the soil.

More...

And for a final irony, look at this next Navy Times article:

237 nuke handling deficiencies cited since 2001

Since 2001, the Air Force’s Air Combat Command has suffered 237 different “safety deficiencies” known in the nuclear community as Dull Swords while maintaining its nuclear stockpile, according to safety records.

The service defines a Dull Sword as a “safety deficiency not included in the accident or incident categories.”

...

Dull Sword is a term used by the Defense Department to describe a nuclear incident like Bent Spear, Broken Arrow and Nucflash. A Nucflash, which is a nuclear weapons accident that could create the risk of war, is the most extreme. A Broken Arrow is an accident that is not expected to cause war. A Bent Spear is typified by a “significant incident” involving nuclear weapons, according to Air Force Policy Directive 91-1.

...

No Bent Spear events — or “significant incidents” involving a nuclear weapon — could be found in the database, even though last August’s accident when a B-52 Stratofortress bomber mistakenly flew six nuclear warheads from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., is called a Bent Spear by service officials.

More...

Yup, I'd definitely agree there appears to be a "precipitous decrease in attention", wouldn't you?

:shk:



[edit on 13-2-2008 by loam]