From: Andrew Johnson
Date: 2007-09-20 07:52:16
www.legitgov.org/min… Minot AFB Clandestine Nukes ‘Oddities’ –By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org Updated: 19 Sep 2007 The following section was compiled by ‘The Pundit.’ Since the Minot story broke a week ago about the missing nukeclandestine operation from Minot, we have the following (for those who are paying attention): 1. All six people listed below are from Minot Airforce base 2. All were directly involved as loaders or as pilots 3. All are now dead 4. All within the last 7 days in ‘accidents’ [Not all of them –LRP] www.kfyrtv.com/News_… www.shreveporttimes…. Silly me, seeing more than there is to this story. I guess this is just another coincidence. But no doubt now that there will be more coincidences in the near future because as I have stated before, you need about fourteen signatures to get an armed nuke onto a B-52, and they may have told their wives and friends. “The Pundit” ***** Minot Base Officials Say Airman Dies While On Leave 12 Sep 2007 The Minot Air Force Base said an airman has died while on leave in Virginia. Airman First Class Todd Blue, who was 20 years old, died Monday while visiting with family members. The statement did not say how he died. The base said Blue was a response force member assigned to the 5th Security Forces Squadron. [The primary mission of the 5th Security Forces Squadron is to ‘provide 24-hour law enforcement and security services for the 5th Bomb Wing and all tenant units assigned to Minot AFB.’ “Guardians of the Upper Realm” –The host wing on Minot Air Force Base, the 5th Bomb Wing operates the B-52H Stratofortress aircraft to provide global strike and combat-support capabilities to geographic commanders. B-52 Stratofortress – Mission –Air Combat Command’s B-52 is a long-range, heavy bomber that can perform a variety of missions… It can carry nuclear or precision guided conventional ordnance with worldwide precision navigation capability.] AF Secretary Visits MAFB 14 Sep 2007 The top civilian in the Air Force spent the afternoon at Minot Air Force Base today. Michael Wynne, the Secretary of the Air Force, arrived at the base about 1 PM to get a personal look at how nuclear weapons are stored, protected, and handled. His visit comes two weeks after a B-52 bomber loaded with six nuclear warheads was flown from Minot to Barksdale Air Force Base. Staging Nukes for Iran? By Larry Johnson 05 Sep 2007 My buddy… reminded me that the only times you put weapons on a plane is when they are on alert or if you are tasked to move the weapons to a specific site… Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations… Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations? His final point was to observe that someone on the inside obviously leaked the info that the planes were carrying nukes. A B-52 landing at Barksdale is a non-event. A B-52 landing with nukes. That is something else. Now maybe there is an innocent explanation for this? I cant think of one. What is certain is that the pilots of this plane did not just make a last minute decision to strap on some nukes and take them for a joy ride… Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran? ***** ‘Opposing’ view: The following email was sent to CLG on 19 September, anonymously. Hello there,Im a Staff Sergeant in the US Air Force. I do network security, so, thats why Im emailing anonymously, even though I really dont feel its necessary. Im just paranoid like that, which is why Im pretty good at my job. 😉 Also, parts of what Im putting in here are probably classified, which is the primary reason Im sending this anonymously.Anyway, I see a lot of people posting on Reddit about government conspiracies about nukes and things like this. Its frustrating for me because its really very silly. Please, let me explain some background, to help you all understand whats going on in the background for the Air Force: Minot AFB is a dead-end base. Its the abyss of the Air Force, the saying goes Why not Minot? They have major retainability problems there people volunteer to go to Iraq, Korea, anywhere just to get out of there. Beside its location (middle-of-nowhere North Dakota), the base has very little real mission and spins its wheels forever in drills that all result in the end of the world since its a nuke base designed to fight the Cold War. But, there is no Cold War for them to fight (at least not one that Minots golden piece of real estate would be useful in fighting), so its people probably feel pretty worthless and tired of fighting the now non-existent Soviet Union. The base has already been re-aligned (more on that in a moment) and its probably going to be BRACed into a regional airport in a few decades. Ellison AFB in South Dakota has already had its closure decided. One of the biggest problems with killing off Minot is its core mission all of the nukes it has. Its weapons capability is moving to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana as the AF further consolidates after the Cold War and infrastructure budget cuts because of Iraq et al. Moving weapons capability to Barksdale, in real world terms, means moving the actual missiles that would deliver the nuclear warhead to Barksdale. No big deal, conventional weapons move all the time. Nuclear warheads, however, when transported for these reasons, are moved by the Department of Energy a very time consuming, expensive, and burdensome process that someone else will have to figure out much later once they finally decide to close the base. So, the Air Forces solution is to move the missiles, and leave the warheads behind, to be dealt with one day when all of us are retired and don’t have to worry about it. Thats what SHOULD have happened. So the mission itself was pretty normal otherwise. (It may actually be intentional to leave things this way, to prevent Congressional involvement, as whatever Senator is from ND is probably desperate to keep Minot around as long as possible; leaving the nukes, but operationally stripping the base serves both sides purposes). The mistake, and the reason everyone now knows about this, is that the warheads werent removed from the missiles being moved to Barksdale. I bet the guys on the ground in Barksdale were sure as shit surprised when they cracked the payload open and saw a warhead. 😉 I know as much as I do because I work with a cross-trainee whose last base was Barksdale as a munitions specialist. He was involved in this process there; along with the various other missions Barksdale has (its a pretty critical base in the AF). Anyway, you would think there would be a pretty clear checklist for all of this, but apparently no one even bothered. Doing what they do day-to-day, is pretty standard operating procedure. People get lazy when they do the same thing day after day, and theres no less than a half dozen teams who would be transferring these weapons around from storage until theyre loaded. The idea of someone dropping the ball in the AF is not exactly unusual (quite common, actually, heh), especially when 4:30 rolls around and everyone wants to go home. If the next step is to hand it off to the guys who remove the warhead, and its 1630 on a Friday, hell, lets just leave it until Monday, since the mission doesnt fly until Tuesday anyway. Monday rolls around, someone else takes over, and doesnt know the job wasnt finished on Friday. There SHOULD be some paper trail for that kind of thing, but then, like I said, people are lazy. Oh, and Minot usually fails its nuclear operational readiness inspections. 😉 Sorry to kill your confidence in the military. Ive seen too much crazy stuff to believe in some massive conspiracy, theres too many people involved. Youd have to kill like 50 people to cover up moving nukes to Barksdale. Plus, what would it achieve? Theres already more than enough nukes at Barksdale to blow the world up 3x over. Who needs 6 more? Seriously? Plus, more accidents occur with conventional than nukes, since nukes are computerized and designed to be super-duper safe. Conventional weapons are built by the lowest bidder. [Yikes!] Id be more worried about a fully-loaded F16 flying around NYC after 9/11 sucking up a bird than a B52 with nukes flying around without anyone knowing it was loaded with nukes. The pilots couldnt “secretly” be in on it and launch them, the interface wouldnt be installed, the COMSEC material wouldnt be available, etc. Youd have to kill half the base to hide the paper trail necessary to give the pilots the ability to launch. Several people dying from Minot is bad, of course, but then, crazy stuff happens. Motorcycle accidents, mind you, are the #1 non-war cause of dead in the Air Force. The Captain who died wasnt a pilot (he was Combat Weather, as evidenced by his pewter beret in the photo linked from your site). Captains are a dime a dozen, just like the Security Forces troop who died. Yes, a part of the Security Forces Squadron mission there would be do defend the nukes, but hes not at all involved in any of the process. He stands outside the door and checks IDs. Seriously, thats it. I have 5 cops (as they’re generally called in the Air Force) I deal with every day where I work because I do computer stuff, and they have zero clue whats happening behind the door. They spend most of the day on the phone chit chatting with friends at other security posts about the latest dorm gossip about who slept with whom. So, to conclude, just chill out a bit about the conspiracy, its kinda silly. Plus, again, what would be the point? Its not a big deal to authorize a nuke mission. After 9/11 the entire Barksdale arsenal was loaded and on the flightline ready to fly. I wouldnt sweat 6 who someone forgot to unload. Feel free to republish, maybe it’ll educate a few people. V/rSSgt ***** Rebuttal to ‘Opposing View’ The following email was sent to CLG on 19 September. Subject: comments closed? www.legitgov.org/min… Im NOT anonymous, and I take issue with the anonymous “ssgt” statements. Im a cold war vet from the US Navy, one who worked as part of an operation designed to exhaust and bankrupt the Soviet military, by constantly testing their limitations. This SSgt is a defacto shill for a propaganda machine. 1st. Bullsheep. Plain and simple. IF this “SSgt” was actually just debunking a load of Steaming Holstein, none of his command would have much issue with any of his statements, especially publicly available facts such as retention rates and base activities that are noted on google.com, mil.gov, wikipedia, and many other websites worldwide. There is no need to be anonymous when youre not releasing classified data, is there? Saying “there is not a plot” is not contrary to secure data, even if there is not a plot. 2nd 6 people dying within days of a world-record nuclear screw-up is decidedly newsworthy, and suspicious, in itself. The rate of fatalities in the military isnt that high even in war zones. 3rd The “Decider” has already stated that he believes the USA has the right to bomb Iran, and that he will not certify that hed refuse to use nukes. “No option is off the table” as he is fond of saying. I think thats pretty damn clear, being as it is coming from the Commander In Chief. 4th The military reporting of these incidents is itself contrary to military secrecy, reason, and law. I suspect an altogether different agenda. I believe that this high-level press coverage of a screw up, carrying nukes on B52s, is designed to use the US Media [gasp, theyve never done that before!] to pressure Iran to meet US demands. a. The US military would never release to the public any real classified data, especially including data about moved or missing nukes, without authority from the White House. b. The US media is NOT entitled to print or distribute classified information, and is NEVER brought-in as it was in this case, so rapidly or on such an elemental and critical faux paus. c. The only logical excuse for the sudden and detail-filled news coverage of this event is that of an intentional release of data for political purposes. 5th Declaring that the US Military is lying in the media isnt illegal provided that one does not expose any actual events or secrets, or violate the UCMJ by disobeying a direct order. All soldiers still have their civil rights. These rights are merely waived as needed for valid military purposes, as it is the job of a soldier to take abnormal risks and bear state secrets. If it was really a secret, the anonymous sergeant would now be a traitor to the USA, just by talking about it. Thus, the implication that the letter is legit, is ALSO an implication that the letter is NOT legit. There is no need to be anonymous if its not a secret. QED. This is an example of a circular argument. Thus, “I” am not violating any UCMJ or Federal laws by stating that its bunk. You cant cite me for a double negative: Im stating that what doesnt exist, doesnt not exist. We call that the First Amendment, and whether Dumbya likes it or not, its still in force. Im saying that there is no pink elephant. The missiles were moved, without any doubts, intentionally; OR The missiles were never moved and the press coverage is based on propaganda to scare Iran; OR the missiles were moved and the press coverage is based on propaganda to scare Iran. You cant prove or disprove what the US military has done without EXTERNAL data. Theyll say whatever they want to suit themselves. Sincerely, Don Lee E3/EW US Navy vet ASWOC 574 Jacksonville FL Top Secret and other clearances [inactive] Email this page to a friend Permanent URL for this page: www.legitgov.org/min…
