nuclear-news

But two gross errors in judgment strike me as more worrisome that the rest — certainly more dangerous than a little cheating on a monthly test or smoking a little synthetic marijuana (presumably) on your off time. The first is the 2007 incident in which a B-52 flew from across the middle of the country, from Minot to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, with six nuclear-armed Advanced Cruise Missiles attached to the bomber’s wings; the warheads were supposed to have been removed from the to-be-decommissioned missiles. Heads rolled for that.

More recently, the USAF general who oversaw the three ICBM bases, Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, wasrelieved of duty in October for “conduct unbecoming a gentleman” during a trip to Russia in July. That’s almost a polite way of describing what the USAF’s investigation found.

The problems started during a layover in Switzerland, en route to an official visit to Russia, when Carey started talking loudly about his responsibilities as commander of a large nuclear arsenal,boasting that he “saves the world from war every day.” In Moscow, he went on a bender with an unidentified male, staying out late partying with two “foreign national women” — or as he bragged the next day, when he was 45 minutes late for an official briefing, he’d “met two hot women the night before.”

During a subsequent visit to a monastery, he reportedly slurred his words while repeatedly interrupting the tour guide. Then, at a Mexican restaurant, the drunk general pestered The Beatles cover band to let him on stage to sing with them. He also left his colleagues to go sit with the women from the night before. “There was no indication Carey’s behavior compromised sensitive nuclear information or went beyond drinking, dancing, and fraternizing with the women,” sayCNN‘s Holly Yan and Faith Karimi. That doesn’t seem like the sort of gamble we should have to put up with.

Those breaches were far more serious than the new cheating scandal, in my opinion. But that doesn’t let the 34 officers off the hook, or the 11 accused of dropping Ecstasy and smoking Spice. “There’s no making this better,” former Pentagon official Kathleen Hicks tells The New York Times. Any potentially dangerous lapse in judgment among the people tending to America’s nuclear arsenal is “worrisome. Period. Full Stop.” And so it is.http://theweek.com/article/index/255211/cheating-officers-arent-the-most-worrisome-scandal-to-hit-the-nuclear-missile-corps