Scott: What is up? It is Thursday, March 19. I am Scott Evans and Channel One News
starts right now.
Time to take a look at what's making headlines, and first up we head to the country of
Tunisia where gunmen opened fire inside a museum and targeted tourists.
The drama unfolded yesterday on live television with local media reporting as men
dressed in military style clothing carrying weapons took hostages inside a popular
national museum in the country's capital.
Police eventually stormed the museum, which sits next to one of Tunisia's main
government buildings, the Parliament House. At least 21 people are dead, 17 of them
tourists. Two gunmen were also killed.
Police say it is still unclear who the attackers were, and they are still looking for several
more gunmen who may have been involved.
Next up, we head to the country of Israel where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
party pulled off an election win after a tight race.
It was a surprising comeback for the prime minister of Israel who had been trailing in
recent weeks. But in a last minute push for votes, Netanyahu said, if elected, he will not
create a Palestinian state, a reversal from his past position. Palestinians live in
neighboring territories currently under Israeli control.
The stance puts him at odds with the Obama administration and much of the
international community which has been working to create a separate nation for
Palestinians, often called a two state solution. It will also likely put an end to peace talks
with the Palestinians.
That is it for headlines, coming up we take a look at nuclear weapons, ready to launch
from here in the U.S. with the flip of a switch.
All week long we have been focusing on nuclear weapons, who has them, and the first
and only time they were used in war. But today we focus on the thousands of nuclear
weapons right here in our own backyard.
Maggie Rulli continues her series as she spends time with the people who keep them
safe and ready to go.
Maggie: We’re flying over the deadliest weapons in the world. Right underneath that
ordinary patch of concrete is a Minuteman III missile armed with a nuclear weapon.
The United States currently has nearly 2000 active nuclear weapons, ready to use on a
minutes notice. Around 450 of them are kept underground on bases across the country,
in the backyards of rural America.
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Like here at Minot Air Force base in North Dakota.
So out this window right now, it is private property, farms, cows; but if you take a look
just out the other side, on the other window is a lawn facility with missile, a nuclear
asset underground.
Here, we are met with tight security, checked, and accounted for.
We are brought underground…
I think this is the fifth time we have had our ids checked so far.
…and past blast doors made of eight tons of reinforced steal. The doors, along with
everything else down here, were designed in the 1960s. We see ancient looking
keyboards and binders being used to store sensitive documents.
Elias Corcho: Right now technology is so advanced that it would be very difficult for a
technical expert to interact with something that is so old. They would probably be
confused and wouldn't know how to jam it.
Maggie: It is old technology being used by young missileers, men and women like Elias
Corcho and his deputy Oliver Parsons.
They're the ones who would launch a nuclear weapon.
Have you ever been nervous?
Oliver Parsons: There's been a few times when things go a different way than you kind
of expect. It’s a lot of responsibility but we really take that responsibility to heart.
Maggie: What's it like to know that at the end of the day, you are the one launching the
nuclear weapon? What’s that responsibility like?
Andy Partham: It is a massive, massive responsibility. It's something that people take
very very seriously and that we train very very hard for. And it's not taken lightly by
anybody, I can tell you that.
Maggie: In order to launch a bomb, they need classified codes, codes that can only
come from president of the United States.
So, one of you couldn't go rouge?
Corcho: Nope. Not possible.
Maggie: We are told that while the tech is outdated, the security is state of the art.
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Maggie: The missile is protected with a 110 ton concrete door on top. The building has
sensors that can measure if someone is trying to dig a tunnel underneath. And of
course, a highly trained team of security forces with the authority to kill intruders on the
spot.
Gen. Garrett Harencak: So what you have today is this triad of submarines, missiles
and bombers all doing one thing and one thing only. And that’s preventing, preventing a
nuclear war.
Maggie: Minot is one of only two bases in the country that operates a B-52, a plane
capable of carrying a nuclear bomb.
So if needed, this plane could carry twenty nuclear capable missiles?
Mike Devito: And we train to that quite frequently.
Maggie: Mike Devito has logged more than 2000 hours as a B-52 pilot, and says the
plane’s ability to fly around the world nonstop shows that the United States can drop a
nuclear weapon anytime, anywhere in the world.
Devito: We can take off from here in Minot, fly to somewhere in the Middle East, drop a
bomb on somebody within feet of accuracy, and then fly back and then land.
Maggie: But these missions also rely on 50-year-old technology.
Harencak: And let me explain just how old to you.
Maggie: Major General Harencak runs nuclear operations for the chief of staff of the Air
Force.
Harencak: In 1984, I flew B-52. Today, my son is a captain in the United States Air
Force. He flies the same airplane, the same tail number.
Maggie: So it is more than 50 years old you rely on it to fly these missions. Does that
ever worry you?
Travis Halleman: No. That’s one great thing they did during the Cold War days, is they
over designed everything. So the plane is sturdy like you can’t believe. We have the
best maintenance rates of all the planes.
Maggie: Have you ever felt nervous that there was a potential of some sort of close call.
Hallenman: Not in the least bit. With us, it’s having the systems in place so that there's a
backup to the backup to the backup.
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Maggie: But the safety record of America's nuclear system has been called into
question.
Eric Schlosser: Throughout the Cold War and since the Cold War there's been a real
effort not to reveal information about nuclear weapons accidents.
Maggie: Eric says the Department of Defense claims there were serious accidents
during the Cold War from 1947 - 1991. Yet he discovered more than 1200 in the just 18
years after 1950.
How much do you think the government isn't telling us?
Schlosser: I think there's still a fair amount that has never been revealed. Some of the
Freedom of Information Act searches I did, it took two, two and a half years to get the
documents. And when I’d get the documents, there'd be a great deal that had been
redacted, that’d been crossed out so you couldn't read it.
Maggie: We reached out to the Department of Defense. They said they had nothing
more to add when we showed them the difference in numbers.
We currently spend an average of 20 billion dollars a year on our nuclear weapons
programs, making America the world’s leading spender on nukes.
General Harencak admits the military is using relics from the past. He says he needs
more money to upgrade and fix the outdated equipment.
Harencak: Just like if you tried to have a flip phone. Try to get a flip phone fixed. We still
have flip phones in the military. It still works, but you can’t get it fixed. You can't find
parts for it.
Maggie: The cost of the entire U.S. nuclear mission is expected to grow up to one trillion
dollars over the next three decades.
Tomorrow, we take look at how America’s aging and expensive nuclear program stacks
up against the rest of the world, and debate if this investment is even worth it in the first
place.
Maggie Rulli, Channel One News.
Scott: Thanks Maggie. It is pretty unreal to see those nukes underground like that.
Alright coming up, from weapons to waddles, some new facts about penguins that may
surprise you.
Keith: So Scott. What comes to mind when you think of a penguin?
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Scott: The way they walk.
Keith: And do you know why they walk that way?
Scott: Yeah, because they don’t have knees Keith.
Keith: Not quite. But some scientist may have figured it out. Take a look.
They are birds that swim like fish and walk like people. Well, it is more of a waddle.
James Proffitt: People find them irresistibly charming. It costs a lot of energy to waddle
and people want to know why.
Now, researchers are trying to answer that question.
Keith: James Proffitt of the University of Texas and a team from the Royal Veterinary
College designed a pad, full of sensors, to measure the force the birds apply as they
waddle along.
And the team found, the waddle had a purpose.
Proffitt: What they have found out actually is that they're probably saving a bit of energy
too because they are using this kind of motion to do this weird sort of, to help them with
the fact that they have short legs.
Keith: Not so silly after all.
Scott: You learn something new every day.
Keith: That’s for sure Scott.
Scott: Now we are almost out of time. But before we go, we want to say we love seeing
all your "I am not cool" posts. So keep them coming. We are glad you guys liked the
story. Well, have a great one and we will see you tomorrow.
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