The H-Bombs in Turkey
By Eric Schlosser
, July 17, 2016
B-61 nuclear bombs, the same model as
those stored by the U.S. at airbases in various NATO countries, often
under lax safeguards. PHOTOGRAPH BY PHIL SCHMITTEN /UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Among
the many questions still unanswered following Friday’s coup attempt in
Turkey is one that has national-security implications for the United
States and for the rest of the world: How secure are the American
hydrogen bombs stored at a Turkish airbase?The Incirlik Airbase, in southeast Turkey, houses NATO’s largest nuclear-weapons storage facility. On Saturday morning, the American Embassy in Ankara issued an “Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens,” warning that power had been cut to Incirlik and that “local authorities are denying movements on to and off of” the base. Incirlik was forced to rely on backup generators; U.S. Air Force planes stationed there were prohibited from taking off or landing; and the security-threat level was raised to FPCON Delta, the highest state of alert, declared when a terrorist attack has occurred or may be imminent. On Sunday, the base commander, General Bekir Ercan Van, and nine other Turkish officers at Incirlik were detained for allegedly supporting the coup. As of this writing, American flights have resumed at the base, but the power is still cut off.
According to Hans M. Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, underground vaults at Incirlik hold about fifty B-61 hydrogen bombs—more than twenty-five per cent of the nuclear weapons in the NATO stockpile. The nuclear yield of the B-61 can be adjusted to suit a particular mission. The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima had an explosive force equivalent to about fifteen kilotons of TNT. In comparison, the “dial-a-yield” of the B-61 bombs at Incirlik can be adjusted from 0.3 kilotons to as many as a hundred and seventy kilotons. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-h-bombs-in-turkey
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