Was a Covert Attempt to Bomb Iran with Nuclear Weapons foiled by a Military Leak?

[babylonsister]

Was a Covert Attempt to Bomb Iran with Nuclear Weapons foiled by a Military Leak?

By Michael E. Salla, M.A., Ph.D.

09/13/07 "The Canadian" --- - Critically exploring whether or not there was a covert attempt to instigate a catastrophic nuclear war against Iran is illuminated through an introduction using the recent B-52 Incident. On August 30, a B-52 bomber armed with five nuclear-tipped Advanced Cruise missiles travelled from Minot Air Force base, North Dakota, to Barksdale Air Force base, Louisiana, in the United States. Each missile had an adjustable yield between five and 150 kilotons of TNT which is at the lower end of the destructive capacities of U.S. nuclear weapons. For example, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 13 kilotons, while the Bravo Hydrogen bomb test of 1954 had a yield of 15,000 kilotons. The B-52 story was first covered in the Army Times on 5 September after the nuclear armed aircraft was discovered by Airmen. LINK

What made this a very significant event was that it was a violation of U.S. Air Force regulations concerning the transportation of nuclear weapons by air. Nuclear weapons are normally transported by air in specially constructed planes designed to prevent radioactive pollution in case of a crash. Such transport planes are not equipped to launch the nuclear weapons they routinely carry around the U.S. and the world for servicing or positioning.

The discovery of the nuclear armed B-52 was, according to Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of American Scientists, the first time in 40 years that a nuclear armed plane had been allowed to fly in the U.S. LINK. Since 1968, after a SAC bomber crashed in Greenland, all nuclear armed aircraft have been grounded but were kept on a constant state of alert. After the end of the Cold War, President George H. Bush ordered in 1991 that nuclear weapons were to be removed from all aircraft and stored in nearby facilities.

Recently, the Air Force began decommissioning its stockpile of Advanced Cruise missiles. The five nuclear weapons on the B-52 were to be decommissioned, and were to be taken to another Air Force base. An Air Force press statement issued on 6 September 2007, claimed that there "was an error which occurred during a regularly scheduled transfer of weapons between two bases."

Furthermore, the statement declared: "The Air Force maintains the highest standards of safety and precision so any deviation from these well established munitions procedures is considered very serious." The issue concerning how a nuclear armed B-52 bomber was allowed to take off and fly in U.S. air space after an 'error' in a routine transfer process, is now subject to an official Air Force inquiry which is due to be completed by September 14.

Three key questions emerge over the B-52 incident. First, did Air Force personnel at Minot AFB not spot the 'error' earlier given the elaborate security procedures in place to prevent such mistakes from occurring? Many military analysts have commented on the stringent security procedures in place to prevent this sort of mistake from occurring. Multiple officers are routinely involved in the transportation and loading of nuclear weapons to prevent the kind of 'error' that allegedly occurred in the B-52 incident.

more...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18374.htm

[Megahurtz]

1. Sure Looking Suspicious! n/t

[kevinmc]

2. I think it was a staged "accident" - threat against Iran... n/t

[KansDem]

5. By that you mean Iran is suppose to be quaking in its boots?

As if Bush is saying, "You see?! YOU SEE???!!! We're comin' to get you! You just wait, we're getting ready to come and get you!"

I wondered the same thing. I don't think these A-bombs were loaded "by accident."

Psychological warfare, perhaps?

[L. Coyote]

3. More Iran smoke screen. Let's not lose focus of the real issue, Iraq!

At the same time, thanks for keeping DU informed.

[babylonsister]

4. You can focus where your little heart desires. I'm not willing to discount

this as a smoke screen without an explanation of what actually happened.

[L. Coyote]

6. Perhaps, what happened is someone created a big diversion of attention.

To distract from the Iraq issues at this critical time. Even the surge seemed a distraction from the real issues, when one considers its timing in relation to the Dem takeover in Congress. Suddenly, the surge was the issue instead of the war. Bush succeeded in taking control of the dialogue at that critical moment. Now, undoing the surge is a rhetorical "reduction" of troops. Bush is still trying to control and divert the debate from the fundamental issues of lying to go to war and the war crimes.

We can trust leaks or not. We can trust that this was a mistake with nukes or not. But this is so characteristic, in that it diverts those who are the most vocal opponents. I fell for this stuff in the sixties. Not any more.

[babylonsister]

9. The key word there is 'perhaps'. We really don't know, do we.

What do you think of this, and what it means?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1800232&mesg_id=1800232

[Bitwit1234]

7. Naw...if bush wanted to nuke Iran

he would just take the nuclear missiles and do it. He is so arrogant he thinks he can do any damn thing he pleases.

[FarCenter]

8. Nuking Iran would be done in the regular way

But if you want to nuke some US forces to create a pretext for war, it has to be done in secrecy.

Convenient that these nukes could be dialed down to 15 Kton, so it would look like a possible Iranian or North Korean nuke.