B-52 flies with nuclear bombs by mistake

The Pentagon is investigating how a B52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads last week and allowed to fly 1,500 miles across America before anyone noticed the weapons were missing.

Whoops!  Or…maybe not…

Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations. Gee, why would we want cruise missile nukes at Barksdale Air Force Base. Can’t imagine we would need to use them in Iraq. Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations?

His final point was to observe 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.

Now maybe there is an innocent explanation for this? I can’t think of one. What is certain is 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…

Ya Think…?  And in the comments at TPM Cafe’…

A mistake? To fly with any ordinance requires sign-offs from ground crew, chain of authority, etc. And nukes are far and beyond other ordinance.

The claim they accidentally forgot to remove the warheads and didn’t notice, after it was leaked they were moved, not plausible. It’s not like nuclear warheads are disassembled on the runway and left beside the fuel trucks. Removal of a warhead is going to set gears into motion, any number of which are sure to notice they don’t have the warheads.

Presuming these were nukes as alleged and this info was leaked, either by a whistle blower or a deliberate propagandist sending a message to someone, the probability of movement by mistake is close to zero.

…

The official story is that the missiles were decommissioned ACMs. Why they were mounted under the wings instead of being transported inside a cargo plane with the warheads removed is an interesting question. Pretty hard to believe it was all just an accident.

This could be saber rattling.  But consider the man holding the saber.