Slashdot Mirror
Biden Reveals Location of Secret VP Bunker
Hugh Pickens writes "Fox News reports that 'Vice President Joe Biden, well-known for his verbal gaffes, may have finally outdone himself, divulging potentially classified information meant to save the life of a sitting vice president.' According to the report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old US Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president. Although earlier reports had placed the Vice-Presidential hide-out in a highly secure complex of buildings inside Raven Rock Mountain near Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, Fox News reports that the Naval Observatory bunker is believed to be the secure, undisclosed location former Vice President Dick Cheney remained under protection in secret after the 9/11 attacks. According to the report, Biden 'said a young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment.' According to Eleanor Clift, Newsweek magazine's Washington contributing editor 'the officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn't be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall.' In December 2002, neighbors complained of loud construction work being done at the Naval Observatory, which has been used as a residence by vice presidents since 1974. The upset neighbors were sent a letter by the observatory's superintendent, calling the work 'sensitive in nature' and 'classified' and that it was urgent it be completed on a highly accelerated schedule."
it was "Potatoe," you insensitive clod.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
Open secret is right. I live about three quarters of a mile from the Naval Observatory and the government had to pay for damage, caused by the blasting, to the foundations of nearby residences (including at least one embassy). The local community governmental organization gathered and disseminated the procedures for getting such payments. Why is this considered news and even in Slashdot?
I'm so tired of this myth of Dan Quayle not being able to spell potato. It was misspelled on the card the school gave him.
Wikipedia:
Although he was relying on cards provided by the school which included the misspelling, Quayle was widely lambasted for his apparent inability to spell the word "potato". According to his memoirs, Quayle was uncomfortable with the version he gave, but did so because he decided to trust the school's incorrect written materials.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2559617.stm Seems the BBC revealed the "secret" location long before Biden. Yet another Fox news lets make a story out of nothing event.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
The source isn't Foxnews, the source is Newsweek http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/05/15/shining-light-on-cheney-s-hideaway.aspx
Ask the pizza delivery drivers.
No joke, I was assigned to a tactical response unit while I was in the Marine Corps. I can't discuss much of the specifics, but we would get locked up in a highly secure facility just out side of Washington in case of an "emergency". The existence of the facility at the time was considered top secret.
Unfortunately, the local staff would often order out for food, and have it delivered.
So the secret wasn't all that secret, and is even less so now, seeing as how /. is posting about it.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Scooter was charged, and convicted... He just got his sentence commuted by Bush (Heck of a job Scootie)
except its not, its been well known for 6 years that there was a bunker there. The BBC even reported on its construction and they had to pay damaged for blasting. In fact in all honesty pretty much everyone, even the badguys know there are bunkers under the residence of major staff members. The secret is how to get to them what kind of security they have, not that they exist.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
That was per Novak -- the guy who noted Plame was CIA... So who leaked her ID again?
Wow are you stupid...
"On July 14, 2003, Washington Post journalist Robert Novak effectively ended Valerie Plame's career with the CIA (from which she later resigned in December 2005) by revealing her identity as a CIA operative in his column."
"But official legal documents published in the course of the CIA leak grand jury investigation, United States v. Libby, and Congressional investigations, fully establish her classified employment as a covert officer for the CIA at the time that Novak's column was published in July 2003."
"Waxman read a statement about Plame's CIA career that had been cleared by CIA director Gen. Michael V. Hayden and the CIA, stating that she was undercover and that her employment status with the CIA was classified information prohibited from disclosure under Executive Order 12958."
Did you bother reading your citation?
All the convictions were a la Martha Stewart (giving false information during an investigation). Not for some "crime" that was never established...
Actually, she was an active duty agent. She just wasn't stationed overseas. She has "non official cover" (that is she used her own name and identity while working for a front company). In that capacity she traveled overseas and met with foreign intelligence "assets".
Under the circumstances, she was not put in immediate danger, but anybody overseas she met with was placed in grave danger.
The reason there were no convictions was that Scooter took the fall for obstruction and perjury. Bush commuted his sentence before he spilled his guts.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If African-Americans were not racist, then at most 65% of them would have supported Obama.
I think you may want to look into look into the percentage of African Americans that vote Democrat regardless of race.
Did you bother reading your citation?
All the convictions were a la Martha Stewart (giving false information during an investigation). Not for some "crime" that was never established...
The crime wasn't established because Libby screwed with the investigation. That was the entire point of the matter. Did you not pay any attention to Patrick Fitzgerald's findings? Or are you really trying to spout off talking points that were discredited hours after they came out?
That is so far from being newsworthy, it's almost funny.
It's pretty much a given that any facility that a world leader will spend a lot of time in, will have a safe room (bunker, if you will). I'd be fairly confident that the Whitehouse has one. The Pentagon is one. :) Camp David has a back entrance to Site-R/Raven Rock Mountain Complex. There's a ring of underground facilities in a 300 mile radius of DC (except for under the water, I assume) that may or may not be connected by a series of tunnels. It's not hard to find information on quite a few of them.
They aren't new. But, they're likely new to people who are surprised by the possibility of a safe room under the VP's residence.
And no, it's not a evil government conspiracy. It's good security. With a whole variety of safe locations to put the people you're suppose to protect, an aggressive attempt by a foreign power would be dramatically spread out to take every possible bunker location. Even with inside information, unless it's someone in the immediate proximity of the President, it would be very difficult for an aggressor to find him.
For example, say I was a secret service agent assigned to the POTUS. I know that there is an aggressive assault on known locations. I also know that someone inside is providing location details to the aggressor. I call in that he is now being transferred by limo to a site Northwest of DC. We send a driver in the limo by himself (with escort following) and then we take a rather plain looking suburban Southwest to another site. Ok, so the President is missing, but he's safe.
Would the aggressor know until the limo stops? Possibly. So instead of one or two known sites, it's almost anywhere in America. Once they can get on a VC-25, E-4B, C-32, or C-40 it becomes anywhere in the world. As far as that goes, he could end up on any sufficiently supplied aircraft (armor, flight range, etc). If they stay up long enough, it'd be a matter of maybe following refueling planes, unless they stop at random large airports for refueling. It may be a foreign government nervous if Air Force One lands at an arbitrary international airport with two fighters circling. :) It would be virtually impossible for a foreign aggressor to monitor every airport capable of taking large aircraft.
The large aircraft requirement gets interesting. In looking for the requirements of those planes, it appears 6k feet can get one down and back up safely. In that thread, someone mentions a C-5 landing a MKC (7k foot runway), and another person mentions a 747 landing at QRA. If it's not loaded down with baggage and passengers, and fuel is kept reasonable, they can get up and down on pretty short runways. It may not be quite as comfortable for the passenger, but I'm sure POTUS will understand in an emergency condition. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
He also brought connections to special interest groups, who are powerful in terms of elections. Obama himself didn't have many of those connections, since he is a young politician. [Politician I don't like] on the other hand is deep within Hollywood's pocket, among others.
Can we get off the old saw about corruption in politics? Biden is one of the poorest members of the senate despite being one of the most senior. Obama has more money.
The Hollywood part is amusing. Delaware politics revolves more around the disposal of chicken shit than it does around Hollywood. The last movie of any significance filmed in Delaware was Fight Club.
Biden is the Democratic senior member of the foreign relations committee. He presided over Bill Clinton's foreign policy, which has been widely seen as more successful than Dubya, who hadn't even been to Europe before he became president (why do we need "experience" in quotes?)
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Obama has excellent speech writers and the ability to read the teleprompter. Anyone who thinks Obama (or any other modern politician) is a "great orator" is either intentionally being an idiot or is just another one of the sheeple
Except that Obama is an ex college professor, wrote 2 bestselling autobiographies, and, oh yeah, has been confirmed to write his own speeches.
I know you conservatives are upset that reality has such a well known Liberal bias but seriously, come out of the bubble sometime. The talking point about the teleprompter is a non starter outside of the wingnutosphere.
While the information does appear to be leaked by Richard Armitage, the fact he's a good friend of Rove and the highly fortuitous timing of the incident suggest it does not end with Armitage.
There are such things as coincidences, but I wouldn't say the link to the Bush administration has been "proven false" or even much diminished. Due to Libby's perjury and further pardoning by GWB we will probably never have good evidence for either scenario.
I'll pick a few here:
Teh GAYS are coming to steal yer marriages!!!!11
Never heard this from a Republican
You are a liar. Bush's "re-election" (his first actual election) was won primarily because they snuck so many anti-equality laws on the ballots. The bigoted wingnuts came out of the woodwork and voted for Bush while they were there.
We're the party of fiscal responsibility!
I would have agreed with this last year. But since the current party has tripled the deficit, it turns out that it's true!
Yes, I am absolutely certain that Obama, in 100 days, managed to triple the deficit, compared to 8 years of Bush spending like a drunken frat boy.
I totally believe that, because, apparently, I am an idiot.
They're not prisoners of war, so the Geneva Convention doesn't apply!
Were any of these guys wearing a uniform? No? then the Geneva Convention does not apply. Why is this so hard to understand?
Because I have a soul, and the idea of shoving flashlights up little kid's asses in front of the kid's mother is abhorrent to me.
Oh, and here's a POW being waterboarded:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-13/cheneys-role-deepens/
Iraq had something, anything to do with 9/11!
I have never heard a Republican say this, yet it keeps getting repeated over and over as if it's true. And what do you know, many of the exceedingly ignorant and borderline retarded believe it.
Liar.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3119676.stm
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/21/bush-on-911/
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/bush-team-peddles-911-iraq-link-torture
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-durang/lieberman-peddles-the-old_b_77198.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10164478
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00247.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0321-02.htm
Not only that, it turns out we were torturing people to death and shoving flashlights up children's bums specifically to try and GET a fake link between Iraq and 9/11. Whoops!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14723718/
Would you pay attention to MSNBC?
HEADLINE: Armitage leak admission creates new questions
By the way you should be asking yourself if you were incorrect on this issue just how many other issues are you relying on your feelings about the issue rather than the facts.
Agents that tortured
Don't hear too many protests about that one. And of course, there's the famous outing of Air America, and its successor in Latin America. You have Dianne Feinstein confirming covert American operations in Pakistan, and so on.
Pretty much, Democrats don't really care about the secrecy of anything in the CIA, unless it suits them. 99% of the outrage over Valerie Plame's outing is obviously and utterly false.
This is my sig.
"Giving false information during a Federal investigation. If you ever do it, expect to go to jail for some time --- and deserve it."
Except in the case of sexual harassment right? Then you get to stay president..
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
These are private security contractors. Mercenaries. They were paid a fee; they were not protected as an undercover agent is and they certainly did not have Non-Official Cover status. And there's no evidence that a "Democrat" blew their covers. In fact, it sounds like the CIA leaked their names themselves.
She's (rightly) ridiculed for it because it wasn't a geography quiz, it was her response to inquiries about her foreign policy experience. Only someone trying to put some sort of positive spin on Sarah Palin would defend her saying this. It was a laughably dumb response, "100% true" or not.
Erecting the wall of separation between church and state is absolutely essential in a free society. - Thomas Jefferson
A non-story?
Only if you believe everything Armitage says here, some of which is very self-serving.
The claim that Wilson was blabbing this about is ridiculous. First of all, he knew damn well his wife wasn't an analyst. She was an operative. Claiming she was an analyst was as good as telling the world she was an operative, because she worked for a front company. He'd be outing her, and he knew damn well that would be a crime with dozens of witnesses: everyone he told.
The "analyst" bit was what got Armitage off here. He's claiming to be repeating scuttlebutt that originated with Wilson. It couldn't have. There's no documented evidence that anybody without a clearance knew her status until the conversation you cite. However making her an "analyst" makes it should like you're repeating poorly sourced scuttlebutt. Since there was no chance this originated with Wilson, it originated with somebody with access to classified information, and it was carefully engineered to be a plausible rumor that Armitage could repeat without getting into too much trouble. Armitage could be the source, or he could be a catspaw, but somebody set her up.
As for it being a non-story, she was working on getting information on the Iranian nuclear program. That remains a serious international issue and US national security concern today. So I'd call interfering with that a "story".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.