Total Silence over Nuke-Armed B52 Flight
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Total Silence over Nuke-Armed B52 Flight
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
World Socialist Web Site - Sep 14, 2007
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/sep2007/nuke-s14.shtml
Media, politicians maintain silence on flight of US nuclear bomber
By Bill Van Auken
When analyzing the US corporate-controlled media, it is often more
important to take note of what is not reported than what is.
Such is clearly the case with the revelation earlier this month that a
US B-52 Stratofortress bomber flew nearly 1,500 miles over the length
of the United States with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles fixed to
its wings.
The flight took place August 30 between Minot Air Force Base in North
Dakota and Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.
The story was broken by Military Times, the web site of the weekly
papers published by the Gannett Corporation for the different branches
of the American military. It evinced only minimal interest from the
major media outlets, which relegated it to news items buried deep in
the inside pages of major dailies like the New York Times and the
Washington Post, both of which uncritically regurgitated the official
line of the Air Force that the flight represented a mistake that
never represented any serious danger.
Since then, there has been only silence. No major newspaper or
broadcast network has made any attempt to carry the story forward. No
background pieces have been published analyzing the present state of
the US nuclear war machine. And there is no evidence of any attempt to
obtain more information from the Air Force officers who leaked the
story to the Military Times.
The media blackout cannot be explained by any objective standard of the
newsworthiness of this story. According to what is publicly known, it
marked the first time that an American bomber armed with nuclear
weapons has taken to the air in nearly 40 years.
Each of the missiles mounted on the pylons of the aircrafts wings
carried warheads that are 10 times as destructive as the first American
atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima six decades ago. Given the death toll
inflicted upon the Japanese city in 1945, a rough mathematical
extrapolation would suggest that the plane was carrying weapons of mass
destruction capable of killing five to six million people in a nuclear
holocaust that would eclipse any single atrocity in the history of the
planet.
The silence of the press has the earmarks of self-censorship in the
face of what was in all likelihood a sharp admonition from the White
House and the Pentagon that any public discussion of the event could
endanger national security. There is an ample record of such
suppression of news, including, for example, the admission by the New
York Times last year that it had bowed to White House pressure to hold
back a story on the National Security Agencys illegal domestic spying
program in the run-up to the 2004 elections.
It appears that the Bush administrations ostensible political
opponents in the Democratic Party are keeping their mouths shut for the
similar reasons.
In the immediate aftermath of the revelations concerning the flight,
several lawmakers issued statements expressing shock over the flight
and acknowledging that the event was something that they had
consistently been told could never happen.
Typical was that of Congressman Ike Skelton, the Democratic chairman of
the House Armed Services Committee, who declared the development
deeply disturbing.
There is no more serious issue than the security and proper handling
of nuclear weapons, he said, adding, This committee will continue to
pursue answers on this classified matter to ensure that the Air Force
and the Department of Defense address this particular incident and
strengthen controls more generally.
Yet, when contacted on September 13, more than a week after this
statement, a spokesperson for Skeltons committee said that no hearings
have been scheduled on the nuclear flight.
No decisions about that have been made, she said. Weve been pretty
busy the past week.
The Senate Armed Services Committee likewise confirmed that it has
called no hearings on the matter.
Skeltons reference to his supposed intention to pursue answers on
this classified matter strongly suggests that to the extent the
Democratic Congress does receive any information, it will be kept
secret from the public.
For its part, the Pentagon, as a matter of policy, refuses to confirm
or deny that the plane was carrying nuclear warheads.
The Air Force is continuing an investigation into the matter"reportedly
including daily briefings to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. It has
scheduled a general mission stand-down for the US Air Combat Command
on Friday, September 14, in which all units"including those that do not
handle nuclear weapons"will review procedures.
A report from the Air Force apparently will be issued following this
review, but it is almost certain to be classified.
The real questions are from whom are these secrets being kept and to
what end?
The answer to the first question is self-evident; it is the American
people who are being kept in the dark. Why this is being done cannot be
stated with certainty, but it appears that both the silence and the
initial account given by the Air Force that the nuclear-armed flight
represented a mistake are aimed at covering up why this plane was
really sent into the air.
One place where the event has been given extensive attention is on the
readers forum page of the Military Times web site, which headlines the
section Mistake or message. Some 500 items have been posted, in many
cases by people identifying themselves as former Air Force personnel
who were involved in the US nuclear strike force. A substantial share
of these postings sharply question the official story floated by the
Pentagon.
Former B-52 chief: What the hell happened here?
One correspondent, identifying himself as a retired B-52 crew chief,
described the official account as unbelievable.
He wrote: Back in 1979 we had to sign for nuclear weapons verifying
serial numbers, the security folks posted two man guards at the
aircraft, the cops enforced two man maintenance crews access to the
aircraft, the 781s are annotated, maintenance job control was informed,
the wing command post was informed, weapons were moved in an armed
convoy, etc. How were the weapons removed from storage? Who was
guarding the weapons, military troopers or contractors? How were they
transported to the aircraft? How were the aircraft forms updated? How
was the chain of custody broken? Did the flight crew and munitions
maintenance OICs [officers in charge] verify weapons status? What the
hell happened here?
Someone self-described as a former cruise missile troop writes, I do
not see how this could have happened. If the ~missile shop failed to
download the heads before taking them to the flightline, the crew
loading them on the plane has a checklist asking them to ~verify no
warheads installed, as do the pilots....
Another correspondent questions claims that the weapons were merely
being moved from one base to be decommissioned (destroyed): When I was
in the Air Force and worked on these types of missiles we never would
have sent these missiles out on a B-52 for decommissioning. These
missiles would have had their warheads removed and boxed for shipping
and the missile body itself would have been boxed up and both items
would have been shipped out [on a] C-5. This was the only way
we...could have shipped them out, not on or in a B-52. This could not
have happened, we are not being told the whole story, there has to be
more to it!`
Another posting reads: I think everyone here is making an assumption
that they didnt know. This is an absurd assumption. As soon as those
ACMs [advanced cruise missiles] hit the hard-mounts, the talkback
between the computers instantly enabled. The crew knew they were
carrying nukes long before they finished the checklist for takeoff.
A correspondent who writes that he was an Air Force officer in the late
1970s describes the intricate procedures that are carried out before a
nuclear weapon leaves the site where it was stored:
A nuclear weapon can only be removed from an igloo upon written orders
originating with a very limited number of senior base command officers
and signed by at lease three other senior officers. Even then, the
senior OIC of the arsenal site along with at least one junior officer
will only order a weapon be retrieved and prepared for transfer after
they both have verbally confirmed their written orders to do so with
the base commander or his deputy. This is done using special limited
access and encrypted telephone lines or in person, and verification is
accomplished only after each party has correctly read a unique sequence
of letters and numbers printed on their orders. A senior OIC along with
at least one junior munitions officer will arrive at the arsenal site
at the time designated in their orders to transport the weapon. They
will have already verified their written orders with a very senior base
command officer. Each pair of munitions officers can only sign and be
responsible for a single weapon at a time, and they must be accompanied
by a special highly trained munitions crew and by a squad of heavily
armed security police officers. After the two arsenal site officers and
the two munitions officers have each visually verified the serial
number of the weapon being transferred matches the serial number typed
on both sets of their orders, all four must sign both sets of orders
indicating the transfer has been verified and completed. A maximum of
four nuclear weapons can be transferred to the flight line in each
convoy, but each weapon must have their own team of officers with
verified orders, munitions specialist, and a security detail. Also, the
printed orders for the OIC of each munitions team indicate exactly
which aircraft will receive that weapon and exactly where every weapon
is to be mounted. Everyone involved is trained to repeatedly triple
check everything for accuracy.
He goes on to detail similar procedures for the flight crew, which he
notes can easily and clearly view a weapons display that
electronically verifies every weapon system installed on their
aircraft. That display also clearly identifies every weapon as being a
practice, conventional or nuclear weapon.
The former officer concludes: Therefore the only conclusion I can come
up with is that this event must have been concocted by someone to
appear as an accident. And, because nuclear weapons were said to be
involved, orders approving such an event most certainly came from the
White House.
The present administration in Washington has repeatedly boasted that it
maintains all options on the table, including the use of nuclear
weapons, in its global war on terror and its confrontations with
supposed rogue states. In 2002, it drafted a Nuclear Posture Review
that for the first time enunciated a preemptive nuclear first-strike
policy against non-nuclear nations.
In 2006, it was revealed that the Bush administration had drawn up
plans for attacks on Iran, including the use of tactical nuclear
devices to wipe out the countrys fledgling nuclear program as well as
its security forces and much of its infrastructure.
And, more recently, two leading British military analysts published a
report on US preparations for an attack on Iran in which they note
clear evidence that nuclear weapons use [against Iran] is being given
serious political consideration in Washington. (See British academics
warn US is preparing ~shock and awe attack on Iran)
Under these conditions, the flight of the nuclear-armed US bomber has
the most ominous significance. The silence of the media and the
politicians is aimed at concealing the dire implications of this event
from the people of the US and the world.
*
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date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:23:17 GMT
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