NEWS: Nuclear Missile Accident Cover Up

Accidents happen every day, but this event illustrates the danger present when ordinary men and women handle objects of extraordinary power. Suddenly simple accidents become national issues.

Story Missile damaged

Nuclear missile allegedly damaged
By MIKE BARBER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Was it a "broken arrow" at the Trident submarine base in Bangor in November that led to the firing a month later of the Navy leadership overseeing nuclear weapons there?
The code words used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the most severe level of a nuclear weapon mishap reportedly were invoked Nov. 7 when a Trident I C4 missile was damaged while being removed from the submarine USS Georgia in Bangor.
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It is a scary thing indeed to think that ordinary people just like you and I are handing weapons of such vast potential for destruction on a daily basis. What in a factory setting would be a torn box or a ruined product in a naval shipyard offloading nuclear SSBM�s could be a dirty bomb explosion contaminating harbors and waterways for years. If you think about how frequently we hear of industrial accidents or even how often our own careless actions result in damage to some piece of valued equipment or property you quickly come to two conclusions. One accidents with nuclear weapons must happen quite frequently, and two the military has done a great job of covering up the accidents it has had. One has to ask the question, �At what point does military reputation have less importance than the pressure that a awakened public can bring to bear on a flawed system in order to fix it?� These cover ups only limit the military�s ability to implement the best safety and protocols and procedures by limiting the mind pool of people in the know. Surely the military would be better served to simply take its image bruises and let the process come under public scrutiny so that the kind of carelessness seen in this latest incident can be minimized.


[Edited on 11-3-2004 by Johannmon]

[Edited on 12-3-2004 by SkepticOverlord]

This makes you wonder just how much of this kind of thing is going on here in the States right now. It makes me wonder how much more of these kinds of things are going on in places like Russia where infrastructure and command are much more haphazard than they are here. Does anyone have any links to other similar stories or threads?

The military machine in this country is incredibly powerful. You don't even hear a wisper of this story on national news. Yet this kind of carelessness poses at least as great a threat of mass destruction as Sadam's weapons ever did. Who are the real terrorist anyway us or them?

For this reason alone we need to totally eliminate our nuclear arsenal. There is no reason for it anymore. No one in the world wants the US totally destroyed nor would they use nuclear weapons against us because we would obliterate them conventionally as we did in Iraq. These old antiquated weapons of terror need to be destroyed.

First off, what is the point of having so many nuclear missiles that you could blow up the world 20 times over? (I'm sure the US does have enough nuclear warheads to do so) What's the result? Accidents, and it does make you wonder how many cover ups have already taken place.

Frankly I fail to see what the big deal is. Does the military have an obligation to inform the civilian public every time there is an "incident?" I think not. The US public does not need to know what the military does 24/7. To do so would risk disclousure to our enemies, and that risks people's lives.