Oops. More Loose Nukes

The Defense Department mistakenly shipped secret nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan more than 18 months ago and did not learn that the items were missing until late last week, Pentagon officials acknowledged yesterday, deepening concerns about the security of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

[...]

[Defense Secretary Robert] Gates found the incident "disconcerting."

  WaPo

Disconcerting.

Senior defense officials said it was almost certainly human error that led to the nose cones being shipped, and Air Force officials were concerned the classified items were placed in an unclassified area of a DLA warehouse and not properly tracked. Quarterly inventory checks over the past 18 months did not show the nose cones were missing.

[...]

Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne said the Taiwanese did not appear to tamper with the items, which contain 1960s-era technology, and that the nose cones would not have been dangerous on their own because they work only with U.S. missile technology. Of greater concern to senior U.S. officials is that classified nuclear-related items left U.S. control, reached the hands of a foreign military and went without notice for so long.

[...]

"This is a case of horrifying mismanagement of the inventory at this location," said Leonard S. Spector, deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "But it does seem more like mismanagement rather than a nefarious scheme to get them to Taiwan."

Well, that’s okay, then.

Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, said the nose-cone incident underscores how Washington has "too many nuclear weapons with too little control over them." He said he worries that the incident will raise Chinese suspicions that Taiwan is restarting its nuclear program -- it does not now have nuclear capabilities -- and could spur China to assume a more aggressive stance.

"Imagine how we would feel if the Russians accidentally shipped warhead fuses to Tehran," Cirincione said. "We'd be going nuts right now. It would be hard for them to convince us that it was an accident."

And this is a little bit of a touchy time with China.

Too many nukes with too little control over them, indeed. Remember the nukes that flew over the U.S. back in September?