Report: John Kelly Scuffled with China Official Over Nuclear Football

Posted: October 14, 2018 | Author: Pundit Planet | Filed under: Asia, China, Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, War Room, White House | Tags: John Kelly, nuclear, Nuclear Football | Leave a comment

John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, “got into a physical altercation” with a Chinese official during President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing last year, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Kelly reportedly told colleagues he would not accept an apology from the official unless it occurred under a US flag in Washington, DC.
Relations between Washington and Beijing are tense as Trump spars with the Chinese government over trade and other issues.

John Haltiwanger reports: John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, “got into a physical altercation” with a Chinese official during President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing last year and refused to accept an apology, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The official was reportedly attempting to access the nuclear football, a 45-pound aluminum briefcase that’s always by the president’s side, carried by a military aide. It contains information and instructions for the president on how to conduct a nuclear strike.

Kelly told colleagues he would not accept an apology from the official unless it occurred under a US flag in Washington, DC, according to the report.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Read the rest of this entry »

OH YES THEY DID: Security Troops on U.S. Nuclear Missile Base Took LSD

Posted: May 25, 2018 | Author: Pundit Planet | Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Health and Social Issues, U.S. News, War Room | Tags: 90th Missile Wing, F.E. Warren Air Force Base, ICBM, LSD, nuclear, Nukes | Leave a comment

WASHINGTON (AP) — One airman said he felt paranoia. Another marveled at the vibrant colors. A third admitted, “I absolutely just loved altering my mind.”

Meet service members entrusted with guarding nuclear missiles that are among the most powerful in America’s arsenal. Air Force records obtained by The Associated Press show they bought, distributed and used the hallucinogen LSD and other mind-altering illegal drugs as part of a ring that operated undetected for months on a highly secure military base in Wyoming. After investigators closed in, one airman deserted to Mexico.

“I felt paranoia, panic … I didn’t know if I was going to die that night or not … almost as if I was going to have like a heart attack or a heat stroke.”

— Airman 1st Class Tommy N. Ashworth

“Although this sounds like something from a movie, it isn’t,” said Capt. Charles Grimsley, the lead prosecutor of one of several courts martial.

A slipup on social media by one airman enabled investigators to crack the drug ring at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in March 2016, details of which are reported here for the first time. Fourteen airmen were disciplined. Six of them were convicted in courts martial of LSD use or distribution or both.

None of the airmen was accused of using drugs on duty. Yet it’s another blow to the reputation of the Air Force’s nuclear missile corps, which is capable of unleashing hell in the form of Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. The corps has struggled at times with misbehavior, mismanagement and low morale.

Although seen by some as a backwater of the U.S. military, the missile force has returned to the spotlight as President Donald Trump has called for strengthening U.S. nuclear firepower and exchanged threats last year with North Korea. The administration’s nuclear strategy calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending in coming decades.

The service members accused of involvement in the LSD ring were from the 90th Missile Wing, which operates one-third of the 400 Minuteman 3 missiles that stand “on alert” 24/7 in underground silos scattered across the northern Great Plains.

Documents obtained by the AP over the past two years through the Freedom of Information Act tell a sordid tale of off-duty use of LSD, cocaine and other drugs in 2015 and 2016 by airmen who were supposed to be held to strict behavioral standards because of their role in securing the weapons.

“It’s another black eye for the Air Force — for the ICBM force in particular,” says Stephen Schwartz, an independent consultant and nuclear expert.

In response to AP inquiries, an Air Force spokesman, Lt. Col. Uriah L. Orland, said the drug activity took place during off-duty hours. “There are multiple checks to ensure airmen who report for duty are not under the influence of alcohol or drugs and are able to execute the mission safely, securely and effectively,” he said.

Airman 1st Class Tommy N. Ashworth was among those who used LSD supplied by colleagues with connections to civilian drug dealers.

“I felt paranoia, panic” for hours after taking a hit of acid, Ashworth said under oath at his court martial. He confessed to using LSD three times while off duty. The first time, in the summer of 2015, shook him up. “I didn’t know if I was going to die that night or not,” he said as a witness at another airman’s drug trial. Recalling another episode with LSD, he said it felt “almost as if I was going to have like a heart attack or a heat stroke.”

Airman Basic Kyle S. Morrison acknowledged at his court martial that under the influence of LSD he could not have responded if recalled to duty in a nuclear security emergency. Read the rest of this entry »

Bill Clinton Lost President’s Nuclear Codes, and Nobody Found Out

Posted: January 8, 2018 | Author: Pundit Planet | Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Mediasphere, War Room, White House | Tags: Bill Clinton, Democrats, Gen. Hugh Shelton, nuclear, Nuclear Codes, Nuclear Football | Leave a comment

A military aide carries the “football,” a leather briefcase holding classified nuclear war plans, onto Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, April 7, 2010. Cliff Owen/AP

**The codes needed to launch a nuclear strike are never far from the president’s side — at least they’re not supposed to be.**

The codes needed to launch a US nuclear strike are supposed to be kept close to the president at all times.
A department within the Defense Department is tasked with overseeing all aspects of the nuclear-launch process, including the codes.
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, officials from that department discovered the codes had gone missing.

Christopher Woody reports: The process the president has to go through to launch the US’s nuclear weapons isn’t as simple as pressing a button, but the key component of that process — the codes needed to authorize the launch — are never far from the president.

At least they’re never supposed to be.

According to Gen. Hugh Shelton, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1997 to September 2001, the number of redundancies in the nuclear-launch process “is staggering.” All of steps are “dependent on one vital element without which there can be no launch,” he wrote in his 2010 autobiography, “Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior.”

That element, the president’s authorization codes, is supposed to remain in close proximity to the president at all times, carried by one of five military aides, representing each branch of the military. The codes are on a card called the “biscuit” carried within the “football,” a briefcase that is officially known as the “president’s emergency satchel.”

President Bill Clinton, with Defense Secretary William Cohen, left, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry “Hugh” Shelton, in Washington, DC, September 15, 1998. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

However, around 2000, according to Shelton, a member of the department within the Pentagon that is responsible for all pieces of the nuclear process was dispatched to the White House to physically look at the codes and ensure they were correct — a procedure required to happen every 30 days. (The set of codes was to be replaced entirely every four months.)

That official was told by a presidential aide that President Bill Clinton did have the codes, but was in an important meeting and could not be disturbed.

The aide assured the official that Clinton took the codes seriously and had them close by. The official was dismayed, but he accepted the excuse and left. Read the rest of this entry »

The Defense Department still uses 8-inch floppy disks and computers from the 1970s to coordinate nuclear forces

Posted: April 3, 2017 | Author: Pundit Planet | Filed under: China, Russia, Science & Technology, Self Defense, Space & Aviation, Think Tank, War Room | Tags: Infrastructure, nuclear, Pentagon, technology, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy | 2 Comments

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Mackenzie Eaglen writes: Dale Hayden, a senior researcher at the Air Force’s Air University, told an audience of aerospace experts earlier this month that proliferation of antisatellite technology has put America’s communications networks at risk. “In a conflict, it will be impossible to defend all of the space assets in totality,” he said. “Losses must be expected.”

It has never been easier for America’s adversaries—principally Russia and China, but also independent nonstate actors—to degrade the U.S. military’s ability to fight and communicate. Senior military officials have expressed grave doubts about the security of the Pentagon’s information systems and America’s ability to protect the wider commercial virtual infrastructure.

The U.S. Navy, under its mission to keep the global commons free, prevents tampering with undersea cables. But accidents—and worse—do happen. Last year a ship’s anchor severed a cable in the English Channel, slowing internet service on the island of Jersey. In 2013 the Egyptian coast guard arrested three scuba divers trying to cut a cable carrying a third of the internet traffic between Europe and Egypt. “When communications networks go down, the financial services sector does not grind to a halt, rather it snaps to a halt,” warned a senior staffer to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in 2009. Trillions of dollars in daily trading depends on GPS, which is kept free by the Air Force.

There are now an estimated 17.6 billion devices around the world connected to the internet, including more than six billion smartphones. The tech industry expects those numbers to double by 2020. That growth is dependent, however, on secure and reliable access to intercontinental undersea fiber-optic cables, which carry 99% of global internet traffic, and a range of satellite services.

The U.S. military is working on ways of making them more resilient. For instance, the Tactical Undersea Network Architectures program promises rapidly deployable, lightweight fiber-optic backup cables, and autonomous undersea vehicles could soon be used to monitor and repair cables. In space, the military is leading the way with advanced repair satellites as well as new and experimental GPS satellites, which will enhance both military and civilian signals. Read the rest of this entry »

OH YES THEY DID: Secret Document Lifts Iran Nuclear Constraints, Cuts Time Tehran Would Need to Build Bomb by Half

Posted: July 18, 2016 | Author: Pundit Planet | Filed under: Breaking News, Censorship, Diplomacy, Terrorism, War Room | Tags: Associated Press, Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Britain, China, Diplomat, France, Iran, Islamism, nuclear, Nukes, RUSSIA, Vienna | Leave a comment

Obama-Rhodes-Axl

Breakout time would be reduced to six months, or even less if the efficiency is more than double.

VIENNA (AP) — Key restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program imposed under an internationally negotiated deal will ease in slightly more than a decade, cutting the time Tehran would need to build a bomb to six months from present estimates of a year, according to a document obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

The document is the only part linked to last year’s deal between Iran and six foreign powers that hasn’t been made public. It was given to the AP by a diplomat whose work has focused on Iran’s nuclear program for more than a decade, and its authenticity was confirmed by another diplomat who possesses the same document.

12 Times the Obama Administration Caved to Iran on Nuclear Deal

The diplomat who shared the document with the AP described it as an add-on agreement to the nuclear deal. But while formally separate from that accord, he said that it was in effect an integral part of the deal and had been approved both by Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, the six powers that negotiated the deal with Tehran.

[Read the full story here, at the Associated Press]

Details published earlier outline most restraints on Iran’s nuclear program meant to reduce the threat that Tehran will turn nuclear activities it says are peaceful to making weapons.

But while some of the constraints extend for 15 years, documents in the public domain are short on details of what happens with Iran’s most proliferation-prone nuclear activity – its uranium enrichment – beyond the first 10 years of the agreement.

gangster-nukes

The document obtained by the AP fills in the gap. It says that as of January 2027 – 11 years after the deal was implemented – Iran can start replacing its mainstay centrifuges with thousands of advanced machines.

Centrifuges churn out uranium to levels that can range from use as reactor fuel and for medical and research purposes to much higher levels for the core of a nuclear warhead. From year 11 to 13, says the document, Iran can install centrifuges up to five times as efficient as the 5,060 machines it is now restricted to using.

Those new models will number less than those being used now, ranging between 2,500 and 3,500, depending on their efficiency, according to the document. But because they are more effective, they will allow Iran to enrich at more than twice the rate it is doing now.

Secretary of State John Kerry and the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, at the State Department on Wednesday. Credit Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The U.S. says the Iran nuclear agreement is tailored to ensure that Iran would need at least 12 months to “break out” and make enough weapons grade uranium for at least one weapon.

But based on a comparison of outputs between the old and newer machines, if the enrichment rate doubles, that breakout time would be reduced to six months, or even less if the efficiency is more than double, a possibility the document allows for.

The document also allows Iran to greatly expand its work with centrifuges that are even more advanced, including large-scale testing in preparation for the deal’s expiry 15 years after its implementation on Jan. 18. Read the rest of this entry »

TWO HUNDRED Retired Generals and Admirals Write Letter to Congress Urging Rejection of Iran Deal

Posted: August 27, 2015 | Author: Pundit Planet | Filed under: Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, War Room | Tags: Barack Obama, Country music, International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran, Iran Deal, Islam, Islamic republic, Islamism, Israel, Jihadism, media, news, nuclear, Nuclear program of Iran, Nuclear weapon, Nuke, Nuke Deal, The Washington Free Beacon, U.S. Congress, United States, video | Leave a comment

Blake Seitz reports: A group of nearly 200 retired U.S. generals and flag officers sent a letter to Congressional leadership on Tuesday urging them to reject the Iran nuclear deal.

[The full text of the letter can be read here]

The letter says that the deal creates a decade-long path to nuclear weapons for Iran, while rewarding the Islamic Republic with cash it can use to rebuild its military and fund terrorism in the short-term.

“The agreement as constructed does not ‘cut off every pathway’ for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons,” it says. “To the contrary, it actually provides Iran with a legitimate path to doing that simply by abiding by the deal….(read more)

Washington Free Beacon