Has anybody seen my nuke?
In August, the U.S. Air Force thought they were shipping 12 conventional cruise missiles on a B-52 from North Dakota’s Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana. Instead they mistakenly shipped six conventional missiles and six missiles armed with nuclear warheads, “each with the destructive power of up to 10 Hiroshima bombs.” Thirty-six hours later, someone at Barksdale just happened to notice they received nukes instead of conventional weapons.
Naturally, the initial reaction one might have is to consider the consequences of something tragic happening as the nuclear bombs flew over the country, but as the Post appropriately notes, the real danger is the total absence of control over the equivalent of 160 Hiroshima bombs. The incessant fear-mongering dispensed by the administration is reprehensible, but substituting naiveté for fear-mongering is indeed not the solution. Who can possibly say the inadequate control of nuclear armaments should not be a serious concern and poses a potential threat?
A simple error in a missile storage room led to missteps at every turn, as ground crews failed to notice the warheads, and as security teams and flight crew members failed to provide adequate oversight and check the cargo thoroughly. An elaborate nuclear safeguard system, nurtured during the Cold War and infused with rigorous accounting and command procedures, was utterly debased.
The incident came on the heels of multiple warnings — some of which went to the highest levels of the Bush administration, including the National Security Council — of security problems at Air Force installations where nuclear weapons are kept. The risks are not that warheads might be accidentally detonated, but that sloppy procedures could leave room for theft or damage to a warhead, disseminating its toxic nuclear materials.
As was recently featured on Bill Moyer’s Journal, the incredible ease at which terrorists were able to carry out the attacks of 9/11 is mind-boggling and cannot be overstated. Moreover, the Islamofacist motivation, will and most of the vulnerabilities that existed on 9/11 remain today. In fact, as a result of invading Iraq, the terrorists’ will and motivation has not decreased, but instead increased substantially. And while security in certain areas has improved somewhat since 9/11, six years after the attacks, few of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission have been implemented as evidenced by subsequent reports and the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (pdf).
I find it hard to comprehend the devastation the equivalent of 160 Hiroshima bombs could create. The single bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 engulfed 4.4 square miles, killed 70,000 people initially, and ultimately yielded a five-year death total estimated at more than 200,000 people.
Those closest to the explosion died instantly, their bodies turned to black char. Nearby birds burst into flames in mid-air, and dry, combustible materials such as paper instantly ignited as far away as 6,400 feet from ground zero. The white light acted as a giant flashbulb, burning the dark patterns of clothing onto skin and the shadows of bodies onto walls. their bodies turned to black char…Within minutes 9 out of 10 people half a mile or less from ground zero were dead.
People farther from the point of detonation experienced first the flash and heat, followed seconds later by a deafening boom and the blast wave. Nearly every structure within one mile of ground zero was destroyed, and almost every building within three miles was damaged. Less than 10 percent of the buildings in the city survived without any damage, and the blast wave shattered glass in suburbs twelve miles away.
Several days after the blast, however, medical staff began to recognize the first symptoms of radiation sickness among the survivors. Soon the death rate actually began to climb again as patients who had appeared to be recovering began suffering from this strange new illness. Deaths from radiation sickness did not peak until three to four weeks after the attacks and did not taper off until seven to eight weeks after the attack.
One could only hope that the lack of controls over nuclear armaments is limited to Minot Air Force Base, but that is hardly the case as indicated by the Air Force inspector general.
The Air Force’s inspector general in 2003 found that half of the “nuclear surety” inspections conducted that year resulted in failing grades — the worst performance since inspections of weapons-handling began. Minot’s 5th Bomb Wing was among the units that failed, and the Louisiana-based 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale garnered an unsatisfactory rating in 2005.
Both units passed subsequent nuclear inspections, and Minot was given high marks in a 2006 inspection. The 2003 report on the 5th Bomb Wing attributed its poor performance to the demands of supporting combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wartime stresses had “resulted in a lack of time to focus and practice nuclear operations,” the report stated.
Even with an improved report in 2006, Minot’s security procedures failed. The mishap was discovered by a curious airman at Barksdale, not Minot. There is no way to tell how much time would have passed before personnel at Minot would have realized the nuclear weapons were missing, if they would have missed them at all.
