Errors Behind Warheads' Flight Unfold - (more smoke & mirrors?)

Errors Behind Warheads' Flight Unfold
Nuclear and Nonnuclear Missiles Were Stored in Same Bunker, Lawmaker Says

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 28, 2007; Page A02

An Air Force decision to store nuclear-armed cruise missiles in the same North Dakota bunker as missiles containing dummy warheads played a key role in the unrecognized transport of six nuclear devices from North Dakota to Louisiana last month, according to the head of a congressional oversight committee.

Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic weapons, said the decision "created a mistake waiting to happen."

Tauscher said she has been briefed on the interim conclusions of two Air Force investigations into the troubled Aug. 30 flight of a B-52 bomber over the country with six nuclear-armed, air-launched AGM-129 cruise missiles under its wing. "We still don't know exactly what happened," she added.

It was the first known flight by a nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace without special authorization in nearly 40 years. As previously reported in The Washington Post, the six nuclear warheads, each with the explosive power of more than 10 Hiroshima atomic bombs, were unnoticed -- and without safeguards -- for 36 hours..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092702216.html?wpisrc=newsletter

I don't buy this for a second.

It still doesn't explain how 6 nuclear-tipped weapons made it outside of the chain of traceability.

NOR does it explain why it wasn't caught at about 3 levels of inspection AFTER they were "misplaced".

and then retrieve it in the middle of the night...