Umm... about those nukes we loaded up and flew across the country

Just an honest mistake, right? WaPo says yes:
... The officer did not notice that the six on the left contained nuclear warheads, each with the destructive power of up to 10 Hiroshima bombs.

That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during which the missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air base that had no idea nuclear warheads were coming. It was the first known flight by a nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without special high-level authorization, in nearly 40 years.

Former CIA and State Department official says no:
Well, if you buy the nonsense reported in the Washington Post, I have a bridge to sell you.

... You do not walk into an ammo/weapons bunker and sort thru a bunch a cruise missiles like a college freshman searching their laundry basket in the dark for a pair of matching socks.

...So let’s see: not only did the munitions custodian officer lose track of the warheads, but an additional two-man team failed to record the pertinent data, and the pilots did not inspect the weapons. And now we learn that nukes and conventional weapons are stored together willy-nilly?

One main question remains unanswered? Why are such weapons being taken to Barksdale, Louisiana, which is the jump off base for Middle East ops? Just asking.

UPDATE:
(Going thru my mailbox came across the following from a friend and former B-52 pilot. The pilot’s views inform my observations)
...Obviously there are two possibilities: 1. this was an error and the events that occurred were a tragic mistake of far reaching proportions; and 2. the nuclear weapons were moved on purpose.

The United States has had nuclear weapons for over sixty years. Through out this time the tracking, storage and movement of these weapons has been performed without any type of security problem. The chain of custody procedures has been refined to the nith degree to insure that there will never be a mistake. The access to, movement of, and custody of these weapons is so tightly controlled, each serial numbered weapon has to be signed for when possession of it changes (from one person to another), then only after receiving a lawful order to do so. In order to load a nuclear weapon onto an aircraft the Weapon’s Depot Commander must receive a lawful order from above. The order is sent down (in writing) to one of the bomb shelter custodians and the weapon is signed out to a Loader. The Loader, loads the weapon onto an aircraft and will keep the weapon/aircraft under surveillance with the aircraft under armed guard by the Security Police in an isolated protected area until the Aircraft Commander performs his pre-flight inspection on the aircraft and signs a receipt for each of the weapons by serial number. Once delivered at their destination the Aircraft Commander would receive a receipt for the weapons by serial number from the receiving facility.

With all of the necessary orders and paperwork required just to move a nuclear weapon from one room in a storage facility to another, it can be stated with some sort of certainty that this was not a casual mistake as the Department of Defense has eluted to.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201447.html?hpid=topnews

http://www.tpmcafe.com/user/ljohnson

 

I cannot remember where I read it, but I'll look for a link...apparently a lot of folks involved have already met with misfortune.

Found it quicker than I thought.

http://www.legitgov.org/minot_afb_nukes_oddities.html

 

Well, apparently the Army allows majors in Kuwait to award contracts to suppliers with absolutely no oversight so why should nuclear weapons be any different?