Monday, 7 December 2009
By Richard Scott for Boiling Frogs Post
An Analysis & Critique
Over 36 hours on August 29-30 2007, six AGM-129 ACM Air Launched Cruise Missiles each containing one W80 (nuclear warhead) were removed from safeguarded weapons storage facilities at the Minot AFB in North Dakota, loaded aboard a B-52 bomber and flown 1500 miles to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. While removed from secure storage, these weapons passed through six separate links in the chain of custody without being discovered, without being visually inspected and were left unguarded and unsecured on the runways of both Minot and Barksdale for 15 hours and 12 hours respectively before the Ordnance Unloading Team at Barksdale discovered the error, established a security zone and activated a Nuclear Security Alert to further safeguard the warheads.
Attempting to conceal the incident as part of the DOD’s policy on neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates notified President Bush and ordered in internal Air Force Investigation of the incident, the first of its kind in the 40+ years of nuclear weapons handling. This lasted 6 days until the story of the incident was broken by the Military Times, quoting unnamed sources and picked up by the MSM. Soon after, the Air Force announced that the Minot Munitions Squadron commander was relieved of command and 25 airmen were disciplined. They also assured the public that the weapons never left the custody of Air force personnel and the public was never in danger. The results of that investigation saw the commanders of the 5th Bomb wing and the 5th Maintenance Group at Minot and the 2nd Operations Group at Barksdale relieved of command, four senior NCOs of the 5th Bomb Wing received “administrative action”, all personnel of the 5th Bomb Wing were stripped of their nuclear certifications, 65 airmen lost their Personnel Reliability Program certifications and all tactical weapons ferry operations were suspended, citing:
“There has been an erosion of adherence to weapons-handling standards at Minot Air Force Base and at Barksdale Air Force Base.”
Additionally, the Inspector General offices of all USAF major commands with a nuclear mission were tasked to conduct “Limited Nuclear Surety Inspections” at every nuclear-capable unit under Defense Threat Reduction Agency oversight. This prompted Gates to appoint retired USAF General Larry Welch to lead a special Defense Science Board to study the mishap in the context of the overall review of all nuclear weapons handling policies and procedures. That report was released in February of 2008 and is available for viewing here.
Part I of this piece will look at the incident and DSB report from the perspective of a nuclear weapons handler, whether the reasons cited are credible and whether the actions taken to address it will have any effectiveness in improving nuclear weapons safeguards. Part II will look at some of the ancillary stories related to this incident and attempt to gauge their overall credibility and connection.
In 1987, the AGM-129 ACM (Advanced Cruise Missile) was deployed by the USAF as a stealthy weapons platform with both conventional and nuclear payload capabilities to counter improvements in the Soviet Air Defense regime. Although capable of carrying conventional warheads, their primary use was to carry W-80-1 Variable Yield thermonuclear warheads. Each W-80-1 has a programmable nuclear yield of between 5-150 Kilotons of TNT. Used primarily as a nuclear platform aboard B-52 bombers, the AGM-129 was deployed on wing pylons of 6 weapons each and an internal rotary launcher capable of carrying another 8 of the weapons. These weapons were subject to the START II treaty which required a limit of 400 warheads deployed on ACMs. In March, 2007, the USAF announced the retirement of the entire complement of AGM-129s due to high maintenance costs and reliability issues in order to meet START II goals of having fewer than 2,200 total deployed nuclear weapons by 2012. This was despite an ongoing Service Life Extension Program intended to keep them as a viable weapons system until 2030. The decommissioning procedures called for the removal of the W-80-1 warheads from the AGM-129s and replacement with dummy payloads. The dummy payload missiles were then ferried to Barksdale in complements of 12 missiles (2 pylons of 6) per trip for missile decommissioning. The W-80-1 warheads were to be flown to Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, NM aboard aircraft specially designed for payload survivability for further transfer to the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX and warhead dismantlement. By the first of August, 2007, more than 200 of these missiles were transferred and decommissioned at Barksdale.
The procedure instituted to accomplish this task at Minot is detailed on page 10 of the DSB’s report referred to above. It details that the Munitions Maintenance Squadron prepares a build-up sheet for each load to be ferried including pylon, missile and/or warhead serial numbers being moved prior to breakout. This sheet is sent to the breakout crew at the weapons storage facility who are tasked with verifying it against the existing inventory of weapons in storage and noting and reporting any discrepancies. Once completed, the breakout crew transfers the payloads to the Convoy Crew tasked with weapons transfer to the flight line. The Convoy Crew is tasked to verify the load and perform visual inspections upon receipt from the Breakout Crew, then transfer the weapons to the flight line, passing control onto the bomber Crew Chief and the loading Crew. Once they have visually verified and signed off on receipt of the weapons, they are loaded aboard the bomber, reverified by visual inspection and custody is turned over to the bomber crew. The bomber crew is tasked to do a visual inspection as part of their pre-flight checklist before the plane leaves the ground. This should require 4 visual inspections in Minot alone with further corresponding inspections taking place at the destination point until the weapons are finally secured in the weapons storage facility at Barksdale. Since the various payloads, nuclear, conventional and dummy, are visually identical at first glance and stored in the same facility, the payloads are supposed to be clearly identified with readily visible means to indicate payload types in addition to the individual visual inspections along the chain of custody. Additionally, all nuclear payloads are equipped with electronic and visual identifiers as well as anti-theft devices designed to trigger alarms if they leave the weapons storage facility without proper authorization and procedures.
On the day in question, the movement plan identified two pylons of nuclear-inert missiles to be transferred on 30 August, 2007 via tactical ferry. This plan was altered by the Minot Munitions Maintenance Squadron to include another pylon with missiles closer to the expiration dates of limited-life components instead of one of the pylons identified in the movement plan. As a result, the new pylon of weapons was not properly prepared for tactical ferry and the warheads contained in the missiles not removed prior to transfer. The Breakout Crew failed to visually verify the presence of nuclear warheads in the weapons being transferred and allowed the Convoy Crew to remove them without the proper security details being present. Subsequently, the Convoy, Loading and Aircrews all failed to properly perform their visual inspections with the consequent result of nuclear warheads being inadvertently loaded aboard the B-52 and transferred to Barksdale where they were unloaded and transferred to the Barksdale Convoy Crew who finally discovered their presence triggering the Nuclear Security Alert at Barksdale.
The Defense Science Board Report’s findings on the incident were listed as:
1. Over time, nuclear weapons movement procedures for bomber weapons have been compromised for expedient work processes. This evolution occurred without adequate review and approval above the Wing level.
2. There was confusion over applicability of nuclear weapons handling procedures for nuclear weapons systems that do not contain nuclear weapons.
3. The practice of storing nuclear munitions in the same facility with nuclear-test, nuclear-training and nuclear-inert devices led to confusion and unnecessary access to nuclear weapons.
4. The various levels of inspection activities failed to detect these changes in process which compromised established procedure. The Nuclear Operational Readiness Inspection process required only limited mission performance, sometimes generating as few as one aircraft being subjected to inspection.
The report further found that, due to the decrease in size of the nuclear force and stockpile of nuclear weapons in the inventory as well as its consolidation with chemical and biological weapons, the level of focus on the nuclear mission had been drastically reduced in the Air Force Bomber command, contributing to the conditions that created the Bent Spear incident. The report also found similar trends in the Air Force Missile command to a lesser degree when compared to the corresponding Naval nuclear weapons program.
As a former Naval Nuclear Weapons Handler, I was alarmed by the first reports of this incident and mystified at how it could have occurred. After reading the DSB’s review and subsequent Air Force corrective actions, I was equally alarmed at both the degradation of handling procedures within the Air Force and the fact that the 5th Bomber Wing was still certified as nuclear-capable despite failing the subsequent Nuclear Surety Inspection on at least one occasion. Having experience undergoing one successful nuclear-certification inspection, the Navy’s Nuclear Weapons Acceptance Inspection as well as five annual Nuclear Technical Proficiency Inspections and two Technical Surprise Inspections, I was appalled by the Wing’s certification as well as the subsequent NSI failures by the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom AFB, the 90th Missile Wing at F. E. Warren AFB and the 377th Air Base Wing at Kirtland AFB. The latter is especially disturbing since the 377th is tasked with support of the transfer of the actual nuclear warheads to the Pantex plant for decommissioning. For the record, I have never heard of any nuclear-capable command in the US Navy either failing its inspections or being decertified as a result.
I found the stated causes of the confusion that precipitated the incident somewhat disingenuous since my experience was also dealing with both nuclear and non-nuclear payloads in the weapons systems I was responsible for, including handling evolutions. I was further mystified at how nuclear warheads could be “inadvertently” transferred from a secure, alarmed storage facility, fail to set off any anti-theft or anti-transfer alarms and pass through a total of SIX separate transfers of custody involving over 50 total personnel before being discovered. While I found the recommendations of the DSB for a unified Air Force nuclear command structure encouraging, I am skeptical about the results unless the Air Force adopts a program more closely resembling the Naval program. So my closing questions are as follows:
1. Why were established nuclear handling procedures with regard to close personal inspection at Minot not followed by appropriate personnel?
2. Why were no alarms set off by the warhead transfer, despite having each nuclear warhead individually catalogued and alarmed electronically?
3. Why did FIVE separate teams fail to either visually inspect or verify the presence of nuclear payloads despite established procedures requiring such inspections, four of which occurred prior to the flight?
4. What plans and procedures are in place to prevent a reoccurrence and to ensure Air Force units tasked with the nuclear mission pass their inspections the first time, every time?
For better or worse, we have an extensive nuclear arsenal and will continue to have one for the foreseeable future. I have applauded and supported US efforts to safeguard both our own arsenal as well as assisting Russia and the other former Soviet states to safeguard and secure the remnants of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. I supported GHW Bush’s successful plan to transfer and safeguard the former Kazakh component of that arsenal to US custody for dismantling and securing of all its nuclear material. I have consistently opposed nuclear proliferation and support IAEA inspection and control of ALL nuclear weapons arsenals, including India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. As the only country to actually use nuclear weapons in combat, despite my agreement that their use ultimately saved more lives than it took, the Mark of Cain is upon us. That Mark can only be assuaged by a commitment to total nuclear disarmament by all nations with the US playing a leading role within the IAEA. I also offer my own personal opinion that the only group of people who have EARNED the RIGHT to authorize the First Use of nuclear weapons are the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
