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Codes for Armageddon: A new president to hold nuclear launch ‘football’ — baltimoresun.com

Codes for Armageddon: A new president to hold nuclear launch ‘football’ Baltimore Sun 30 Nov 08 By David Wood November 30, 2008 “…………………………What awaits the new commander in chief is the weighty responsibility of defending the United States – and a nasty brew of nuclear weapons problems that range from the threat of terrorist attacks to potential new regional and superpower arms races. Iran and North Korea are rushing headlong toward building nuclear arsenals. And the main arms reduction treaty with Russia expires next year.
Those known challenges arise from an unruly world thrown into deeper turmoil by the global financial crisis, a world in which nuclear technology spreads like wildfire and almost 10,000 nuclear weapons could be on alert at any given time.

The risk of nuclear war will grow during the next 20 years, U.S. intelligence officers concluded last week…………….with Obama’s first peek inside the ever-present briefcase. The secure phone nestled inside will connect him to the nuclear command centers at the Pentagon, Colorado Springs and “Site R,” the bunkered emergency command center just over the Maryland border near Blue Ridge Summit, Pa. Through them, the president can reach the 1,300 U.S. strategic nuclear weapons always on alert……………. “The most sober and startling I ever heard,” Ronald Reagan said after his first briefing on the nuclear options – so disturbing that it helped launch him on a quest to abolish nuclear weapons altogether.

Obama has outlined an ambitious plan of tackling many of these issues…………………………The increased nuclear activity “naturally increases the risk that nuclear material could be diverted to make nuclear weapons,” IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the United Nations. This year alone, the IAEA has investigated 250 incidents involving the loss or theft of nuclear or radioactive material. Much of it is never recovered, he said.

Codes for Armageddon: A new president to hold nuclear launch ‘football’ — baltimoresun.com

December 1, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized