The Incirlik Air Base Nukes

By Kurt Nimmo

On the day of the attempted coup in Turkey, I was on the road in West Texas. I pulled into a motel for the night and switched on the television. I usually don’t watch CNN or Fox News, but having heard about the coup over the car radio I decided to tune in.

First thing I thought: what about those nukes at the Incirlik Air Base? Is it possible they will be grabbed and end up in the hands of terrorists?

A few weeks later, the Stimson Center released a report: US Nuclear Weapons in Turkey at Risk of Seizure by Terrorists, Hostile Forces.

The report states:

The continued presence of dozens of U.S. nuclear weapons at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey raises serious risks of their seizure by terrorists and other hostile forces, a new report by the nonpartisan Stimson Center finds. The report titled B61 Life Extension Program: Costs and Policy Considerations, found that it was an “unanswerable question,” whether the U.S. could have maintained control of the approximately 50 B61 nuclear weapons based at Incirlik during a protracted civil conflict in Turkey. During the failed July 15 coup attempt, power to Incirlik Air Base was cut off and the Turkish government prohibited U.S. aircraft from flying in or out.

A Congressional Research Service brief to Congress issued on August 12 basically downplays the threat of the nukes at Incirlik being snatched.

Business Insider summarizes:

The report finds the security situation of the bombs adequate, as they are stored in facilities last updated in 2015, are heavily guarded by US troops, and are stored securely underground. To steal or access these bombs, the report suggests, one would need to overwhelm US and NATO forces on one of their own bases, and then come up with some way to haul a 12 foot long, very heavy warhead.

So the report maintains that even with the failed coup, the following turmoil in Turkey’s governance, and the brief loss of commercial power to the base, the nuclear weapons at the base were never in harm’s way.

Maybe, maybe not.

The point is: with the Cold War far behind us, why are nuclear weapons still stored in Turkey? And why are there nukes stored Europe, Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere, with a total of about 200 nuclear bombs in Europe?

Currently, the US and Russia have about 900 nuclear weapons apiece on high alert.

Is this necessary?

Is it sane?

The United States is not about to get rid of its nukes.

In April, 2009 Obama made a speech in Prague. He said a key goal of his administration would be to abolish nuclear weapons.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee underscored his “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons” when it awarded him the 2009 Peace Prize.

Obama didn’t mean it.

Despite Dick Cheney saying last year Obama will get rid of nukes and put the United States at risk, there is no plan on the horizon to disarm.

180 nations voted at the United Nations to get rid of nuclear weapons.

The United States voted no.

Why?

Blackmail.

There are dozens of instance of the United States using nukes to blackmail other nations—from Truman threatening the Soviets over northern Iran, to Operation Big Stick in Korea, to Nixon’s “November Ultimatum” against Vietnam, and Clinton threatening Libya over its chemical weapons program.

Nukes work, even if the US never actually uses them.

That’s why Obama was telling a fib.

Kurt Nimmo is the editor of Another Day in the Empire, where this article first appeared. He is the former lead editor and writer of Infowars.com.