EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- How the US Turned Three Pacifists into Violent Terrorists
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- In 'March Toward Disaster,' World Hits 400 PPM Milestone
- Revealed: How US State Department 'Twists Arms' on Monsanto's Behalf
Popular content
Today's Top News
US Air Force Sets Up New Command for Nuclear Forces
WASHINGTON - The US Air Force on Friday launches a new Global Strike Command responsible for nuclear forces after two major mishaps raised doubts about the supervision of the country's atomic weapons.
US Air Force strategic bombers sit on the tarmac at a base in Louisiana. The US Air Force on Friday launches a new Global Strike Command responsible for nuclear forces after two major mishaps raised doubts about the supervision of the country's atomic weapons. The opening of the command marks a shake-up that followed the botched handling of nuclear weapons and the subsequent sacking of the air force's top civilian and military leaders last year.
The command, located at Barksdale Air Force base in the southern state of Louisiana, will combine nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 bombers as well as the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force -- which had previously been under the Air Force Space Command in Colorado.
"We needed to refocus on the nuclear mission and not lose sight of that," Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley told reporters ahead of Friday's ceremony.
He said there had been some "painful lessons" but the new command would "reinvigorate our nuclear enterprise."
An outside panel headed by former defense secretary James Schlesinger concluded that the US Air Force had for years given the nuclear forces a lower priority and failed to manage the mission with rigor.
The panel found "an unambiguous, dramatic and unacceptable decline in the air force's commitment to perform the nuclear mission and, until very recently, little has been done to reverse it."
Two widely-publicized incidents raised questions over the air force's handling of its nuclear mission.
First came the inadvertent transfer from one US base to another of nuclear-armed cruise missiles under the wing of a B-52 bomber in September 2007.
Then the Pentagon discovered that nuclear weapons components had been inadvertently shipped to Taiwan in 2006.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates soon fired the air force's top civilian and military leaders in June 2008.
The ICBMs in the 20th Air Force, part of Air Force Space Command, are due to shift to the new command in early December and bombers from the 8th Air Force are scheduled to move to the command in February, officials said.
Three-star General Frank Klotz will lead the new command, which comprises 23,000 airmen.
While the nuclear role would take the top priority, the command would also be ready to employ conventional weapons, including a giant "bunker buster" bomb due to be ready next year, said air force chief of staff, General Norton Schwartz.
The general said the new command included an elaborate inspections regime with regular outside oversight.
"We have made a special effort to make the inspections more demanding, more invasive, more challenging," Schwartz told reporters.
"My judgment was that perhaps the inspections had not been as rigorous as we needed in the past. So we adjusted that," the general said.
He also said setting up a command would ensure the nuclear forces received equal status with other missions in the air force and would help develop a cadre of airmen with relevant skills.
The nuclear forces previously were perceived as a secondary mission, especially after the end of the Cold War.
"The key thing here is we ended up focusing on other things and understandably perhaps, but we are now wiser," Schwartz said.
Arms control talks with Russia and a major nuclear strategy review underway at the Pentagon had highlighted the importance of the nuclear forces, Donley said.
Donley and Schwartz discussed the command at a briefing Wednesday at the Pentagon. But the air force barred the release of their remarks until Friday as officers wanted to avoid the announcement coinciding with Thursday's anniversary of the United States dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.
The attack killed some 140,000 people, either instantly or in the days and weeks that followed.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
9 Comments so far
Show All"Mishaps?"
You might want to see Mr. Cheney re- these.
Check it out for yourself.
First of all, this insane arms build up is utterly pointless, discusting, and entirely driven by filthy rich sociopathic contractors and the power mad sociopaths in Congress.
More frightening though, does this mean we just went from civilian to military control of our nukes? I know they've been trying to take control for decades, but this might be their first success. Please tell me I'm wrong.
If I'm right, Obama is either the weakest president in a century, or wants to leave his mark as the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world.
There is a really good reason Congress in the past kept the military's trigger happy little fingers off the switch.
Better go count the prayer groups...
They might nuke the world for Jesus.
It used to be that when a madman was so dangerous that he was a threat to others or to himself, he was locked up (probably in a padded cell) to protect both himself and the public.
Now, he is put in charge or given a high government or military position. Just hope his finger doesn't itch while poised above the button.
I love it. Weapons go missing over a year ago and now they are reorganizing??
How thoughtful to announce the return to the nuclear strike policies of the 60's and 70's two days after the Hiroshima anniversary. Nobody can say the US is not diplomatic with their Duke-Nuke'em philosophy. Hey, if You don't upset us You don't have to fear a pre-emptive nuke-attack. But You got to do as we say, right?
Sooner or later through the total absence of common sense and reason, there will be a great firework on earth. All the Aliens have parked their space ships in respectful distance and cracked open some castor soda and pollux chips to enjoy the biggest show in the history of mankind.
There goes the first one! Boom! New York - Gone! Wow, what a spectacle! Bang! There goes Moscow! Israel - pulverised! The whole Middle East - flash! What about Europe? Wham! Britain just reached its finale, woa, London, Liverpool and Manchester - erased! What about Berlin? Molten to glasbeads, it was built on sand.
Ah! The great Chinese wall and everything East of it - atomized! India, Pakiastan - no more!
Mushrooms all over the place. No bunker safe, thanks to the busters. There! The Presidents cave - lifted to the surface by a 1 MT buster! All the important data about the American people, collected without permission - from pre-school to the dissident senior home - flash. No more data needed anyways.
The mushroom festival won't last too long. Two days max, with a few trailing hydrogen bombs here and there.
"That's it?" asks the young Alien his dad. "Well You see my son, that is the reason why we abandoned any kind of weaponry thousands of light years ago. We did not want this kind of firework to happen on Alpha Centaury. Now let's fly back home, Your mother promised to make some space cookies. I don't want to miss those."
"Oh yeah! And thank You so much for bringing me here, Dad!"
"You're quite welcome my son!"
Off they zoom back home for the treats.
Meanwhile on what was once a beautiful blue planet, winter has come as early as August. Unfortunately this sort of snow won't melt in spring.
The 'Galactical Reasoning Federation' will put up a warning buoy in Earth's orbit. It emits a signal to all travelers: "Danger! Extreme High Radiation levels! Planet closed until further notice!" GRS - Milkyway Section
"Sooner or later through the total absence of common sense and reason, there will be a great firework on earth. All the Aliens have parked their space ships in respectful distance and cracked open some castor soda and pollux chips to enjoy the biggest show in the history of mankind."
Sadly, itsjustkarma is correct. All the nuclear experts I talk to, such as at the Union of Concerned Scientists, or NRDC, or my friend Craig Eisendrath who's worked half a century on this stuff, say this:
"Once a weapon is built, one day it will be used. It follows as the night the day."
(sorry, Will).
We cannot wait, tweaking our "nuclear deterrents" and "nuclear missions" until that day comes. There is no such thing as a "nuclear mission" contrary to the learned Dr. Jim Schlesinger-- other than the mission of: How do we get rid of these things, before they get rid of us... in the very kind of spectacular death-throes that our inter-galactic writer has too-accurately prefigured.
Fortunately, Obama seems to see his mission differently from Dr. Jim's-- let's hope he can enforce it. For a more optimistic view from the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, see this link to his UN speech announcing new ways to defang the nuclear threat:
http://bang-usa.org/node/123
Happy Nagasaki Day, America. It's tomorrow when all our PTSD veterans and Xe employees (who are now in charge) get to exchange self-justifying slaps on the back for "ending" the holy war with Little Boy and Fat Man. No more fear.
What is this "nuclear mission" that America is on? Look at the photographs: http://www.gensuikin.org/english/photo.html
America has gone insane with fear. We get our daily dose of terror from the news anchors and right-wing pundits--the real terrorizers.
Our nuclear mission ought to be defusing our fears.