nuclear-news

USA Safety Issue – Nuclear Missile Launch Crews

Overlooked Story of the Week: ‘Rot’ and ‘Crisis’ For Nuclear Missile Launch Crews,  The Nation, Greg Mitchell on May 10, 2013   “…..Sadly overlooked, however, was an exclusive from the Associated Press. Oh, no big deal. Just “rot” and “crisis” and a wave of firings in one program you especially don’t want to witness this in: Our nuclear missle launch program.

At Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota the commander confirmed, as the story put it, “the willful violation of safety rules—including a possible compromise of launch codes—was tolerated.”  Seventeen members of launch crews have been fired, an unprecedented action in its scope……

As I’ve done for, oh, the past thirty years, in numeous articles and three books, this is where I remind readers that the US still has a first-strike nuclear policy, and thousands of nuclear weapons, more than two decades after the end of the Cold War—and that we have used nuclear weapons before, setting (and for most Americans, defending) a precedent.

Greg Mitchell’s new book is “Hollywood Bomb.”  His previous books on this subject were “Atomic Cover-up” and, with Robert Jay Lifton, “Hiroshima in America.”

The New York Times is again pushing for war in the Middle East, while McClatchy news outlets are again advising caution, Greg Mitchell writes. http://www.thenation.com/blog/174272/overlooked-story-week-rot-and-crisis-nuclear-missile-launch-crews#

May 11, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print