Just reading
the description of this system and the confidence its keepers appear to have in it makes me nervous.
Those familiar with the nuclear briefings say they demand a sharp focus.
“It’s not something that someone even with vast experience can easily
digest,” said Leon Panetta, a former secretary of defense intimately
familiar with the briefings.
“He’s got to be ready from the get-go
to respond if necessary,” Panetta said. “There really is a long
process, a classified process, that involves a lot of checks in the
system to make sure no mistakes are made. It involves a number of key
people.”
Clearly this is the set up to an awful and inevitable punchline. And that's even before we add Trump to the equation. Now that he's there, though. Well..
From the day Trump takes the oath of office, a military aide will
shadow him everywhere, carrying a black satchel containing the system to
convey a nuclear launch order. The satchel is popularly known as “the
football.”
“His first briefing will be just about how the process
works: ‘There will be a military aide with you at all times and he has
the football,’ ” said P.J. Crowley, a retired Air Force officer and special assistant on national security affairs to former President Bill Clinton.
Trump
will learn how a launch order would “send key people to underground
bunkers,” Crowley said. “That’s a critical dimension of this. Even for
the Strategic Command out in Nebraska, this would send an airborne
command up in the air.”
The black satchel operates with a dual key
system, and part of the system is for the president to take a card from
his pocket to input the correct codes.
“The card itself is critical to begin the process that activates the system,” Panetta said.
Everyone in grown-up media world is lecturing everyone else about paying too much attention to
random shit Trump tweets out. But I kind of think this is a perfect week to be watching. You never know what he might post.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article117054908.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article117054908.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article117054908.html#storylink=cpy
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