U.S. sent nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan

U.S. military “mistakenly” shipped four fuses for nuclear missiles to Taiwan in 2006 and it never caught the error.

The shipment was supposed to deliver helicopter batteries to Taiwan, but sent fuses that are used to trigger the Minuteman missiles. Taiwan returned the fuses to U.S. last week.

The military didn’t know about this problem until it received an unnoticed from Taiwan informing that they didn’t receive the helicopter batteries.

United States has notified China, which claims the self-ruled island as its own, and is modernizing its military to close the technology gap with Taiwan's mainly U.S. weapons. China and Taiwan are separated since 1949, and Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

This is the second time U.S. military “misplaces” nuclear or nuclear-related equipment in recent months. An Air Force bomber “mistakenly” carried nuclear warheads over the United States in August 2007.

The Defense Department has ordered the Navy and Air Force to take inventory of all nuclear and nuclear-associated equipment and material and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered an investigation into the fuse incident.

Gates wants initial results from the investigation by April 15 and a full report within 60 days.

The United States has violated international law or international arms agreements with the shipment.

The Pentagon does not know who was responsible. The fuses, which send an electronic signal to the device that starts the nuclear weapons trigger process, are among a class of sensitive equipment that must be accounted for on a quarterly basis.

 

The four fuses, do not resemble helicopter batteries, were “wrongly” placed in an unclassified storage area. They were then shipped in late 2006 to Taiwan, which placed them in storage.

When Taiwan realized it had received the incorrect shipment, it notified the U.S. military. Wynne would not say when Taiwan first reported the problem.

But U.S. military officials did not understand the nature of the problem until last week.

"We thought we were talking about different sorts of batteries. There was an effort to resolve and reimburse them. It wasn't until this past week that we became aware that they had something akin to a nose-cone assembly," Henry said.

And it also said there was no indication Taiwan tampered with the fuses before returning them.