US Air Force tanker planes sit on the tarmac of Incirlik Airbase in southern Turkey
US Air Force tanker planes sit on the tarmac of Incirlik Airbase in southern Turkey (AFP Photo/Tarik Tinazay)
Washington (AFP) – Dozens of US nuclear weapons stored at a Turkish air base near Syria are at risk of being captured by “terrorists or other hostile forces,” a Washington think tank claimed Monday.
Critics have long been alarmed by America’s estimated stockpile of about 50 nuclear bombs at Incirlik in southern Turkey, just 70 miles (110 kilometers) from the border with war-torn Syria.
The issue took on fresh urgency last month following the attempted coup in Turkey, in which the base’s Turkish commander was arrested on suspicion of complicity in the plot.
“Whether the US could have maintained control of the weapons in the event of a protracted civil conflict in Turkey is an unanswerable question,” said Monday’s report from the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank working to promote peace.
Incirlik is a vital base for the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, with the strategically located facility affording drones and warplanes fast access to IS targets.
But the Pentagon in March ordered families of US troops and civilian personnel stationed in southern Turkey to quit the region due to security fears.
“From a security point of view, it’s a roll of the dice to continue to have approximately 50 of America’s nuclear weapons stationed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey,” report co-author Laicie Heeley said.
“There are significant safeguards in place. … But safeguards are just that, they don’t eliminate risk. In the event of a coup, we can’t say for certain that we would have been able to maintain control,” she told AFP.
– ‘Avoided disaster so far’ –
While the Pentagon does not discuss where it stores nuclear assets, the bombs are believed to be kept at Incirlik as a deterrent to Russia and to demonstrate America’s commitment to NATO, the 28-member military alliance that includes Turkey.
The Incirlik nuke issue has been the subject of renewed debate in the United States since the coup attempt.
“While we’ve avoided disaster so far, we have ample evidence that the security of US nuclear weapons stored in Turkey can change literally overnight,” Steve Andreasen, director for defense policy and arms control on the White House National Security Council staff from 1993 to 2001, wrote in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times last week.
Kori Schake, a fellow at the California-based Hoover Institution, noted in a written debate in the New York Times that “American nuclear forces cannot be used without codes, making the weapons impossible to set off without authorization.”
“The fact that nuclear weapons are stationed in Turkey does not make them vulnerable to capture and use, even if the country were to turn hostile to the United States,” she argued.
The Pentagon declined to comment on questions arising from the Stimson study.
“We do not discuss the location of strategic assets. The (Department of Defense) has taken appropriate steps to maintain the safety and security of our personnel, their families, and our facilities, and we will continue to do so,” it said in a statement.
The Incirlik concerns were highlighted as part of a broader paper into the Pentagon’s nuclear modernization program, through which the United States would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to update its atomic arsenal.
The authors argue that a particular type of bomb — the B61 gravity bomb — should be immediately removed from Europe, where 180 of the weapons are kept in Belgium, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey.
The report can be viewed at: http://u.afp.com/ZV9i
Comment Guidelines
Imam and friend shot and killed in New York City
Yahoo News Photo Staff
40 Cosplay Costumes That Will Blow You Away
Detonate.comSponsored
‘This is what hell feels like’: CNN war correspondent says she’s ‘never seen anything’ like Aleppo
Business Insider
Simone Biles Takes Home Her Fourth Gold For Floor Exercise
ABC News Videos
Mother of 5-Year-Old Transgender Girl Fights Texas School District Over Bathroom Access
Good Morning America
19 Most Attractive Female Billionaires
Trend ChaserSponsored
Source: Boy was decapitated on waterslide at Kansas park
Associated Press
Report: Thomas Gibson Suspended From ‘Criminal Minds’ In Wake of Physical Altercation With Producer
TVLine.com
U.S. nukes at Turkey airbase at risk of falling into hands of “terrorists”: report
Newsweek•Aug 15, 2016, 9:29 AM
U.S. nukes at Turkey airbase at risk of falling into hands of “terrorists”: report
Some 50 nuclear weapons owned by the United States and stored at a Turkish air base near the Syrian border are in danger of falling into the hands of “terrorists or other hostile forces,” a think tank said in a new report released on Monday. The Incirlik air base in southern Turkey is situated just 110 kilometers, or 70 miles, from the northern border of Syria, which is now in its sixth year of a deadly civil war. Washington has stored approximately 50 nuclear bombs at the base that the U.S. uses to conduct airstrikes and drone strikes against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). Turkey gave the U.S. permission to use Incirlik for anti-ISIS operations in July 2015. Germany, Britain, Saudi
Read More
Photos of the day – August 15, 2016
Yahoo News Photo Staff
Remember Lynda Carter? We Can’t Look Away!
Your Tailored NewsSponsored
Here’s How the Philippines Can Win in the South China Sea
Foreign Policy Magazine
Video Shows Police Officer Lifting a Woman Off the Ground During Confrontation
ABC News Videos
Olympic weightlifter suffers horrific elbow injury (Warning: graphic video)
Fourth-Place Medal
This is The Reason Almost All Computers Are Slow.
SpeedFixToolSponsored
Ronald Reagan’s Daughter Blasts Trump’s ‘Verbal Violence’
Good Morning America
Controversy arises after Phelps of gymnastics wins men’s all-around gold
Eric Adelson
A briefing for Congress on possibly moving the US’s nuclear weapons from Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base
[Business Insider]
Alex Lockie
Aug 15, 2016, 7:43 AM
us f-15e strike eagle incirlik air base turkey
us f-15e strike eagle incirlik air base turkey
(An F-15E Strike Eagle sits on the flightline at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, Nov. 12, 2015. Six F-15Es from the 48th Fighter Wing deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and counter-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant missions in Iraq and Syria.Airman 1st Class Cory W. Bush/USAF)
Business Insider previously reported on power being cut to Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base during the failed July 15 coup and the situation of some 50 B61 nuclear bombs there, but a new report from the Congressional Research Service shows that a report was compiled on the matter for Congress.
Essentially, the presence of nuclear weapons at Incirlik owes to Cold War tensions and postures between the US and the former Soviet Union. The report asserts that nuclear weapons were stored in Europe, Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere, with a total of about 200 nuclear bombs in Europe.
The weapons at Incirlik are the shorter-range variety, and they are mainly valuable to deter potential aggression and demonstrate the US’s commitment to NATO. However, Incirlik is unusual in that Turkey does not own or maintain nuclear-capable aircraft, and Ankara does not allow the US to fly nuclear-capable bombers to that airbase.
So the bombs that sit in Incirlik can’t actually be used, or they would have to be hauled to another base first.
Are the bombs secure?
B 61 nuclear bombs on rack
B 61 nuclear bombs on rack
(A frontal view of four B-61 nuclear free-fall bombs on a bomb cart at Barksdale Air Force Base.United States Department of Defense SSGT Phil Schmitten)
The report finds the security situation of the bombs adequate, as they are stored in facilities last updated in 2015, are heavily guarded by US troops, and are stored securely underground. To steal or access these bombs, the report suggests, one would need to overwhelm US and NATO forces on one of their own bases, and then come up with some way to haul a 12 foot long, very heavy warhead.
So the report maintains that even with the failed coup, the following turmoil in Turkey’s governance, and the brief loss of commercial power to the base, the nuclear weapons at the base were never in harm’s way.
But is there still good reason to question their presence in Turkey?
Should the US move the nukes?
B61 nuclear bomb
B61 nuclear bomb
(Inert training version of a B61 in an underground Weapons Storage and Security System vault at Volkel Air Base, Netherlands. An access panel on the warhead is open, showing the interface for actions such as PAL (safety/arming) and variable yield setting.USAF)
In its conclusion, the report weighs the alternatives to stationing nuclear weapons at Incirlik. Moving the warheads could possibly encourage Russia to cooperate more and possibly reduce their nuclear stockpile, though nothing guarantees that.
A move could be seen as prudent in light of the evolving and uncertain relationship of the US to Turkey, and the weapon’s current proximity to ISIS territory and the Syrian quagmire, but it would represent a loss of confidence in the Turkish system, and another host country would have to approve the presence of the nukes.
But moving the nukes could also strike the wrong note with NATO. In the Baltics, NATO’s newest and most exposed members count on the US and the broader alliance to provide credible and effective nuclear deterrence against potential Russian aggression.
