Nukes for Iran?

a very suspicious story to begin with...

"A B-52 bomber mistakenly loaded with five nuclear warheads flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30, resulting in an Air Force-wide investigation, according to three officers who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the incident," according to the Navy Times.

[...]

The B-52 was loaded with Advanced Cruise Missiles, part of a Defense Department effort to decommission 400 of the ACMs. But the nuclear warheads should have been removed at Minot before being transported to Barksdale, the officers said. The missiles were mounted onto the pylons of the bomber’s wings.

Advanced Cruise Missiles carry a W80-1 warhead with a yield of 5 to 150 kilotons and are specifically designed for delivery by B-52 strategic bombers.

Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Ed Thomas said the transfer was safely conducted and the weapons were in Air Force custody and control at all times. However, the mistake was not discovered until the B-52 landed at Barskdale, which left the warheads unaccounted for during the approximately 3 1/2 hour flight between the two bases, the officers said.

grows one hell of a lot more suspicious after reading this thought-provoking post by larry johnson at the booman tribune...

by Larry Johnson
Wed Sep 5th, 2007 at 05:11:26 PM EST
Why the hubbub over a B-52 taking off from a B-52 base in Minot, North Dakota and subsequently landing at a B-52 base in Barksdale, Louisiana? That’s like getting excited if you see postal worker in uniform walking out of a post office. And how does someone watching a B-52 land identify the cruise missiles as nukes? It just does not make sense.

So I called a old friend and retired B-52 pilot and asked him. What he told me offers one compelling case of circumstantial evidence. My buddy, let’s call him Jack D. Ripper, reminded me that the only times you put weapons on a plane is when they are on alert or if you are tasked to move the weapons to a specific site.

Then he told me something I had not heard before.

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.

thank god we have people out there who know people who can shed light into our government's darkest corners...

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Keith Olbermann talks with Larry Johnson about the UK terror threat

it's pretty much the same line of thinking that i posted on friday in connection with juan cole's perspective...



however, in all fairness, i did run across the following diary on daily kos this morning...

I have to say that the Larry Johnson diary made my eyes pop when I first saw it on top of the RecList on Friday. There I am, sitting at my work desk, two floors above Oxford Street, with police cars screaming down the road throughout the day, and news of tube cancellations and evacuations coming through in the office email - and here is this diary on my monitor, saying it's all a crock of crap. It's true that American media has a tendency to blow everything way out of proportion. ... But for Larry Johnson to be so dismissive when he is so ill-informed was a very poor reflection on this great website.

[...]

It's true that these terrorists seem to be a bunch of utter incompetents and belong on the set of a farce. But you only need to get lucky once. There are still too many crazies out there who are itching to kill innocents. And I say this as a Muslim myself.

it would be a completely useless exercise for me to sit here, listening to the hot wind blowing across the high desert of the great basin, and pretend that i know anything more or less than anyone else about what the REAL situation is in london... but, i do know this... i no longer take anything i'm told as true, particularly when it involves terror threats and the level of fear the media attempts to create in their reportage of them...

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Former intelligence officers on Tenet

Phil Giraldi

Ray McGovern

Larry Johnson

Jim Marcinkowski

Vince Cannistraro

David MacMichael

have a few things to say to george (tenet)... i had my say the other day...

We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the “damage to your reputation”. In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.

[...]

Mr. Tenet, you cannot undo what has been done. It is doubly sad that you seem still to lack an adequate appreciation of the enormous amount of death and carnage you have facilitated. If reflection on these matters serves to prick your conscience we encourage you to donate at least half of the royalties from your book sales to the veterans and their families, who have paid and are paying the price for your failure to speak up when you could have made a difference. That would be the decent and honorable thing to do.

read it all at tpm cafe...

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Jury tampering at the WaPo - a media disgrace

what an f****** disgrace... at least they could be a little less obvious about it...

Shame on the Washington Post, Again

By Robert Parry
February 19, 2007

Just days before the perjury/obstruction trial of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby goes to the jury, the Washington Post’s Outlook section published a bizarre front-page article by right-wing legal expert Victoria Toensing suggesting that the prosecutor and one of the chief victims in the case should be put on trial.

Beyond the absurdity – and dishonesty – of Toensing’s arguments, the Post illustrated the article with fabricated “mug shots” of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, an Iraq War critic whose undercover CIA wife, Valerie Plame, was outed by the Bush administration.

In this lead opinion article for Washington’s biggest-circulation newspaper, Toensing, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, cites Fitzgerald, Wilson and several other targets in proposed “indictments,” each of which begins: “This Grand Jury Charges …”

Given the Post’s prominence in the nation’s capital and Toensing’s former position in the Justice Department, the article has the look and feel of an attempt to influence the jury that will be judging whether Libby committed perjury and obstruction of justice.

brent budowsky, posting over at larry johnson's no quarter blog, shares robert parry's perspective, in even stronger terms...

Brent Budowsky: Dear Editor, Washington Post

From Brent Budowsky
February 18, 2007
To: Robert Kaiser, Washington Post

Mr. Kaiser, I am forwarding below the note I wrote to Messrs. Graham and Hiatt about Outlook's Victoria Toensing piece today.

With all due respect, I have long admired your work, but that piece today was the most egregious attempt at jury tampering that I have ever seen in this or any other town.

[...]

As Ms. Toensing knows, the content of her piece has nothing to do with the charges at trial. This is what is known as a nullification defense, which should be offered at trial by defense counsel, under the rules of evidence, not offered by a partisan attorney writing with the imprimateur of a former Justice Department attorney, under the letterhead of Washington's paper of record.

This letter is on the record and I request that you publish it.

Sincerely,

Brent Budowsky

larry johnson doesn't think much of it either...

Washington Post Enables Toensing's Delusions

by Larry C Johnson

Congratulations to Victoria Toensing, former Reagan Administration Justice Department official, for plumbing new depths of delusion and crazed fantasies in her latest Washington Post op-ed. Ms. Toensing's piece--Trial in Error--should have been titled, "I Am Ignorant of Basic Facts".

[...]

[T]he Victoria Toensings of the world seem hell bent on perpetuating the lies and living in the delusional world that it is okay to out an under cover CIA officer during a time of war. While Toensing has the right to be wrong, we ought to ask why a paper with the reputation of the Washington Post is lowering its journalistic standards, ignoring ethics, and enabling the spread of lies. I think the owner of the Washington Post has some "splaining" to do.

spin is one thing... stenography is another... but jury tampering is unconscionable and illegal...

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