Nuclear Incident in Montana

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News :: War & Peace

 

 

Nuclear Incident in Montana

by JENNIFER VAN BERGEN and RAYMOND DEL PAPA

 

 

23 Jan 2005

There is a corporate media blackout on a nuclear incident in Montana.

Is the monkey playing with his nuclear buttons?

A retired high-level government source was called yesterday to respond

to a nuclear incident in Montana. Apparently the silo doors of

numerous ICBM missiles were opened.

 

Two such incidents during the Cold War era nearly started World War

III. When silo doors open, it indicates the intention to launch

missiles against another nation.

 

According to an essay published by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

(NAPF), an organization dedicated to abolition of nuclear weapons:

" The US experienced several near-accidents at its Cheyenne Mountain

early warning station in the late 1970s. Twice, the equipment at the

base generated false indications of a nuclear missile strike from

Russia and nearly prompted US retaliation on both occasions. "

 

According to Phil Patton, author of " Dreamland: A Cultural History of

Area 51, " an incident also occurred in 1980 in which " a multiplexer

chip failed in a Nova 840 computer and sent a false missile warning to

the national command center. " Pattons says that it was the second such

incident in less than a year. " In the first one, fake data from a

war-sim was mistaken for the real thing, and the Pentagon was notified

that a Soviet missile strike was under way. It took about eight

minutes to determine that the end of the world was not, in fact, at hand. "

 

Today, there are 200 Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles at Malmstrom

Air Force Base at five missile alert facilities in Montana, with four

operational missile squadrons assigned as combat-ready forces to

continuously operate, maintain, and secure " strategic nuclear deterrence. "

 

One of these squadrons declares on its web page that its squadron

works " every day of the year, 24 hours per day " to " keep America free

by operating and safeguarding her most destructive power. "

 

According to the NAPF essayist, Justin Murray, " Despite the end of the

Cold War, the United States and Russia once again find themselves on

the brink of a nuclear Armageddon, " but the threat " does not stem from

hostilities or a premeditated, intentional strike but from

miscalculation and computer errors. " Murray states that both the U.S.

and Russia maintain thousands of nuclear weapons in launch warning

mode. While launch procedures in the U.S. demand almost instantaneous

decision-making by the President, the situation in Russia is even more

hazardous, where decay of early warning systems elevate the

possibility of false alarms.

 

Of course, the unasked and unanswered question here is: what about

terrorists?

 

There seems to be no indication that the incident in Montana is a

terrorist-related one. However, the incident begs two crucial

questions: first, are our systems inadequately protected?, and second,

does the increase in development of more nuclear weapons under

President Bush create greater dangers? (We already have approximately

9600 warheads and are talking about developing a new line of small

nuclear weapons called " bunker busters. " )

 

The answers are no and no.

 

First, the systems are inadequately protected because whenever you

have a very sophisticated electronic system (and, in this case,

systems), there is the potential for an accident & #65533; and already there

have been enough incidents to warrant shutting these dangerous systems

down.

 

Second, there is no such thing as adequate control of nuclear weapons.

Their management and control simply cannot be guaranteed. The return

to proliferation of nuclear weapons is risking an End Game & #65533; THE End

Game. Although we might labor under the false belief that the Nuclear

Genie is back in the bottle, even if she is, the cork is definitely

not on.

 

The incident in Montana, which may never make it into the mainstream

press, proves this.

 

 

Jennifer Van Bergen, J.D., is the author of The Twilight of Democracy:

The Bush Plan for America (Common Courage Press, 2004). She has

written and spoken extensively on civil liberties, human rights, and

international law. She and Raymond Del Papa are currently organizing a

major Forum on Dissent Since 9/11 in Miami from March 11-13. See

www.partnersinprotest.org. She may be contacted at jvbxyz (at)

earthlink.net

See also:

http://www.counterpunch.org/