US Nuclear Weapons Site in Europe Breached

A group of people last week managed to penetrate deep onto Kleine Brogel
Air Base in Belgium where the U.S. Air Force currently deploys 10-20
nuclear bombs.
Fortunately, the people were not terrorists but peace activists from a
group known as Vredesactie <http://www.vredesactiediy.be/?p=679>, who
managed to climb the outer base fence, walk cross the runway, breach a
double-fenced security perimeter, and walk into the very center of the
air base alongside the aircraft shelters where the nuclear bombs are
thought to be stored in underground vaults.

*
A Nuclear Cake Walk *
The activists climbed the outer base fence (1), breached the inner
double-fence (2), tagged a nuclear aircraft shelter (3), walked across
the tarmac (4), before being arrested (5) after more than one hour
inside the base. The numbers on the images correspond to the location of
the numbers on the map above.

The activists penetrated nearly one kilometer onto the base over more
than an hour before a single armed security guard appeared and asked
what they were doing. Soon more arrived to arrest the activists, who
later described: “The military blindfolded for hours, they forced us to
kneel in the snow, arms outstretched at 90° and threatened us if we
intend to return to the base in the months to come.”

The activists videotaped <;
their entire walk across the base. The security personnel confiscated
cameras, but the activists removed the memory card first and smuggled it
out of the base. Ahem…

In June 2008, I disclosed
<http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/06/usaf-report-%E2%80%9Cmost%E2%80%9D-
nuclear-weapon-sites-in-europe-do-not-meet-us-security-requirements.php>
how an internal Air Force investigation had concluded that most nuclear
weapons sites in Europe did not meet US security requirements. The Dutch
government denied <http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/07/dutch.php> there
was a problem, and an investigative team later sent by the US congress
concluded that the security was fine.

They might have to go back and check again.

The nuclear bombs at Kleine Brogel are part of a stockpile of about 200
nuclear weapons left in Europe after the Cold War ended. Whereas nuclear
weapons have otherwise been withdrawn to the United States and
consolidated, the bombs in Europe are scattered across 62 aircraft
shelters at six bases in five European countries. The 130-person US
701^st Munitions Support Squadron
<http://www.spangdahlem.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=8419>
(MUNSS) is based at Kleine Brogel to protect and service the nuclear
bombs and facilities.

They might have to go back to training.

The activists will likely be charged with trespassing a military base
but they should actually get a medal for having exposed security
problems at Kleine Brogel. And this follows two years of the Air Force
creating new nuclear command structures and beefing up inspections and
training to improve nuclear proficiency following the embarrassing
incident <http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/01/schlesingerreport.php> at
Minot Air Force Base in 2007. Despite that, the activists not only made
their way deep into the nuclear base but also discovered that the
double-fence around the nuclear storage area had a hole in it! “We’re
not the first,” one of the activists said.

NATO needs to get over its obsession with nuclear weapons and move out
of the Cold War and the Obama administration’s upcoming Nuclear Posture
Review needs to bring those weapons home before the wrong people try to
do what the peace activists did.

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