The Air Force Totally Lied to You About the Fiery Fate of Its Stealth Bomber

• BY David Axe, War is Boring
• JANUARY 8, 2014 - 07:43 AM

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On Feb. 26, 2010, a U.S. Air Force B-2 stealth bomber forward-deployed to America's giant Pacific air base in Guam was getting ready for a training flight when one of its four jet engines burst into flames.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze and the crew escaped unharmed. A Guam newspaper phoned Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Kenneth Hoffman, who reassured the paper that the fire was "minor."
But that was a lie -- the depth of which is still becoming apparent, four years later. The cover-up is one of a long chain of obfuscations by the U.S. military in the wake of serious and even fatal accidents involving its most high-tech and expensive warplanes.
Far from being minor, the fire underneath the radar-evading B-2's skin caused serious damage that rendered it unable to fly -- a big deal, considering that the Air Force possesses only 20 of the giant bombers. The B-2s, normally based in Missouri, are the only long-range American warplanes able to slip past heavy enemy defenses.
Northrop Grumman built 21 B-2s for the Air Force between the 1980s and early 2000s at a total cost of more than $40 billion. A small number of the bat-wing bombers rotate through Guam in order to put them within quick flying time of America's Pacific rivals, including China. But the Pacific ops are risky: in 2008, a B-2 crashed in Guam, reducing the stealth bomber fleet to just 20 planes.
Losing another B-2 in Guam not two years later obviously had the potential to be hugely embarrassing for the flying branch. For more than a year after Hoffman dismissed the latest accident as "minor," no one outside of the Air Force had any idea that the B-2, named Spirit of Washington, had nearly been destroyed and was, in fact, stuck in Guam.
The Air Force did not list the fire in its official tally of B-2 mishaps, but a presentation by a pair of military researchers in October 2010 did acknowledge the incident ... and stressed the unexpected difficulties that airmen faced trying to smother a blaze underneath the bomber's special radar-absorbing skin.
The first major indication that Hoffman, and indeed the entire Air Force, had been less than truthful about the B-2's condition came in August 2011, when the flying branch released a feel-good official story describing efforts to get Spirit of Washington back into flying shape so that the bomber could return to the mainland United States for permanent repairs.
The official story ret-conned the bomber fire to "horrific" and described the "Herculean" task of shipping new parts to Guam in order to patch up the crippled airplane, get it back into the air and shepherd it across the vast Pacific to Northrop Grumman's secretive stealth warplane factory in Palmdale, California. "The task list was long and included rebuilding some structural components," the Air Force admitted.
Reporters were incensed.

Spirit of Washington spent the next two years in Palmdale being rebuilt by Northrop Grumman in the same facility that produces top-secret stealth drones. Another official story in December 2013 detailed the huge extent of the repair work. "A percentage of the parts could be re-manufactured, but other parts could only be obtained from Air Force spare parts depots."
On Dec. 16 last year, the restored Spirit of Washington took off on its first training sortie since the 2010 fire. Four days later, the Air Force deigned to announce the bomber's return to duty-and the increase in the operational B-2 fleet from 19 airframes to 20.
The cover-up is consistent with the Pentagon's handling of incidents involving its most sophisticated warplanes, which besides the B-2 also include the F-22 stealth fighter and the V-22 tiltrotor. The complex V-22 takes off and lands like a helicopter but cruises like an airplane thanks to its rotating engine nacelles.
For years, F-22 pilots complained of oxygen deprivation apparently resulting from inadequate equipment in the high- and fast-flying plane, which costs up to $300 million apiece. In 2010, Capt. Jeff Haney died after crashing his F-22 in Alaska. The evidence strongly indicated that Haney had blacked out, but that did not stop the Air Force from blaming the accident on pilot error.
Likewise, the Air Force and Marines' finicky V-22s-purchased for $100 million a pop-crash and burn at a rate much higher than the official statistics admit. When a V-22 went down in Afghanistan in 2010, killing four people, the Air Force blamed the crew despite evidence that the tiltrotor's engines had failed in mid-flight.
And when lead accident investigator Brig. Gen Donald Harvel protested, the flying branch brass mounted a coordinated campaign to discredit and silence him.
The Pentagon seems to want Americans believe that its high-tech warplanes rarely malfunction. The reality is that crashes and fires are shockingly common, expensive and deadly.
First published on Medium.com's War Is Boring collection.

Air Force photo

The Cuban Paradox

Why is Havana so cautious about reform? Perhaps because its reformer-in-chief is also a stalwart of the revolution.

• BY Javier Corrales
• JANUARY 6, 2014

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• Politics
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On Jan. 1, Cuba marked the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Cuban revolution, when the country's citizens rose up to topple the weak and short-lived dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The revolution led to a power vacuum that was quickly filled by the powerful and long-lived dictatorship of Fidel Castro. Fidel ruled Cuba until 2006, when, citing health reasons, he transferred power to his brother, current President Raúl Castro. (In the photo above, Raúl participates in a ceremony to mark the anniversary in Santiago de Cuba.)
Aside from the fact that Cuba's socialist state has managed to endure for 55 years, there is little for Raúl to celebrate. Cuba's overall income and caloric consumption per capita today are not that much higher than they were in 1958. In 1958, Cuba was at the top among Latin American nations in terms of the number of newspapers, TV stations, TV sets, telephones, and automobiles per capita; today, it is at the bottom.  The government claims that independence from Washington was a significant achievement, but today the Revolution is embarrassingly dependent on Miami, which in 2013 sent remittances amounting to $5.1 billion, enough to provide $1000 for every Cuban worker in a country where the average annual salary is less than $260.
Cuba is a developmental anomaly. It has some of the highest numbers in average years of schooling in the world (as is typical in totalitarian states), but also has one of the lowest economic growth rates in the world. It is hard to find a comparable case: typically, these higher averages go hand-in-hand with higher incomes.
Many blame the U.S. embargo for Cuba's economic underperformance. But the embargo has always been offset by the massive subsidies that the Soviet Union provided during the Cold War and that the petro-state of Venezuela has provided since 2001. And yet, despite these direct subsidies (and Cuba's newly burgeoning trade relations with countries around the world), the state is still unable to produce anything efficiently.
Cuba's only value-added export is the talent of its people, who have been emigrating in droves for the past 55 years despite the lack of civil strife since the mid-1960s. This year, the government liberalized exit visas (though it did not lower the cost of passports), leading to a 35 percent increase in departures relative to 2012. So far, only 45 percent of those who managed to "travel abroad" have decided to return.
Medical doctors also leave in large numbers, usually as part of the state's foreign missions. But Cuban doctors often take the order to go abroad happily: they seem to prefer working in the slums of Venezuela, Brazil, and Haiti to the "socialist paradise" they call home, even though they are paid only a fraction of what the Cuban government charges for these services.
The Cuban economy's dysfunctional nature has not escaped Raúl Castro. In fact, the economy's trials have become a favorite theme in his speeches. Every time he has a chance to talk about local conditions, Raúl admonishes some aspect of the status quo: the "inefficiency" of state-owned companies, the "laziness and proclivity to stealing" of Cuban workers, the "corruption" of managers and bureaucrats, the "absenteeism" of teachers, the "complacency" of the party's leadership, the decline of "morals" and even "manners" of Cuba's youth. While Fidel Castro was the denier-in-chief, famous for speeches that were groundlessly triumphalist and blind to the regime's catastrophes, Raúl does nothing but complain about the system.

Whereas Fidel was the Revolution's greatest propagandist, Raúl has become the Revolution's most outspoken fault-finder.

Whereas Fidel was the Revolution's greatest propagandist, Raúl has become the Revolution's most outspoken fault-finder. Raúl Castro's attention to the system's flaws is no doubt a breath of fresh air for Cubans tired of living in la-la land. It has compelled Raúl to introduce some of the most sweeping market-oriented reforms of the last 55 years. But the problem is that Cuba's president is acting both as a reformer and a stalwart of the long-standing revolutionary regime. Raúl wants to reform and preserve the system, and this is producing hesitant and confusing reforms.
Raúl's deep roots have made him as repressive as he is open, limiting the economy and curtailing private enterprise. On the one hand, Raúl has created more opportunities for Cubans to become self-employed, to use remittances from exiles, and to buy and sell their assets such as homes and vehicles. These are huge reforms. Today, a record number of Cubans -- 444,109, to be exact -- have obtained self-employment licenses, and a real estate market is burgeoning for the first time since the revolution. From a fiscal point of view, these economic reforms have been successful: fiscal revenues from the private sector are up by 18 percent since 2011.
But as is typical of old-line communists, and especially of his brother, Fidel, Raúl remains apprehensive about the private sector. He worries that the private sector could become too large and thus able to challenge the state's stranglehold on society. Therefore, rather than boosting the private sector with further reforms, the government is holding fast to restrictive policies.
Key areas of the economy remain closed to competition. Self-employment is still banned in most professions that require advanced skills, such as engineering, architecture, software development, and the medical sciences. Large-scale hiring is prohibited, so private enterprise is limited to micro firms and family businesses. Credit for the private sector is virtually non-existent. The self-employed continue to be overregulated; many are closing their businesses because they cannot afford taxes or find enough customers, since the bulk of the population is still employed by the state and receives meager wages. Consequently, the self-employed sector remains far below the goal of 1.5 million individuals set by Raúl when he launched his reforms in 2011.
Raúl's reformer/conservative duality is equally visible in politics. He has expanded the freedom of expression in a number of decrees that liberalize access to cell phones and the Internet -- major steps in the expansion of speech opportunities. Raúl has also voluntarily supported a new amendment to Cuba's constitution that establishes a five-year term limit -- a move that is remarkable even by contemporary Latin American standards, where presidents are wont to relax rather than restrict term limits. Earlier in 2013, he said this would be his last term, which means that he intends to leave office in 2018. And internationally, Cuba is fully cooperating with peace talks in Colombia, a process that is vital for U.S. interests in South America.
But meanwhile, Raúl has also increased Cuba's political repression. Arbitrary detentions have increased from 2,074 in 2010 to more than 5,300 in 2013. The state arrested more than 909 human rights activists in October 2013 alone. This included some members of the Ladies in White, a peaceful, pro-human rights women's association fighting for the rights of Cuban prisoners. Cuba Archive, an organization that monitors human rights, argues that under Raúl's government, the state has overseen at least 166 deaths and disappearances, all politically-motivated, including the possible assassination of Cuba's most important civil rights leader, Oswaldo Payá, in 2012. Politically, therefore, Cuba is not moving forward, but backwards.
Maintaining his old-line roots, the Cuban president also continues to privilege the military over any other sector. During his tenure as minister of defense, Raúl oversaw military operations, and after becoming president, he accelerated Cuba's transition to a pseudo-military regime by appointing key military officials to his cabinet, often to replace civilian fidelistas to consolidate the transition to his own government. Raúl also increased the military's control of industries in Cuba that engage in foreign trade. And though Raúl is critical of almost every sector, he never criticizes the military. In fact, he is openly supportive of it. Just this year, the government launched the construction of three new "military cities," state-of-the-art housing development projects for members of the Armed Forces.
In political science, we are not that surprised by duality. From Russia to China to the Arab World, new leaders often emerge who try to act simultaneously as reformers and old-liners, hoping to overhaul the status quo while maintaining the main elements of the existing regime. While political scientists expect one side to prevail, they are used to the idea of conflicted leaders.
But in Washington, this duality only worsens the divide between those who favor rapprochement and those who oppose it. Raúl's duality raises hope among some groups who feel the time is ripe for the United States to open to Cuba, and vice versa. But others see Raúl the old-liner, and they become even more adamant about vetoing any efforts to rebuild the ties between the two states. The result is a continued impasse in U.S.-Cuba relations.
Raúl Castro seems to be fine with this middling approach. Just two weeks after the famous controversial handshake between Obama and Raúl during Nelson Mandela's funeral, Raúl gave a speech where he addressed U.S.-Cuban relations. Rather than take the opportunity to lambast the empire, as his brother would have done, Raúl stated that officials from both countries have been meeting productively on immigration and other issues, proving that bilateral relations can be "civilized." In his tone and approach, Raúl has shown a pragmatic and even self-satisfied side.
But he also said this: "We don't demand that the United States change its political and social system, nor will we negotiate with ours." With this simple line, Raúl displayed the core of his conservatism. His duty as supreme leader of Cuba, he once affirmed, is to ensure the survival of the system. He won't pay the price of better relations with the United States if that means system change.

Raúl's words were also a warning to his compatriots: namely, that his government is uninterested in real change.

Raúl's words were also a warning to his compatriots: namely, that his government is uninterested in real change. For Cubans who found hope in Raúl's initial reforms, this statement is hard to swallow -- not just because of its innate conservatism, but because it comes from the very same man who makes, at every opportunity, the strongest case for a system overhaul than any Cuban official has made in decades. At some point, Raúl Castro might find himself forced to choose between reform and tradition. While it is common for leaders to want to be reformers and old-liners at the same time, they eventually select one approach over the other. Reforms have a tendency to be self-generating: more freedoms lead to demands for more freedoms, and this in turn means a deeper overhaul of the system. Raúl will need to decide to either yield to these demands or to block them to preserve the system that he and his brothers founded 55 years ago. So far, he hasn't faced this choice. The freedom to be that ambivalent was probably Raúl's biggest cause for celebration on the anniversary last week -- but that freedom won't last forever.

ALEJANDRO ERNESTO/AFP/Getty Images

Iranian Majlis Representative: Iran Needs A Nuclear Bomb 'To Put Israel In Its Place'; White House Pleaded For Meeting With Rohani

Iranian Majlis Representative: Iran Needs A Nuclear Bomb 'To Put Israel In Its Place'; White House Pleaded For Meeting With Rohani

In a speech that he delivered at a January 3, 2014 political activists' conference in Mashhad (northeastern Iran), Majlis representative Mohammad Nabavian, a member of Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi's radical faction, said that despite its disinterest in a bomb Iran in fact does need one, in order to create a balance of terror vis-a-vis Israel. In his address, Nabavian cited statements made by members of Iran's negotiating team – President Hassan Rohani, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and his deputy Abbas Araqchi – to the Majlis on the course of the three rounds of the Geneva talks in October-November 2013. According to him, they said that during Rohani's September 2013 visit to New York, the White House had pleaded with him to meet with President Obama or at least talk with him by telephone. They also stated that Secretary of State John Kerry told the Iranian team about the vigorous protests that he had heard from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu before arriving in Geneva for the talks. It should be noted that the Tasnim website, which was the first to quote Nabavian's statements, removed the part about the nuclear bomb, but it was published on other sites as well. Mohammad Nabavian (Image: Baharnews.ir, January 3, 2014) Below are the main points of Nabavian's speech, as quoted by the moderate conservative website Asr-e Iran:[1] "We had a few sessions on the nuclear issue at the Majlis with [Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad] Zarif, [Deputy Foreign Minister, Abbas] Araqchi, [Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht] Ravanchi and [Foreign Ministry spokeswoman] Marzieh Afkham, and one session in which President [Hassan Rohani] personally participated… "...The [nuclear] agreement [with the P5+1] contains five clauses: a preamble, first step, interim step, final step and final conclusion. The first part determined from the outset that the objective of the negotiations was to reach a plan that would guarantee to both sides that Iran's nuclear program is purely civilian… The U.S. says: 'Never before did we succeed in ensuring Israel's security like we did today [by means of the agreement]. If a certain country has 270 kg [of enriched uranium at a level of] 20% and 10 tons [of enriched uranium at a level of] 5%, and 20,000 centrifuges, it will be in a breakout position and could manufacture a nuclear bomb on the uranium [track] within two weeks.' We don't aspire to obtain a nuclear bomb, but it is necessary so we can put Israel in its place…" The Americans Courted Rohani And Sought A Meeting "At the meeting we had with the president, Rohani said: 'After I won the elections, Obama relayed a message to me, [even] before [my September 2013] visit to New York. The White House contacted me five times seeking a meeting.' Now the question must be asked: Why does this superpower insist on meeting Iran's president… while calling us a third-world [country]? "Rohani said: During my journey to New York, I arrived at the hotel on Monday night and again they contacted me from the White House. I assembled the delegation accompanying me and we decided not to meet [with Obama]. On Tuesday afternoon after the press conference, they said to me, 'why did you humiliate Obama and America?', and I said there was no humiliation. Here I recalled the words of the Imam [Khomeini] who said that one must humiliate the infidel leaders. "The next part comes from [Foreign Minister] Zarif, who said: 'Wednesday and Thursday passed, and on Friday they contacted me five times from the White House and said that there should at least be a courtesy telephone conversation.' I asked why a superpower needs to meet or ask us how we are. "If Obama asked for a meeting five times before the visit to New York and several times during the visit, it's because over these eight years measures were taken [by Iran] and, as a result, the United States [now] needs Iran. In Syria, the U.S. did not manage to attack and was humiliated. In practice, Obama was humiliated because he did not stand up to Iran, and hence it is necessary to meet with Iran's president to show that he is a strong man and tell the world: I brought Iran to the negotiating table after 30 years. That's why following the telephone call, this message ­– 'we negotiated with Iran' – was reported to the world..." Iran Signed The Agreement To Free Itself Of The Oil And Banking Sanctions "Forty-nine percent of our budget depends on oil [revenue]. This is a very high figure. This means that half our budget comes from oil money. In [March 2012-March 2013,] we had to sell 2,700,000 barrels of oil daily to supply the budget. Now take into account banking sanctions [even] more severe than the oil sanctions. Since June 2012 all the world's banks have been barred to us and we don't have permission to exchange even a dollar. Think of it, even if we sold 2,700,000 barrels of oil [a day], how could we have conducted the financial transactions? Finally, Putin sent the governor of his central bank directly [to Tehran] to secure alleviations in the field of money transfers and barter trade. Likewise, China transferred to our account 10 billion toman from the blocked funds." The Negotiations With The Americans Progressed Rapidly, But Ran Into Problems With The Europeans "At a Foreign Ministry meeting... Araqchi said that at Geneva 2 [i.e., the second round of the Geneva talks that took place on November 7-10, 2013], the head [of the Iranian negotiating team] had a working breakfast with his counterpart [on the other side, Catherine] Ashton. She placed a text on the table and said: 'This is the E.U. draft; agree to it'. Zarif was displeased with this and persuaded her that this was not what we had agreed upon. "Araqchi added: 'The [general] negotiations began and the [bilateral] negotiations with the Americans progressed rapidly, and in this manner we obtained 90% agreement and 10% disagreement [with the Americans]. Finally, [the head of the American negotiating team] Wendy Sherman contacted [Secretary of State] John Kerry [asking him] to come. Kerry arrived on Friday afternoon [from Israel] and said that in the morning he had met with [Prime Minister] Netanyahu and his ears were [still] ringing from his [Netanyahu's] screams.' Later on Araqchi referred to the presence of [French Foreign Minister Laurent] Fabius [at the negotiations], saying: 'Fabius arrived and looked at the text that was the agreement with the Americans. He drew a line through three of its issues and finally a third text was created that was unacceptable to us and we returned to Iran.'" Zarif And Araqchi Refused To Disclose The Contents Of The Negotiations With The Majlis Nabavian continued: "The chairman of the Majlis National Security [and Foreign Policy] Committee, [Alaeddin] Boroujerdi, said to deputy Foreign Minister Araqchi: What were those 90% agreement and 10% disagreement [about], and what were the three issues that Fabius scratched out?' Araqchi responded that this was classified. [And I ask:] Does this [information] not concern the Majlis members? The negotiating team made this remark [about the information being classified] at the Majlis not once, not twice, but on several occasions. The Iranian nation has the right to know [the content of the negotiations] and the Majlis representatives are part of this nation. Zarif said: even if you summoned me to an impeachment vote I still wouldn't say anything. I told Zarif that, according to the Majlis' internal bylaws it is our right to know. I added: Allow us to be cautious with you. [We remember] who imposed resolution 598 [i.e., the decision to end the 1980-1988 war with Iraq] upon the Imam [Khomeini] – these were people like [Ali Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani and his deputy Rohani, who were on the negotiating team in 2003 that caused the freeze [on enrichment]. Let me say explicitly that I told Zarif and Araqchi 1,000 times that they should tell the people sincerely what [they] gave in the [Geneva] agreement and what [they] did not get. The agreement is called a Joint Plan of Action, and this means that it is no agreement but [merely] a declaration…" Endnote: [1] Asriran.com, January 3, 2014.

Iranian President: Obama Wouldn’t Stop Begging Me For A Meeting, Was Upset I ‘Humiliated’ Him By Turning Him Down

Home  »  Iran  »  Iranian President: Obama Wouldn’t Stop Begging Me For A Meeting, Was Upset I ‘Humiliated’ Him By Turning Him Down

Jan 8, 2014 No Comments ›› Jake Hammer
Obama is so desperate to arm Iran with nukes, he was begging this guy to meet him to make a deal to let them have the time they need to make them. Same reason he didn’t leave any troops behind in Iraq; Iran didn’t want us there, so Obama pulled them out, as he’s willing to do anything to bribe Iran to make the deal. This is called treason, and he needs to be tried, and if found guilty, hung by the neck for it.

Excerpted from Memri: “At the meeting we had with the president, Rohani said: ‘After I won the elections, Obama relayed a message to me, [even] before [my September 2013] visit to New York. The White House contacted me five times seeking a meeting.’ Now the question must be asked: Why does this superpower insist on meeting Iran’s president… while calling us a third-world [country]?
“Rohani said: During my journey to New York, I arrived at the hotel on Monday night and again they contacted me from the White House. I assembled the delegation accompanying me and we decided not to meet [with Obama]. On Tuesday afternoon after the press conference, they said to me, ‘why did you humiliate Obama and America?’, and I said there was no humiliation. Here I recalled the words of the Imam [Khomeini] who said that one must humiliate the infidel leaders.
“The next part comes from [Foreign Minister] Zarif, who said: ‘Wednesday and Thursday passed, and on Friday they contacted me five times from the White House and said that there should at least be a courtesy telephone conversation.’ I asked why a superpower needs to meet or ask us how we are.
“If Obama asked for a meeting five times before the visit to New York and several times during the visit, it’s because over these eight years measures were taken [by Iran] and, as a result, the United States [now] needs Iran. In Syria, the U.S. did not manage to attack and was humiliated. In practice, Obama was humiliated because he did not stand up to Iran, and hence it is necessary to meet with Iran’s president to show that he is a strong man and tell the world: I brought Iran to the negotiating table after 30 years. That’s why following the telephone call, this message ­– ‘we negotiated with Iran’ – was reported to the world…”

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