Friday 2 July 2010-07-06

"Now operational!" Behind this short announcement lies a decision of huge gravity. As from Thursday 1 July, in the heart of Champagne-Lorraine region, the Rafale jets of the Saint-Dizier air-force base have carte blanche to carry nuclear warheads... Discreetly, hardly anyone will know.

"A sensitive subject" is the answer we get from the BA 113 (the air force base at Saint-Dizier). It was a waste of time to stick the word "transparency" alongside nuclear matters, to have set up a "High Committee for Transparency", and created "Information Commissions" at some military sites, including BA 113 (as decreed on 17 July 2003). "A what? Information commission? Never heard of it," say that PR people at the Base. Maybe we will learn more from the Prefecture at Chaumont (Champagne), where our request is now somewhere out of sight among the services and the hierarchy.

The new information actually filtered through by way of a journalist and some specialised associates. No, the Strategic Air Forces (FAS) didn’t yet have a Rafale with a nuclear bomb on board. This July 1 would indeed be the first: Saint-Dizier, with squadron 1/91 Gascogne, WILL BE and will remain THE ONLY base in France to see Rafales (type F3) carry atomic weapons (1). And not just any old nukes, they’ll be on ASMP-A missiles. That means Air-to-Ground Medium Range, with A for improved (ameliorated) speed, and distance Š and destructive power. It is said that a single missile of the "unimproved" kind would cost the crazy sum of 15 million euros ! And that France has several dozen in stock.

According to the doctrine of Presidents Chirac and Sarkozy, the purpose of nuclear deterrence is to "defend the vital interests" of France. If so, there are plenty of vulnerable sites to protect in eastern France : pressure-cooker nuclear reactors (Chooz, Nogent-sur-Seine, Cattenom, Fessenheim), radioactive sites dumps (Soulaines, Moronvilliers, Epothémont, Bure, FAVL), munitions depots with some holding uranium weapons (Brienne-le-Château), and INBS, i.e. secret base nuclear installations (Pontfaverger-Moronvilliers, Valduc, and on the Plateau de Langres, the place where the nuclear warheads are built for the missiles.)

But one can’t avoiding a niggling thought: if the BA 113 is a "strategic" base, and if it holds also a DAMS (workshop depot for special munitions) - i.e. a stock of nuclear missiles - that must mean that Saint-Dizier becomes a prime target for any potential enemy, and that the whole region would be devastated and contaminated by an enemy strike!

If the people knew, if the inhabitants of this great region knew, would they have confidence in the usual advice to "sleep calmly"?

Fédération Grand-Est STOP déchets nucléaires - Media Release of 1 July 2010

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(1) Another air base is involved too, Istres, but it has "Mirage" jets which are due to be phased out.

Look at ACDN’s comment: "New vintage from Champagne"