What went missing on President George H.W. Bush’s Watch?

When one reads about the pressure that the US and UK Governments put on countries like Iran and North Korea, it is hard to believe they have been negligent in the care of their own weapons. They claim such high moral standards when trying to stop Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), but are ready to use such evil weapons themselves.

Readers may find it incredible to know that as a result of gross negligence, three US nuclear missiles went missing without trace and have ended up in the hands of someone else. And three nuclear weapons that should have gone to the US for decommissioning were purchased in a very shady way by the British Government, and also went missing without trace…

The United Nations was never informed. Who was involved in this pathetic fiasco and why was it kept so secret? No one really knows where the nukes are now or who could use them, and because of this, any action taken by the West without due consideration could prove a catastrophic mistake.

Let’s go back to the period when SRAM Nuclear Missiles were fully developed and ready to be used. SRAM missiles become fairly unstable under certain conditions and were eventually pulled out of service (or so we thought). Let’s look at this terrible weapon and understand its background and how many could be carried aboard a B52 Bomber.

SRAM (short range attack missile, AGM 69A): the air-surface missile at the time it went missing contained a Plutonium Warhead W69M (200KT thermo-nuclear). The AGM69A missile was first manufactured in 1971-76; around 1,500 were produced. There were retired between 1991 and 1994, though they were removed from active service in 1990 due to fire safety concerns.

Unknown to the United Nations and many other countries, the US was playing a cat and mouse game with Iraq during Gulf War 1 and it was on President George H.W. Bush’s watch that things went terribly wrong during one of his major bluffs! He authorized a B52 Bomber to depart its Saudi Arabian Air Base loaded with SRAM Nuclear Missiles, and position overhead Baghdad. We were led to believe this aircraft had only three missiles onboard, though it could carry twenty missiles. Bush’s idea was to threaten Saddam with these nuclear weapons unless he toed the line.

The B52 with registration number 59-2593 suddenly encountered a major electrical problem which could have been catastrophic. The aircraft commander was instructed to head south as he continued to attempt to sort out the problem. The aircraft eventually was instructed to head for Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Well into this flight, things became more critical and the crew was aware of the cargo of potentially unstable weapons.

It was decided to jettison the weapons off the coast of Somalia in relatively shallow water (one assumes for possible later recovery), and then proceed to land at Diego Garcia. The onboard electrical system had obviously become extremely critical, resulting in the aircraft loosing power to its eight engines as it attempted to get back to Diego Garcia. The aircraft started to loose height and prior to arriving at the field, some crew members ejected. The aircraft had by this time dropped to below its safe ejection height and the remainder of the crew ejected, but failed to deploy their chutes and consequently died, according to reliable sources. The aircraft crashed into the sea 15 nautical miles north of the field on 3 February 1991.

Dick Cheney, US Secretary of Defense, took no immediate action to recover the weapons from off the coast of Somalia. They were recovered by a shady organization in May 19991, supposedly a deep sea diving/ treasure salvage team working in offshore Somalia area. This diving company was operating out of the Seychelles and was apparently a cover for a South African arms smuggling operation into Somalia.

Apparently the apartheid-era South African military was sending packages of conventional arms to groups in Somalia, and dropping them in shallow water. The divers couldn’t find these packages and accidentally came across the SRAMs. They allegedly relayed their serial numbers via the UK to a retired senior officer in the USAF to find out what they were. The reply was that these were nuclear munitions from the B-52. It is stated that a South African arms dealer was also involved in the missing UK nuclear weapons (discussed later).

The group got in touch with South Africa defense minister Magnus Malan, notorious for his under the table arms dealing. He met the group in South Africa but told them that the deal was off as he had just been fired by De Klerk. The trail of these weapons then faded into obscurity and no one knows their final destination. There was talk of North Korea, Iran, Syria and Iraq, but we may never know.

What is claimed is that at one stage some nuclear weapons did end up in Iraq (US or British), but were relocated. I personally feel one made it to North Korea and was detonated in one of their first tests. The second test in North Korea was totally different and could have been one of the UK’s missing weapons. Should this be the case, we still have two US missiles missing and possibly two UK bombs.

The greatest concern in all this gross neglect by the two governments is - who has these weapons now?

What went missing on Prime Minister Thatcher’s Watch?

Three nuclear weapons went missing from under the nose of the good old Brit’s. Over one million Iraqis may have died because of our gross neglect; thousands of troops died for nothing!

Turn the clock back to 1989 when a young, wet behind the ears, David Cameron [Conservative Party leader] broke the stringent embargo on South Africa and paid a quick but purposeful visit to the Deep South. We understand that he was accompanied by another illustrious Conservative figure with some technical know-how under his belt.

Why did dear Maggie Thatcher take such a risk in sending her cavalry to South Africa? Was this an opportunity for some shadowy arms dealer to make big money and possibly slip a few bucks in the kitty fund of the Conservative Party?

This cloak and dagger operation went terrible wrong and resulted in the eventual assassination of dear Dr. David Kelly (sorry, it was suicide, wasn’t it?). What was going on in South Africa that basically became the source of war in Iraq; why haven’t these culprits been punished; and who else knew about this British monumental bloomer? Did the Labour Party also know about this mess? They did… dear Dr. Kelly also knew in great detail!

It all boils down to a nuclear weapons programme kept hidden from the United Nations by both the US and UK governments. South Africa hid a lot of extremely nasty stuff from the world, but US and UK knew everything, just like partners in crime.

Go back a little further to the time when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. It was in Rhodesia that Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW) were fine-tuned and eventually moved lock, stock, and barrel to South Africa along with the experts. All this CBW transfer was under the watchful eye of the British Government; the US joined this evil development.

Way back in the 1960s, the Portuguese used Chemical Warfare by poisoning water wells, drugged prisoners, and threw them out of aircraft. Other evil ways were developed in Rhodesia, such as psychological warfare, covert executions, and deployment of ingenious booby traps and toxic substances. They employed: poisonous chemicals in clothing, canned food, drinks, and aspirin; and lethal biological agents such as cholera and anthrax to contaminate water supplies and farmland.

It was reported in 1977 that several 25-gallon drums of chemicals were delivered, sun-dried, and ground into a powder. The noxious powder was later brushed onto the denim clothing favoured by guerrillas, mixed into processed meat such as bully beef before being repacked in new cans, or injected into bottles of alcohol with a micro-needle. Several prisoners were forcibly used to determine the effects of the poisons, their corpses disposed off secretly.

The Rhodesians made several attempts to disseminate lethal CBW agents, in particular Vibrio cholera and Bacillus anthracis. Rhodesian Special Air Service (SAS) dropped anthrax spores from an aircraft near Plumtree on the Botswana border in experiments to try to kill cattle in the Gutu, Chilimanzi, Masvingo, and Mberengwa areas.  

The purpose of including this CBW programme in this nuke story is to reveal that historically the US and UK have been closely associated with WMD/CBW and willingly approved such programmes. If we recall the Anthrax letter scare in the US, one can see the way such practices can get out of hand. The US and UK government always applied pressure on the UN in regard to Saddam’s use of CBW on Iran and the Kurds when they themselves gave the Iraqis the chemicals; how duplicitous can you get?

Now look at another special operation that followed the transfer of CBW to South Africa - known as “Project Coast.” This was the development, testing, and utilization of a wide array of hard-to-trace toxic agents to assassinate enemies of South Africa, but went far beyond… Some plans included drugging victims before tossing their bodies out of an airplane into the ocean, similar to tactics used in Rhodesia.

The substances employed in the assassination program included potentially lethal chemicals such as aldicarb, brodifacum, cantharidin, colchamine, cyanide, digoxin, methanol, monensin, paraoxon, paraquat, phencyclidine, phosphide, silatrane, sodium azide, thallium, and vitamin D3; biological agents such as anthrax spores, botulinum toxin, brucella bacteria, salmonella bacteria, mamba venom, and cholera bacteria. A wide variety of foodstuffs, beverages, household items, and cigarettes were contaminated with these poisons.

Methods of delivery included turning rings, screwdrivers, walking sticks, and umbrellas into assassination devices by adding poison compartments and injectors and firing mechanisms for poisoned pellets [the world of James Bond really exists]. The evil regime that existed at the time intended to create a “Black only Bomb” to specifically target the black populations of South Africa. This bomb would directly attack their genetics with the minimum result of making black Africans sterile.

It may be appropriate to mention here that Dr. David Kelly, British arms inspector and micro biologist, always knew too much about the illegal arms trade to the Middle East, including the real story about WMDs in Iraq. The official story of his 2003 death says suicide, but there are 13 doctors who challenge his autopsy report as being suicide, and witnesses that first attended the body said the police fabricated the finding…. Many observers close to the case claim Dr. Kelly was anything but suicidal. They contend the follow-up investigation was appalling; the Hutton Commission set up by British Parliament to investigate Kelly’s death covered up important facts that would have implicated high-ranking British and American officials. The Kelly murder has now been officially covered up for 70 years!!!

Informed circles believe Dr. Kelly knew all about the “Black only Bomb” and missing nuclear weapons. He may have been assigned to look into some aspects of the above by both Maggie Thatcher and John Major; his implication would have put two very senior politicians in the firing line had he divulged this knowledge to the media or in his book. It is believed Dick Cheney was disturbed that Dr. Kelly could spill the beans on all of the above as also information concerning missing nuclear weapons. At the time of Kelly’s assassination Tony Blair just happened to be in the US and was awarded a Gold Medal but never received it…

Dr Kelly had gone through a very rough patch with the British political elite; many people in high places were aware he could spill the beans on deadly secrets that could topple governments, especially the CBW programme in South Africa to which Thatcher was privy. Biological weapons research continues and remains a taboo subject. The 2001 Anthrax attacks in the US proved the programme was very much alive…

Certain Conservatives supported the “Black only Bomb” and other under-the-radar operations. There existed an illegal arms trade which then amounted to 55 million pounds (as a starter). Money would flow from government sources to the arms dealers for weapons provided to both Iran and Iraq, a clear case of “You reap in the harvest of your own making”.

Now, the South African Nuclear Industry managed to make 10 nuclear weapons without the United Nations ever finding out. The US and UK Governments certainly knew, and we know that David Cameron and others travelled to South Africa in violation of international law, and further violated international law by dealing with nuclear weapons not known to the UN!! Who else joined this masquerade… one had the initials DW; another KW.

South Africa reportedly started its weapons nuclear research programme as early as 1973. In 1977, the Atomic Energy Board completed manufacture of South Africa’s first full-scale nuclear explosive device based on a gun-type design. The Israelis helped South Africa achieve it first success when, on 22 September 1979, a US Vela surveillance satellite detected a distinct light event off Africa’s southern coast - believed to be the first test of a nuclear bomb. South Africa designed and built a total of 10 fully operational weapons, ready for use! This left 9 weapons in the stockpile.

In August 1988, Roelof Frederik ‘Pik’ Botha, South African foreign minister, announced his nation had “the capability to make one [a nuclear weapon]” should it wish to. A month later, in September 1988, South Africa sent a letter to IAEA Director General Hans Blix expressing willingness to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if certain conditions were met, primarily that South Africa be allowed to market its uranium subject to IAEA safeguards.

Less than two years later, the de Klerk government terminated the nuclear weapons program. All nuclear devices were dismantled and destroyed… the paragraph read - “That in less than two years all nuclear devices were dismantled and destroyed” – BUT that was not the case!!

In 1989, David Cameron and others went to South Africa to carry out a sinister plan that led to just 6 operational nuclear weapons going to the US for de-commissioning. The remaining three were to be purchased by the British Government as a standby mechanism against Saddam Hussain. And this is all under the radar of the United Nations!

So who was involved in this under the table deal, who paid for the nukes and where did they go? Did anyone in the UK receive a significant ‘donation’; whom; what amount? Did other leaders get to know; were their palms brushed?

[To be continued…]

Peter Eyre, a former British Naval officer, worked at NATO headquarters, and spent a lot of time in the Middle East and South East Asia as a petroleum consultant; he lives in the UK and writes regularly for the Palestine Telegraph. The views and contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the author and the publishers are not responsible or liable for any inaccurate statements contained therein