Communications with numerous nuclear missiles at an Air Force base in Wyoming were disrupted over the weekend, according to an Associated Press report published yesterday. Without identifying the cause of the incident, U.S. military officials said that a computer failed, leading to the lapse, which apparently occurred on Saturday. The government failed to reconnect communication for approximately 45 minutes. The White House was reportedly not briefed about the incident until yesterday. The Air Force, stating that missile launch capability was not compromised, claims that there is no evidence of foul play.
AP reported that the sudden failure to communicate affected 50 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or one-ninth of the U.S. arsenal. ICBMs at other U.S. military aviation bases were apparently not affected. According to an Air Force spokesman, the mysterious event disrupted “communication between the control center and the missiles, but during that time they were still able to monitor the security of the affected missiles,” which he said were always protected. The spokesman said that Air Force could not confirm the source of the problem. The military failure was initially reported on The Atlantic magazine’s Web site.
In an apparently unrelated series of other mysterious incidents aimed at U.S. military installations, according to the FBI’s Web site, the FBI announced that it has opened an investigation into three shootings that have occurred in northern Virginia since October 17. The feds say that evidence confirms that shots fired in the early morning at the Triangle, Virginia-based National Museum of the Marine Corps and shots fired in the early morning in a parking lot at the Pentagon (located in Arlington, Virginia) involved the same weapon. Tests are being conducted for a third shooting incident, which occurred a few days ago at the Marine Corps Recruiting Station in Chantilly, Virginia, though today’s Washington Post reports that law enforcement officials suspect there may be a connection to the earlier shooting incidents. Previous reports indicate that officials believe a high-powered rifle may have been used in at least two of the shootings.
Is it possible Islamic jihadists are testing U.S. military preparedness? The answer is unknown, but I think it is safe to assume that Moslem terrorists and their state sponsors, such as Iran, are certainly planning attacks on foreign and domestic United States civilian and military sites. And we know from the U.S. military response during the September 11, 2001 act of war that America’s defense, like the nuclear missile communications shutdown, is capable of total failure. [Update 10/28/10: The Chantilly military shooting has been linked to the other two shootings, according to the FBI, which released this statement: “A shooting at a military-related facility in Chantilly, Va., has been linked to two earlier shootings at similar facilities, laboratory tests show.”]