HOT NEWS/ Smuggled stones hidden in cocaine containers are discovered!

 Kliko këtu për të tjera
Voxpress:

How Bill Clinton once lost nuclear codes for months

2022-09-23 21:35:55Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA CHRISTOPHER WOODY
How Bill Clinton once lost nuclear codes for months
A marine with a suitcase of nuclear codes

The process the president must go through to release US nuclear weapons is not as simple as pressing a button, but the key component of that process – the codes needed to authorize the release – are never far from the president.

At least they don't have to be.

According to General Hugh Shelton, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1997 to September 2001, the number of mistakes that can occur during the nuclear launch process "is staggering."

All steps "depend on a vital element without which there can be no departure," he wrote in his 2010 autobiography, "Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior."

The president's authorization codes are supposed to remain with the president at all times, carried by one of 5 military aides representing each branch of the military. The codes are on a card nicknamed the "cookie" kept inside the "football" - a bag officially known as the "president's emergency bag".

However, around 2000, according to Shelton, a member of the department within the Pentagon that is responsible for all parts of the nuclear process was sent to the White House to physically look at the codes and make sure they were correct -- a procedure which is required to occur every 30 days. (The code set is now completely replaced every 4 months.)

That official was told by a presidential aide that President Bill Clinton had the codes, but that he was in an important meeting and could not be bothered.

The aide assured the official that Clinton took the codes seriously and that they were with him. The official was initially stunned, but he accepted her excuse and left.

When the next inspection took place the following month, that official was on vacation, according to Shelton, and another official was sent to the White House. The new official was met with the same excuse – the president is very busy, but he takes the codes very seriously and has them in hand.

"This comedy of errors continued, unbeknownst to President Clinton, I'm sure, until finally it was time to gather up the current batch and replace them with the new edition," Shelton writes.

"At this point we learned that the assistant had no idea where the old people were, as they had been missing for months," he added. "The president never had them, but he assumed, I'm sure, that his aide had them — as indeed he should."

Shelton and then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen were alarmed.

The problem of the missing codes was solved by changing them, but they quickly moved to change the process itself, requiring a Defense Department official visiting the White House to physically see the codes.

Shelton and Cohen feared the saga would reach the press and become an embarrassing story. But word of the missing codes was never released, and Shelton's account in his 2010 book was, to his knowledge, the first time it had been shared publicly.

“This is a big deal — a giant deal — and we dodged a silver bullet,” Shelton writes, adding, “You do everything you can and think you have a foolproof system, but somehow someone always seems to find a way to screw it up.”/  Business Insider


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

Video

SHIKO KANALIN NE YOUTUBE
×