Slashdot Mirror
US Presidential Nuclear Codes 'Lost For Months'
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."
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.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
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.
Stop the brainwash
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.