Nuclear weapons go for a joyride? WTF?

[edschweppe]

I would have thought this impossible, but according to the Military Times, last week the Air Force loaded up a B-52 with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles for a little jaunt from Minot AFB to Barksdale AFB. Inadvertently.

The Air Force continued handing out disciplinary actions in response to the six nuclear warheads mistakenly flown on a B-52 Stratofortress bomber from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30. The squadron commander in charge of Minot’s munitions crews was relieved of all duties pending the investigation.

It was originally reported that five nuclear warheads were transported, but officers who tipped Military Times to the incident who have asked to remain anonymous since they are not authorized to discuss the incident, have since updated that number to six.

Air Force and defense officials would not confirm the missiles were armed with nuclear warheads Wednesday, citing longstanding policy, but they did confirm the Air Force was "investigating an error made last Thursday during the transfer of munitions" from Minot to Barksdale.

The original plan was to transport non-nuclear Advanced Cruise Missiles, mounted on the wings of a B-52, to Barksdale as part of a Defense Department effort to decommission 400 of the ACMs. It was not discovered that the six missiles had nuclear warheads until the plane landed at Barksdale, leaving the warheads unaccounted for during the approximately 3 1/2 hour flight between the two bases, the officers said.

This is simply astounding. I can neither confirm nor deny whether or not we ever had nuclear weapons on the old Ustafish, but we did go through the qualification process and I remember the incredible amount of checks, balances, multiple signoffs and assorted fooferaw that goes along with handling those beasts. I literally cannot imagine how anybody could accidentally load one nuclear weapon on an airplane, let alone six.

Frankly, I'd thought that all the nuclear-tipped cruise missiles had been decommissioned back in the early 1990s. I guess I was wrong on the decommissioning. Looks like I was wrong on my assumption that the Air Force had its act together as far as dealing with nuclear weapons is concerned, too.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, indeed.

And here we were worrying about former Soviet nukes...

[wcg.livejournal.com]

My brother Sean relates very much the same story from his time in the nuclear Navy. Also, I know a few old SAC guys who've been shaking their heads and asking WTF??? about this little contratemps.

[carl-schweppe.livejournal.com]

Isn't this the plot of a James Bond movie and it's remake? Other than the fact that there were no sociopathic criminals, suave English spies, hot chicks, multi-billionaires or ransom demands?

I wonder how President Bush's eyeprint was accidentally entered into the system? Oh - that's not how it's done?

This sounds shocking... but what is shocking? That it was done by accident? That they were mounted on the missles? I assume nuclear warheads are transported around the US on a fairly regular basis.

I would not be at all surprised if, in 50 years, we find out that this happened once a year. I'm just glad it came out and wasn't suppressed.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I've heard speculation that Barksdale is staging for all Middle Eastern operations, and that this might not have been a mis-shipment, but a planned deployment (read as: possible use in Iran), coupled with a military leak.

I have no idea whether this is a meaningful thing to speculate about or not, but it makes a kind of sense.

Nukes in Iran?

[carl-schweppe.livejournal.com]

How ironic would it be if we went to Iran to supposedly remove WMD, yet use them ourselves?

Never happen. No way.

What little good will we have in the world will be gone and, frankly, I would think that any president who did that would end up impeached. Dunno how it would be done, but...

Re: Nukes in Iran?

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I agree that it would take a very stupid or desperate man to use nukes in Iran. But...

Anything is more likely than "ooops, we didn't realize we had nukes loaded." And it would take a lot to make people leak over something like this, unless it happened while the flight was in the air. I mean, once the plane had landed, it's easy to say "no harm, no foul, let heads roll internally".

That's what makes me not-dismiss the speculation. It's not enough for me to deem it credible, but enough to think it's worth keeping in mind if anything else pops up to support it.

Re: Nukes in Iran?

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

I find the "oopsie" scenario highly unlikely - but it's the least unlikely one I've either come up with or seen. The original Military Times story noted that the responsible squadron commander was relieved pending the investigation, which tends to cause one's career to come to an ignominious end. This Air Force Times article (http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/09/airforce_aircombatcommand_standdown_070807/) notes a standdown across all of Air Combat Command - that's a very loud signal from the top brass that this is an officially recognized Big Time Fuck Up.

For this to be saber-rattling aimed at Iran, either the Air Force is sacrificing squadron commanders' careers and a lot of flying hours to provide a cover story, or the Military Times family of newspapers are being systematically lied to (without catching on). Remember that the initial reports to Military Times were by anonymous whistleblowers, not the Pentagon PAO types.

The folks at the ArmsControlWonk blog suggest a couple of possible contributing factors (http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1638/organizations-accidents-and-routines). First possibility, of course, is that the policies & procedures around retiring the Advanced Cruise Missile may have been confusingly written, or badly implemented. The other, and IMNSHO more likely, possibility is that something called the Interim Global Strike Alert Order may have gotten people streamlining procedures and cutting out sanity checks:

In these, Stratcom, or the president or defense secretary, calls 8th Air Force and describes what needs to be done. And in half a day or less, it has to come up with the means and methods to do that, with surveillance and intelligence before the mission and reconnaissance after to determine the success of the operation.

“We’re now at the point where we are essentially on alert,” Carlson said. “We have the capacity to plan and execute Global Strikes on their command.”

That represents a major change in the way 8th Air Force operates, he said.

Now, back in the bad old days of the Cold War, Strategic Air Command kept bombers on (IIRC) fifteen minute alert status. Those birds sat on hard pads 24x7, fully fueled and with full nuclear loadouts; when the signal sounded, the aircrews basically ran out, hit the "start the plane NOW" button, and were airborne. In 1991, Bush the Elder stood down the alert bombers, and presumably the nuclear-weapons handling procedures were tightened up in response.

That "interim global strike order" sounds like a very big and very time-critical addition to 8th Air Force's workload. Pulling together a global strike mission on essentially no notice would require trimming out a lot of (seemingly) redundant checks and rechecks, and probably got the crews thinking more in terms of "execute the mission as ordered" than "make sure the mission orders aren't horked up". That sort of attitude makes this sort of fiasco less unlikely.

Re: Nukes in Iran?

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

For this to be saber-rattling aimed at Iran, either the Air Force is sacrificing squadron commanders' careers and a lot of flying hours to provide a cover story, or the Military Times family of newspapers are being systematically lied to (without catching on). Remember that the initial reports to Military Times were by anonymous whistleblowers, not the Pentagon PAO types.

Well, the speculation wasn't that it was saber rattling. The speculation was that there was transport of nukes intended for possible use, and that the leak occurred because someone wanted to head off a possible nuclear strike by creating a fuss over nukes that didn't actually leak anything dangerous to national security. It would suck as saber rattling... that the receiving base is a Middle East staging ground isn't common knowledge.

The real anger might be that the leak occurred (and the careers being ended for insufficient security), not that the nukes were flown.

But the rest of what you say *does* make the possibility of a mistake a lot more likely.