That is the question Larry Johnson asks over at TPMCafe. Johnson is a former counter-terrorism official with the CIA and the State Department.
Johnson questions the official story about the nukes being “mistakenly” flown over the US. A retired B-52 pilot reminds him that the only times you put weapons on a plane is when they are on alert or if you are tasked to move the weapons to a specific site. Barksdale AFB is being used as a jumping off point for Mideast operations.
Johnson is “certain that the pilots of this plane did not just make a last minute decision to strap on some nukes and take them for a joy ride.” Johnson asks: “Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations?” Johnson’s pilot friend believes that “someone on the inside obviously leaked the info that the planes were carrying nukes. A B-52 landing at Barksdale is a non-event. A B-52 landing with nukes. That is something else.”
Johnson wonders: “Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran?”
I certainly hope that is the case. We need responsible officers that are unwilling to let our leaders get away with dragging us closer to war.
UPDATE: The Military Times newspapers, who originally broke the story leaked by unnamed military officers, reports that the squadron commander has been relieved of duty following investigation. The papers also reported that there were six, rather than five, nuclear weapons that were transported across the country.
