US Officials Involved in Trading Nuclear Secrets

SpAcEd OuT

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.ece

Pretty serious stuff, if what she is saying is true then this changes everything...

Mr.Micro

Well if true it is truly amazing, but not surprising. One thing is evident is that while the US is patrolling the world to stop the likes of N Korea ,Iran and others from getting nuclear technology and knowledge to develop nuclear weapons. All the while it is leaving its own house unguarded. The US needs to get its own house in order first. Money and greed. Times change people do not. All these organizations FBI, CIA, Homeland security etc, all with agendas of there own. They will end up spying on each other if they have not already.

Manic Moran

if what she is saying is true then this changes everything

How so?

Countries have been recruiting spies for quite a while. This isn't evidence of a policy, it's a security breach (if true).
Quite an embarassment for DoD, DoE and the FBI, but espionage isn't just an American speciality.

NTM

Akrasia

It certainly changes the 'justification' for nuclear weapons in the first place.(however weak it was to start with)

If everything the U.S. does now will eventually leak out to their future enemies, their attempts to gain military supremacy or an assured destruction deterrence, unless the sole purpose of defence spending now, is to secure survival for only the next 30 years, even if it increases chances of obliteration after that.

If they can't even secure the upper echelons of the U.S. government, what confidence can we possibly have that their own nuclear weapons are not at risk of being deployed in some rash or malevolent act. We have already seen 'accidental' unauthorised transportation of nuclear WMD across America as recently as a few months ago (and who can be fully certain where those weapons went or whether the official explanation was what really happened)

There needs to be full nuclear decommissioning. The idea that we need weapons capable of obliterating the entire planet 'for our own defence' is utterly ludicrous. Why should we let the corrupt and the insane make the decisions about our very survival?

Manic Moran

Akrasia wrote: »

(and who can be fully certain where those weapons went or whether the official explanation was what really happened)

Well, they went to Louisiana, and I don't think there's much dispute over that, and the official explanation that some people got lazy and didn't follow procedure doesn't seem all that unrealistic.

NTM

Akrasia

Manic Moran wrote: »

Well, they went to Louisiana, and I don't think there's much dispute over that, and the official explanation that some people got lazy and didn't follow procedure doesn't seem all that unrealistic.

NTM

Where did they go after they got to louisiana?

And how on earth is 'laziness' an acceptable explanation for the unauthorised movement of nuclear weapons, and why should we believe the official story about what really happened? (because the U.S. military would never ever lie?)

What happens if they get 'lazy' and one of the extremely highly ranked 'spies' referred to by the OP manages to get a few of these nukes physically delivered to a rogue state?. It wouldn't be too hard for a rogue general to move these weapons without official authorisation if a low ranked inventory supervisor can 'lazily' accidentally put them on a plane without anyone else knowing about it and have them shipped across the U.S.

Manic Moran

Where did they go after they got to louisiana?

North Dakota.

And how on earth is 'laziness' an acceptable explanation for the unauthorised movement of nuclear weapons, and why should we believe the official story about what really happened?

I never said it was 'acceptable', I said it wasn't 'unrealistic,' and the old Occam's Razor principle would indicate that it is also the most likely.

It wouldn't be too hard for a rogue general to move these weapons without official authorisation if a low ranked inventory supervisor can 'lazily' accidentally put them on a plane without anyone else knowing about it and have them shipped across the U.S.

Although a valid theoretical concern, there's a practical difference between that and a routine movement of missiles from one USAFB to another. If the missiles ended up going on a flight to Dirk-Dirkastan, armed or otherwise, I'm fairly sure someone is liable to notice. No system is absolutely foolproof, but there's little reason to believe it won't realistically prevent such a scenario as you propose.

NTM

Akrasia

[QUOTE=Manic Moran;54800572
I never said it was 'acceptable', I said it wasn't 'unrealistic,' and the old Occam's Razor principle would indicate that it is also the most likely. [/quote]
Occams Razor doesn't apply to simply accepting explanations from people who are paid to keep secrets for a living.

Although a valid theoretical concern, there's a practical difference between that and a routine movement of missiles from one USAFB to another. If the missiles ended up going on a flight to Dirk-Dirkastan, armed or otherwise, I'm fairly sure someone is liable to notice. No system is absolutely foolproof, but there's little reason to believe it won't realistically prevent such a scenario as you propose.

It wasn't a 'routine' transportation of weapons, it was an unauthorised transportation. The Nukes should never have been allowed to leave their secure holding centre. Somehow security broke down simultaniously in multiple places at the same time.

there's little reason to believe that the system would prevent such a disaster scenario as I have outlined, considering the system already allows nobodies to put WMD on planes without proper checks, and the people involved in the alleged espionage and high treason are far from nobodies.
Occams razor would support the statement that a fallable system will eventually fail. The system has already failed, it is only a matter of time before it fails in such a way that leads to significant consequences. (especially considering the subject matter.)