Neatly sidestepping the requirement of simply adhering to protocol, the Pentagon, in an internal policy move, has chosen to make secret the results of routine safety inspections at its many nuclear weapons facilities spread around the globe.
According to reports, the Pentagon has claimed that keeping the pass-fail results of nuclear weapons facility inspections secret will enhance national security, although experts observe that data relevant to safety inspections at bomb launch sites are likely low on the totem pole of actionable intelligence, cited by Antiwar.com.
Nonetheless, the inspections have notoriously been a consistent embarrassment to the US armed forces, as test results regularly show subpar compliance with logistical and safety standards at those facilities that house a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying almost all life on the planet.
The "additional level of secrecy," according to the Pentagon, will prevent "enemies" from learning what, exactly? That the communications networks are based on technology that was cutting edge in 1974? That toilets regularly back up in missile silos in Alaska? That the ICBMs have been standing at the ready for so long that it is not known whether they still function?
It cannot be known what the problems are, as nuclear weapons facility inspections are carried out as a pass/fail, and the specifics are not published, according to Antiwar.com.
But even those pass/fail results are now be hidden from the public record, and the information relating to the functionality and utility of the US nuclear weapons network that seemed so important to deploy during the last century now becomes even more obscure.
