Questions need to be asked

About the B-52 with nukes.



Larry Johnson of TPM Cafe:

Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations. Gee, why would we want cruise missile nukes at Barksdale Air Force Base. Can’t imagine we would need to use them in Iraq. 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 can’t 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. We need some tough questions and clear answers. What the hell is going on? Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran? I don’t know, but it is a question worth asking.

Is anyone in Congress going to stop this seemingly inevitable war with Iran? Anyone brave enough to say no to Bush and Cheney and the Neocon agenda? Anyone?

We're getting just a bit sloppy with our nukes

And if one of them goes off accidentally, by the time it's sorted out, Cheney and Bush will have attacked Iran.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 The chair of a key U.S. congressional panel Wednesday characterized as "deeply disturbing" the flight of a B-52 bomber loaded with five nuclear warheads.

"There is no more serious issue than the security and proper handling of nuclear weapons," Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

The bomber mistakenly loaded with five warheads flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., Aug. 30, prompting an Air Force-wide investigation.

And via Hipparchia of Over The Cliff, Onto The Rocks, an article about nuclear accidents in Tennessee:

Some 35 liters, or just over 9 gallons, of highly enriched uranium solution leaked from a transfer line into a protected glovebox and spilled onto the floor. The leak was discovered when a supervisor saw a yellow liquid ``running into a hallway'' from under a door, according to one document.

The commission said there were two areas, the glovebox and an old elevator shaft, where the solution potentially could have collected in such a way to cause an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.

``It is likely that at least one worker would have received an exposure high enough to cause acute health effects or death,'' the agency wrote.