- 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. http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/09/marine_nuclear_B52_070904w/
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- 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.
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- 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. http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2007_9_5.html#149D6ECF
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- According to the U.S. Air Force statement, the commanding
officer in charge of military munitions personnel and additional munitions
airmen were relieved of duties pending the completion of the investigation.
According to Kristensen, the error could not have come from confusing the
Advanced Cruise Missile with a conventional weapons since no conventional
form exists. So the munitions Airmen should have been easily able to spot
the mistake. Other routine procedures were violated which suggests a rather
obvious explanation for the error. The military munitions personnel were
acting under direct orders, though not through the regular chain of military
command. This takes me to the second question.
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- Who was in Charge of the B-52 Incident?
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- Who ordered the loading of Advanced Cruise missiles on
to a B-52 in violation of Air Force regulations? The quick reaction of
the Air Force and the issuing of a public statement describing the seriousness
of the issue and the launch of an immediate investigation, suggests that
whatever occurred, was outside the regular chain of military command. If
the regular chain of command was violated, then we have to inquire as to
whether the B-52 incident was part of a covert project whose classification
level exceeded that held by officers in charge of nuclear weapons at Minot
AFB.
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