Crazy Canadians Worried

[Texsox]

Missile incident rattles Canada

'Nuclear fallout knows no border,' lawmaker says

 

By MIKE BARBER

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

 

It might not have been a "broken arrow" nuclear missile accident, but a mishap that damaged a Bangor Trident submarine ballistic missile and was kept under wraps by the Navy until this week threatens broken trust on an international scale.

 

Libby Davies, a member of Canada's national parliament from Vancouver East, yesterday said she intends to seek the same kind of answers for Canadians that her U.S. congressional counterparts are seeking for Americans.

 

"If something happens in Bangor, we're the ones upwind. Nuclear fallout knows no border," Davies said.

 

"The whole issue of transparency in government is fundamental to our democratic system. I think when something is covered up it is pretty outrageous."

 

U.S. Reps. Norm Dicks and Jay Inslee have demanded answers, and Thursday are slated to receive a special briefing from Rear Adm. Charles Young, head of the "nuclear Navy's" Strategic Systems Program. The SSP oversees Bangor's Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific, where the accident allegedly occurred.

 

The Nov. 7 incident was first brought to public light last weekend on a Web site, Jaghunter.com, by former Navy Lt. Cmdr. Walt Fitzpatrick. He has had a long-running feud with the Navy to clear his name following a questionable court martial.

 

Military and civilian sources confirmed many of Fitzpatrick's allegations.

 

The incident occurred when a missile being extracted from the USS Georgia's No. 16 tube smacked into an access ladder left in the tube, punching a 9-inch hole in the missile's nose cone.

 

Dicks is the No. 2 ranking Democrat on the powerful House Appropriations subcommittee on defense. Submarine Base Bangor lies in Inslee's district.

 

Dicks and Inslee said they are "troubled" by the lack of information about the accident, serious enough to result in firings a month later of the entire leadership of the strategic weapons facility, announced in December.

 

"Assuming these reports are accurate, the Navy must provide better notification to the Kitsap County community, including local emergency personnel," Inslee said.

 

"The safety of residents and employees is of the utmost importance when moving nuclear weapons. Congressman Dicks and I intend to discuss these allegations with the Navy in the upcoming days, and work to ensure that a comprehensive safety system exists to prevent any incident, such as those alleged in media reports, ... from occurring."

 

Navy officials cite a Defense Department "neither confirm nor deny" directive that handcuffs its spokesmen from discussing nuclear weapons accidents. The Navy denies an accident occurred there last November, but splits hairs over what is an "accident" and what is an "incident."

 

The congressmen want to cut through doublespeak.

 

"We want to know everything," George Behan, Dicks' spokesman, said yesterday. "The Navy has been very much cooperative so far and labors under some constraints because of a Defense Department rather than a Navy policy."

 

Behan said a letter from Davies would be included in Thursday's meeting to punctuate the importance of disclosure.

 

The Navy points to its zero-tolerance policy resulting in the career-ending firings as evidence of how seriously it takes its responsibilities. But while nuclear experts say the possibility of nuclear detonation is highly unlikely, questions left hanging by the Defense Department's silence create concern on both sides of the border about even the smallest potential for plutonium releases or rocket fuel explosions.

 

Davies said questions raised by the Navy's silence can galvanize peace activists on both sides of the border. In 1998, she visited Bangor, leading a "citizens weapons inspection team" to inspect U.S. weapons of mass destruction.

 

"I was the only elected person. We really just wanted to make a point and the point was that all weapons of mass destruction have to be dealt with, not just the ones that were supposed to have been in Iraq," she said.

 

"There is a strong connection between U.S. and Canadian peace activists."