{"id":39008,"date":"2014-01-27T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=39008"},"modified":"2015-05-05T22:20:02","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T21:20:02","slug":"missile-force-first-safety-violations-then-a-drunken-commander-now-cheating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/01\/missile-force-first-safety-violations-then-a-drunken-commander-now-cheating\/","title":{"rendered":"Missile Force: First Safety Violations, Then a Drunken Commander, Now Cheating"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet another scandal for the ICBM launch force at Malmstrom Air Force Base.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>

Image Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

For the past couple of years, Robert Burns of the Associated Press<\/a> has been chronicling what he describes as the \u201cdeliberate violations of safety rules, failures of inspections,\u201d and \u201cbreakdowns in training\u201d of the United States nuclear missile force. He\u2019s also found \u201cevidence that the men and women who operate the missiles from underground command posts are suffering burnout.\u201d<\/p>\n

His latest discovery<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In what may be the biggest such scandal in Air Force history, 34 officers entrusted with land-based nuclear missiles have been pulled off the job for alleged involvement in a cheating ring that officials say was uncovered during a drug probe.<\/p>\n

The 34 are suspected of cheating several months ago on a routine proficiency test that includes checking missile launch officers\u2019 knowledge of how to handle an \u201cemergency war order,\u201d which is the term for the authorization required to launch a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n

And what about the drug probe? On January 9, in the Los Angeles Times,<\/i> David Cloud<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n

Jennifer Cassidy, an Air Force spokeswoman, said two missile launch officers at Malmstrom [Air Force in Montana] were suspected of illegal drug possession. She refused to provide details, citing an ongoing investigation by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. \u2026 Both have been barred from missile launch duty and their access to classified information has been suspended until the investigation is completed, the official said.<\/p>\n

Oh, and don\u2019t forget the chief of the intercontinental ballistic missile force, Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, who acted like a drunken ass during an official visit to Russia this past summer and was subsequently relieved of his command.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s to be done? Personally, I\u2019d like to see nuclear deterrence jettisoned as the first and last resort of our national security policy and all nuclear weapons dismantled post haste. Needless to say, that\u2019s not gonna happen anytime soon. No doubt, though, as with many abuses in civil service and government, the call will got out to privatize.<\/p>\n

Of course, that would never happen with the launch forces because security concerns require them to be administered by the armed forces (the Air Force. But, much of the nuclear-weapons program is, as Real Clear Defense<\/a> reported in September, already \u201crun largely by private contractors and overseen by the NNSA, an arm of the U.S. Energy Department.\u201d In fact, it explains, the program \u201chas turned into a massive jobs program with duplicative functions.\u201d More:<\/p>\n

\u2026 The NNSA has racked up $16 billion in cost overruns on 10 major projects that are a combined 38 years behind schedule, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports. Other projects have been cancelled or suspended, despite hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, because they grew too bloated.<\/p>\n

\u2026 U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security financial and contracting oversight subcommittee, said a key problem is the Energy Department\u2019s reliance on private contractors to carry out its mission. The DOE has fewer than 16,000 employees and more than 92,000 contractors.<\/p>\n

In the immortal words of Executive Director of the Los Alamos Study Group Executive Director Greg Mello, quoted in the article: \u201cThe post-Cold War nuclear warhead complex has become a gigantic self-licking ice cream cone for contractors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 fpif.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yet another scandal for the ICBM launch force at Malmstrom Air Force Base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weapons-of-mass-destruction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}