Is anyone interested in Apollo missions...

[William Kelly]

Can anyone direct me to a news story or press release naming the General relieved of command, a very rare occassion, or a followup story on the Sept. 14 stand down, test and reup exercise?

I haven't seen any followup.

Thanks,

BK

Bill,

Are you aware of any senior military personnel being "cashiered" for a supposed error, but not having been reported per se?

I am. Sea King Shark 02. Many people were held to account ... justly or otherwise. many people, including very senior Officers, were dismissed.

No details of them have been released, but I know two of those 'senior Officers', one particularly well.

The media does not always follow up on these matters; is there a public source you can check to see if anyone has been relieve of command? Transferred?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews

Missteps in the Bunker

By Joby Warrick and Walter PincusWashington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, September 23, 2007; Page A01

Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a sod-covered bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with orders to collect a set of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a weapons graveyard. They quickly pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of which appeared identical from a cursory glance, and hauled them along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.

The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane's wings, six on each side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight officer signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129 missiles. The officer did not notice that the six on the left contained nuclear warheads, each with the destructive power of up to 10 Hiroshima bombs.

That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during which the missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air base that had no idea nuclear warheads were coming. It was the first known flight by a nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without special high-level authorization, in nearly 40 years.

The episode, serious enough to trigger a rare "Bent Spear" nuclear incident report that raced through the chain of command to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and President Bush, provoked new questions inside and outside the Pentagon about the adequacy of U.S. nuclear weapons safeguards while the military's attention and resources are devoted to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Three weeks after word of the incident leaked to the public, new details obtained by The Washington Post point to security failures at multiple levels in North Dakota and Louisiana, according to interviews with current and former U.S. officials briefed on the initial results of an Air Force investigation of the incident.

The warheads were attached to the plane in Minot without special guard for more than 15 hours, and they remained on the plane in Louisiana for nearly nine hours more before being discovered. In total, the warheads slipped from the Air Force's nuclear safety net for more than a day without anyone's knowledge.

"I have been in the nuclear business since 1966 and am not aware of any incident more disturbing," retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, who served as U.S. Strategic Command chief from 1996 to 1998, said in an interview.

A simple error in a missile storage room led to missteps at every turn, as ground crews failed to notice the warheads, and as security teams and flight crew members failed to provide adequate

oversight and check the cargo thoroughly. An elaborate nuclear safeguard system, nurtured during the Cold War and infused with rigorous accounting and command procedures, was utterly debased, the investigation's early results show.

The incident came on the heels of multiple warnings -- some of which went to the highest levels of the Bush administration, including the National Security Council -- of security problems at Air Force installations where nuclear weapons are kept. The risks are not that warheads might be accidentally detonated, but that sloppy procedures could leave room for theft or damage to a warhead, disseminating its toxic nuclear materials.

A former National Security Council staff member with detailed knowledge described the event as something that people in the White House "have been assured never could happen." What occurred on Aug. 29-30, the former official said, was "a breakdown at a number of levels involving flight crew, munitions, storage and tracking procedures -- faults that never were to line up on a single day."

Missteps in the Bunker

The air base where the incident took place is one of the most remote and, for much of the year, coldest military posts in the continental United States. Veterans of Minot typically describe their assignments by counting the winters passed in the flat, treeless region where January temperatures sometimes reach 30 below zero. In airman-speak, a three-year assignment becomes "three winters" at Minot.

The daily routine for many of Minot's crews is a cycle of scheduled maintenance for the base's 35 aging B-52H Stratofortress bombers -- mammoth, eight-engine workhorses, the newest of which left the assembly line more than 45 years ago. Workers also tend to 150 intercontinental ballistic missiles kept at the ready in silos scattered across neighboring cornfields, as well as hundreds of smaller nuclear bombs, warheads and vehicles stored in sod-covered bunkers called igloos.

Next >

Edited September 24, 2007 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

This really is an amazing story.

I have a hard copy printed edition from the Philadelphia Inquirer, which leaves out more than half of the complete WP edition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews

One key paragraph excised from the printed edition:

"The incident came on the heels of multiple warnings some of which went to the highest levels of the Bush administration, including the National Security Council - of security problems at Air Force installations where nuclear weapons are kept. The risks are not that the warheads might be accidently detonated, but that sloppy procedures could leave room for theft or damage to a warhead, disseminating its toxic materials."

Then there's the whole part "Missteps in the Bunker - that goes on about the super secret National Military Command Center - NMCC and the incident setting off a Bent Spear - which is better than a Broken Arrow -

The AF thought they could keep the story quiet but it was leaked to the Military Times who published the first story on September 5.

The AF said that thought there was "no press interest," but others in the military want to know what the hell happened here, and maybe it's "not just a fluke."

Ha, so it wasn't a screw up in a secret Dick Chaney operation against Iran but a stupid accident after all.

Now who are the Bozos?

BK

Edited September 24, 2007 by William Kelly

[Evan Burton]

Thanks Bill - much appreciated.

[William Kelly]

Thanks Bill - much appreciated.

And here's the publication that broke the story. This is a followup, I haven't yet found the original story based on the leak. - BK

http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2007/09/...igation_070921/

Former chief of staff leads second nuke inquiry

By Robert Burns - The Associated Press

Posted : Friday Sep 21, 2007 16:27:45 EDT Three weeks after the Air Force began investigating the mistaken arming of a B-52 bomber with nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked for an outside inquiry led by a retired general who once commanded the strategic bomber fleet, an official said Thursday.

In the embarrassing incident, a B-52 mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30. The missiles were mounted onto pylons under the bomber’s wings, but the Air Force said there was never any danger to the public.

The mistake, revealed publicly by the Military Times newspapers, was so serious that President Bush and Gates were quickly informed and Gates has received regular updates from the Air Force on progress in its investigation.

Gates’ press secretary, Geoff Morrell, told reporters that the defense chief asked Larry Welch, a former Air Force chief of staff, to lead an inquiry into the implications of the incident. That is in addition to the existing Air Force probe headed by Maj. Gen. Douglas Raaberg, director of air and space operations at Air Combat Command, which is responsible for all Air Force bombers and fighters.

Morrell said Welch will lead a Defense Science Board task force to determine whether the B-52 incident has wider implications for the military.

“Does this incident reflect a larger problem with regard to the security and transfer of munitions?” is the question that Welch’s group will attempt to answer, Morrell said.

The Defense Science Board is a standing committee of outside experts, including retired military officers and former government officials, that advises the defense secretary on a wide range of national security issues.

Asked why Gates felt it necessary to launch another inquiry into the matter, Morrell said it did not reflect any dissatisfaction with the way the Air Force is conducting its investigation.

“But I think he believes that in an incident of this nature, it’s important to get to the bottom of it,” Morrell said. “And he believes an outside set of eyes may be additionally helpful to, sort of, get a better sense of what went wrong and how to avoid similar mistakes in the future.”

An Air Force spokesman, Lt. Col. Edward Thomas, said his service’s probe should be done within several weeks.

“Our response has been swift and focused,” Thomas said.

The weapon involved in the Aug. 30 incident was the Advanced Cruise Missile, a “stealth” weapon developed in the 1980s with the ability to evade detection by Soviet radars. The Air Force said in March that it had decided to retire the Advanced Cruise Missile fleet in the near future.

Welch is president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Defense Analysis, which administers three federally funded research centers that do analytical work for the Defense Department.

Welch retired from the Air Force in 1990 after serving as its chief of staff. He previously was commander of Strategic Air Command, which operated the bomber fleet and was dissolved when an Air Force reorganization created Air Combat Command to operate all of its combat aircraft.

[Evan Burton]

It really is an amazing story; I am aghast that the procedures were in place that could let this happen; I would have thought that "special weapons" would have been kept separate from conventional weapons. The check to see silver or orange should be a redundant check, because those weapons wouldn't be stored together.

It's a typical example of the Reason Model, otherwise know as the Swiss Cheese theory of accidents.

We are only human, so we put up defences against an undesirable condition: checks, training, etc. Each of these safeguards is like a slice of cheese. We have, however, holes in our defences (human laziness, unintentional errors, etc) which make the slice look like swiss cheese. When all the holes in our defences line up, an accident can occur.

As we can see, the decision to have special and conventional weapons together was a pre-condition / decision. The failure to check the warhead status was an unsafe act by the issuing personnel and the aircrew.

I think the comments about becoming lax regarding nukes with the end of the Cold War is also relevant, though the threat of terrorist activity should be just as much an incentive as any other.

[Evan Burton]

I think there are a lot of fair points there.

[Evan Burton]

I asked Mark Roberts, a very capable researcher into 9/11, to comment on this. Here is his reply:

The claim that a gigantic explosion happened in WTC 6, causing the collapse of much of the building and a 700-foot high tower of smoke/dust, and no one noticed, including all the first responders and the people in WTC 6, and no cameras or other devices recorded this event or its aftermath (a smoking WTC 6 with its roof missing), is one of the most staggeringly stupid things I've ever heard. What epic, deliberate ignorance!

WTC 6's roof is intact in every aerial photo and video, until the north tower collapses:

Afterwards, the interior of WTC 6 is filled with exterior columns from WTC 1, which was only 30 feet away from it:

(This is the same image Duane uses)

In this video by Bob and Bri, there is no gigantic smoke/dust cloud rising from WTC 6 after the south tower impact. The dust cloud from the south tower collapse is obviously what the conspiracists are referring to. Note that the visible part of WTC 6 is intact. September 11, 2001: What We Saw

This elevator mechanic was in WTC 6 during both plane impacts and left well after the south tower impact. http://nicksaid.com/my911story.htm

EMT Patricia Ondrovic describes trying to enter the occupied lobby of building 6 (U.S. Customs House) to escape the south tower collapse. (She didn't know at the time that the south tower had collapsed):

I started running towards the West Side Highway, and there was another building on the corner, I guess it was a federal building, cause it was all the green and gray uniforms with the Smokey the Bear hats, the cops in there. I went to run in the lobby cause all of a sudden you couldn't see anything. There was smoke, there was debris, there was everything flying around. I ran into the lobby cause I had no idea what had happened and the cops that were in there were telling everybody get out, get out, get out.

Source: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/...HIC/9110048.PDF

[Jack White]

Jun 04, 2007  

Charles Pegelow, BS CE – Civil Engineer with more than 25 years experience

in structural design questions the official account of the events of 9/11

Charles Pegelow, BS CE – Civil Engineer with more than 25 years experience in

structural design and analysis and project management of construction of major

projects, including large steel structures.

Essay 9/25/06: "The FEMA / Kean Commission Report was a flawed investigation. ...

In addition to the firemen calling the Commission a cover up, there are the victim's

family organizations that are saying the same thing.

Comments on Some of NIST's FAQs

by Charles Pegelow

As an introduction: The FEMA / Kean Commission Report was a flawed investigation. The most important tool of any criminal investigators is the eyewitness and first responder accounts; if for no other reason, they were there at the scene. For example, the first thing the police do at an accident scene is to gather all witness accounts and within a week the insurance companies are also telephoning the witnesses to take their testimony. In addition to the NYFD, the NYPD also had reported finding a suspicious device and another report stated than they thought a van in the basement of WTC1 had exploded with a bomb.

In addition to the firemen calling the Commission a cover up, there are the victim's family organizations that are saying the same thing.

To give you some perspective on what a comprehensive, thorough, scientific investigation looks like, please recall the Space Shuttle Columbia accident. Although there may remain minor questions concerning some of the periphery conclusions, the report, on the whole, stands without major dispute within the scientific community. Contrast this with the FEMA 9/11 report and its major inconsistencies.

The commission did gather many experts but did not provide them with the full information they needed. FEMA hampered and distorted the investigation of the professionals they hired. For example,

Mr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl stated before the Committee on Science of the U.S. House of Representatives 6 March 2002 Hearing: FEMA did not provide "videotapes and photographs taken on 9/11 and the following days and copies of the engineering drawings. At this time, having the videotapes, photographs and copies of the drawings not only is useful, but also is essential in enabling us to conduct any analysis of the collapse and to formulate conclusions from our effort";

the same story of hampering investigations comes from other scientists and engineers, see Learning from 9/11: Understanding the Collapse of the World Trade Center.

on 26 October 2004 An alliance of 100 prominent Americans and 40 family members of those killed on 9/11 Respected Leaders and Families Launch 9/11 Truth Statement Demanding Deeper Investigation into the Events of 9/11.

In conclusion, FEMA / Kean Commission Report was a flawed investigation and it needs to be reopened.

An open, independent of the Federal Government, public inquiry into the attacks should be set up under an independent judicial body with power to subpoena evidence.

1. If the World Trade Center (WTC) towers were designed to withstand multiple impacts by Boeing 707 aircraft, why did the impact of individual 767s cause so much damage? Here it is instructive to consider the concept of global vs. local damage. From the standpoint of global collapse, that is, evidence that overturns [the official account]is easy to show because it revolves about (a) resistance of the columns to overstressed conditions and ( the impact shear was less than the designed wind condition. We also have the following statements about the original design:

The Richard Roth Telegram: According to the calculations of engineers, who worked on the Towers' design, all the columns on one side of a Tower could be cut, as well as the two corners and some of the columns on each adjacent side, and the building would still be strong enough to withstand a 100-mile-per-hour wind.

According to Hyman Brown, a University of Colorado civil engineering professor and the World Trade Center's construction manager: "meaning that more than nine-tenths of the columns at the same level would have to fail before the weight of the top could have overcome the support capacity of the remaining columns". See Towers' Design Parameters.

According to Matthys Levy (chairman of Weidlinger Assoc) who did independent computer structural analysis study for Larry Silverman (and also had a set of the drawings); states: (a) the failure of the trusses did not cause the tower collapse, ( the fires did not lead to floor collapses, © fire temperatures were lower than typical office fires, and (d) "to create the vertical collapses that we saw in the Twin Towers all of the 47 very large columns that comprised the core had to fail at the same instant" What failed, when and how?.

At this point we are left with only one question: How could "all 47 core columns fail at the same instance"? Fires could not do that. This was not addressed in FEMA's report.

From the standpoint of local design, we do not have any verifiable information from the 1968 design. However, we note that:

The airplanes initial impact column damage (FEMA WTC Building Performance Study Chapter 2). Perimeter columns 31/36WTC1 & 27/32WTC2 perimeter columns were destroyed, and WTC1 & WTC2 core columns were destroyed).

We, off course could expect substantial local damage under the circumstances, but FEMA is attempting to prove the truss theory, the pancake collapse, the truss bolts theory, and so on along with fires as a reasonable collapse theory for the core columns. This is about as reasonable if I told you that you could cut some branches on a tree and the whole tree would fall down. Sorry, the real world doesn't work that way.

2. Why did NIST not consider a "controlled demolition" hypothesis with matching computer modeling and explanation as it did for the "pancake theory" hypothesis? A key critique of NIST's work lies in the complete lack of analysis supporting a "progressive collapse" after the point of collapse initiation and the lack of consideration given to a controlled demolition hypothesis.

3. How could the WTC towers have collapsed without a controlled demolition since no steel-frame, high-rise buildings have ever before or since been brought down due to fires? Temperatures due to fire don't get hot enough for buildings to collapse.

4. Weren't the puffs of smoke that were seen, as the collapse of each WTC tower starts, evidence of controlled demolition explosions?

5. Why were two distinct spikes--one for each tower--seen in seismic records before the towers collapsed? Isn't this indicative of an explosion occurring in each tower?

6. How could the WTC towers collapse in only 11 seconds (WTC 1) and 9 seconds (WTC 2)--speeds that approximate that of a ball dropped from similar height in a vacuum (with no air resistance)?

7a. How could the steel have melted if the fires in the WTC towers weren't hot enough to do so?

OR

7b. Since the melting point of steel is about 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of jet fuel fires does not exceed 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) certified the steel in the WTC towers to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for six hours, how could fires have impacted the steel enough to bring down the WTC towers?

The February 13, 1975 WTC1 North Tower Fire. The 1975 fire was more intense than the 9/11 fires is evident from the fact that it caused the 11th floor east side windows to break and flames could be seen pouring from these broken windows. This indicates a temperature greater than 700°C. In the 9/11 fires the windows were not broken by the heat (only by the aircraft impact) indicating a temperature below 700°C. < http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ wtc_1975_fire.html> lists NY Times articles.

8. We know that the sprinkler systems were activated because survivors reported water in the stairwells. If the sprinklers were working, how could there be a 'raging inferno' in the WTC towers?

9. If thick black smoke is characteristic of an oxygen-starved, lower temperature, less intense fire, why was thick black smoke exiting the WTC towers when the fires inside were supposed to be extremely hot?

Smoke impedes radiant heat flux to surrounding surfaces.

10. Why were people seen in the gaps left by the plane impacts if the heat from the fires behind them was so excessive?

Open flames produce direct, radiant, and infrared heat. Both radiant and infrared heat are blocked by smoke and solid objects. A reconstruction of the arrangement of the room (on paper if not in actual fact) is critical to this assessment. This may be done by witness statements, physical remains, burn indicators, or pre-fire photos or even videos. Stoll Curve - A plot of thermal energy and time predicted to cause a pain sensation, or a second degree burn, in human tissue. *As defined by the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) in Standard F1002

11. Why do some photographs show a yellow stream of molten metal pouring down the side of WTC2 that NIST claims was aluminum from the crashed plane although aluminum burns with a white glow?

12. Did the NIST investigation look for evidence of the WTC towers being brought down by controlled demolition? Was the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues? The combination of thermite and sulfur (called thermate) "slices through steel like a hot knife through butter."

13. Why did the NIST investigation not consider reports of molten steel in the wreckage from the WTC towers?

14. Why is the NIST investigation of the collapse of WTC 7 (the 47-story office building that collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, hours after the towers) taking so long to complete? Is a controlled demolition hypothesis being considered to explain the collapse?

[Duane Daman]

None? Really?

NONE ... REALLY !!! ( Posted for Jack in reply to this type of denial nonsense )

[Kevin M. West]

None? Really?

NONE ... REALLY !!! ( Posted for Jack in reply to this type of denial nonsense )

Oh boy, do I win a prize?

[Duane Daman]

Yeah , you win a prize ... The sucker of the year award for falling for the official government's version of 9/11 .

What you just circled was the vaporized debris containing no desks, phones , computers , filing cabinets , etc .

Even the first responders at the scene rattled off all of the items they expected to find in the rubble , but for some strange reason , didn't.

[Dave Greer]

Oh boy, do I win a prize?

Also, the WTC had 5 or 6 sublevels for the much of the debris and rubble to collapse into, and the photo in question is taken some time after the cleanup operation has begun.

[Jack White]

http://www.ae911truth.net/ppt/ae911-1.php

BE SURE TO CLICK AT BUTTONS ON BOTTOM OF SCREEN TO ADVANCE SLIDES.

Edited September 24, 2007 by Jack White

[Duane Daman]

Dave ... Immediately after the towers collapsed , and even weeks into the clean-up , the objects which should have been found in the rubble , weren't .

It was as if the buildings were vaporized , instead of just falling down from a jet fuel fire .

The twin towers were designed and built to withstand a hit from a huge jetliner , and no building prior to 9/11 ever vaporized from a fire from above .

You all need to face the facts here .. Eyewitnesses at the scene , including firefighters and the police, heard the bombs and explosions going off on all floors as the towers came down .

Edited September 25, 2007 by Duane Daman

[Jack White]

http://www.ae911truth.net/ppt/ae911-1.php

BE SURE TO CLICK AT BUTTONS ON BOTTOM OF SCREEN TO ADVANCE SLIDES.

Looks like the 911 LIARS are afraid to tackle 318 pages of scientific evidence! Now the 911 TRUTHERS

have the LIARS on the run.

Jack