Maybe you saw this one about a B-52 carrying nukes flew across the country and how it was just a huge screwup.
I am not buying it. Not for a second.
What I know about the handling and transportation of nuclear weapons is rather old, but I feel comfortable in stating this: The procedures were incredibly tight. Compared to nuclear weapons handling protocols, the transportation of large amounts of cash is done by drunken Keystone Kops.
Nuclear weapons do not move around "by accident".
On the other hand, I suppose I ought to keep in mind he guiding rule of: "Never explain by cupidity that which can be explained by stupidity."
Nah. I still don't buy it.
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2 comments:
Well, one thing to remember is that nuclear weapons aren't carried on B-52's anymore (at least not on a routine basis). So pilots aren't familiar with the stripe that says "this is a nuke", for example, because now that B-52's no longer fly nuclear patrols, they've never seen it personally. Same deal with the guys who mounted these things under the wings of the B-52's, etc. -- they've never seen a nuke before, so would have no idea that this was not just some new-fangled version of the conventional cruise missiles they're always hanging under there.
Supposedly these missiles were drawn from nuclear stores to be broken down, with the nuclear warhead to be removed and then the remainder of the missile to be flown to Barksdale for whatever use (my suspicion: a conventional warhead to be placed on it for the attack on Iran). At some point the missiles were turned over to the crew that was to mount them to the B52, but WITH the warheads still on them, and said crew mounted them as ordered without understanding the significance of the markings on the warhead.
Which points out the problem of an Air Force which has re-geared to be a conventional weapons delivery service now that SAC has been disbanded. All the old SAC procedures for dealing with nukes died with SAC, and it's unclear that STRATCOMM/ACC policy and procedure integration has ever reached the level of competence that SAC achieved. We've lost critical core competencies in the USAF thanks to President Bush the Elder's decision to disband SAC, and the wonder, in my opinion, is that an incident like this hasn't happened before. Or maybe it did, and was hushed up... hmm...
- Badtux the Flying Penguin
I don't know, but then again, I'm not and never was in the Air Farce.
But they still have to be qualified to carry and use nukes, which to my mind means they ought to have some idea what they at least look like.
Something smells funny about this.
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