US Presidential Nuclear Codes 'Lost For Months' 322
Martin Hellman writes "Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton, has dropped a nuclear bombshell, metaphorically speaking. Shelton's recently released memoir Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, asserts that an aide to President Clinton lost a card containing key phrases needed for ordering a nuclear strike, and that the codes were missing for months. This confirms a similar allegation, made in 2004 by Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, a military aide who frequently carried the 'nuclear football' during the Clinton presidency. Unfortunately, human error within the nuclear weapons complex is a frequent and dangerous occurrence."
Re:awesome (Score:2, Informative)
Not a comedy of errors (Score:4, Informative)
TFA heavily implies that the aid knew the codes were lost but covered up the mistake until the mandatory code change rather than cop to it and get the codes replaced. It seems to me this would be a court-martial offense at the very least.
That the people checking on such an important document did not communicate with each other or follow up with the President is also appalling.
Re:This is Clinton we're talking about (Score:1, Informative)
The Clinton administration had plans which were promptly ignored by the new Bush administration.
Re:awesome (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. Iran is doing fairly well as a regional major power. For all the rethoric towards Israel and hatred towards jews, if Israel was obliterated and Iran was obliterated, how would Ahmadinejad be able to continue to gain influence in Iraq and Lebanon?
Keep in mind that Ahmadinejad has one Sunni nuclear power is surrounded by Sunni nuclear power, and two countries holding a serious number of US soldiers and firepower (Iraq and Afghanistan). He definitely would not want to appear weak.
Of course, he may find he has no other choice than to suffer the fate of Saddam: Pretending to be more dangerous than he really is to deter regional enemies, and then attract even more dangerous enemies. Iran is a proud country with few good options. Ideally, they'll change their priorities, but until then we cannot expect Iran to be subtle and feeble.
Spot on. (Score:3, Informative)
You're exactly correct. In the years leading up to World War I, the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm II was an aggressive, militaristic, expansionist state seeking to make a mark in global affairs, their "place in the sun", as the Kaiser put it. England and France put aside their ancient enmity to face this new threat as allies, with France particularly thirsting for revenge after their humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
[ Bismarck had orchestrated the war in order to unify the various German kingdoms into an empire under Wilhelm I, King of Prussia. After a bloody, destructive invasion of France, Wilhelm was crowned Kaiser in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, a humiliation the French never forgot. That led to them imposing harsh reparations on Germany under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles after the German defeat in WW I, which ultimately ruined the Germany economy and fueled the ultranationalist movement in Germany, culminating in Hitler's rise to power. The seeds of World War II were sown in the War of 1870.]/digression.
People forget that the general public in Britain, France, and Germany were clamoring for war, and at the outbreak of hostilities, when Germany mobilized after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, cheering crowds filled the streets of London in celebration, prompting Foreign Secretary Edward Grey's prophetic statement: "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
As German forces streamed westward, it began to dawn on the Kaiser what he had unleashed, and he ordered his General Staff to immediately recall them, only to be told that it was far too late, and that Germany would be at a severe military disadvantage if they were to turn aside. The wheels were already in motion and England and France were eager for war; they would not accept any negotiations at such a late stage. Thus Wilhelm could only watch helplessly as the genie he released from the bottle swept across Europe and irrevocably shaped the history of the 20th Century.
Re:This is Clinton we're talking about (Score:4, Informative)
The Clinton administration had plans which were promptly ignored by the new Bush administration.
Completely untrue! Blatant lie.
Clinton is on record as basically saying, I wash my hands of this as this is the next administration's problem. Clinton's administration basically said, "These guys are a problem. You need to keep an eye on them." Depending on who's account you accept next, basically the response was, "okay", to, "we are." They were commonly included in security briefings. The only gray area stems from the exact significance placed on them in the security briefings received by the next administration.
Basically Clinton's administrative policy was to ignore them as much as possible while as many people were murdered. Only after repeated attacks and complete lack of response by Clinton, did Clinton actually allow a pathetic retaliation which only embolden them to carry out the 9/11 attacks.
Basically you statement is a complete contradiction of all facts on record.
Re:awesome (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, the people who built the bomb and the people that did the bomb damage assessments for the two atomic bombs have no farking idea what the bombs would do to a Japanese city.
Why? An atomic bomb had never been detonated near any structures or anything flammable. Remember that Trinity was simply detonated on a steel tower in the middle of the desert.
It wasn't until Hiroshima and Nagasaki that they had any idea of what one does, and then Tumbler-Snapper and Upshot Knothole gave the US the data to really figure out how to effectively use atomic weapons for destruction.