A Field Trip to a U.S. Atomic Bomb Warehouse

Belgian activists break into a nuclear weapons air base, go undetected for an hour, shoot a video of their visit and post it on YouTube; a disgrace for NATO.

Six Belgian “bombspotters” succeeded in breaking into Belgium’s sacrosanct Kleine Brogel Air Base. As many as 20 B61 nuclear bombs are stored there, controlled during peacetime by a special unit of the U.S. Air Force, the 701st MUNSS, and if things get serious the bombs become part of the NATO nuclear deterrent mounted on Belgian F-16 multipurpose fighter planes.

The peace activists filmed their intrusion and uploaded the video to YouTube. It is an embarrassment for the Belgian Air Force and NATO, both of which have always maintained that nuclear weapons installations in Europe were absolutely secure. The nonviolent activist group Vredesactie [Peace Action] first overcame the installation’s outer perimeter fence on the southern end of the base and wandered through a small forest to the north until they reached the runway. Expecting to be stopped and arrested there like a similar group in November 2009, they snooped around in the snow until they discovered more openings in a second security fence north of the runway.

They slipped through and came upon the rear wall of an aircraft hangar. Reportedly, beneath 11 of these hangars there are so-called nuclear weapons vaults. Completely undisturbed, the six activists casually taped the hangar up with anti-nuclear messages. They then crossed a paved area and headed north, where they encountered a Belgian sentry and were soon taken into custody. Their video camera was confiscated but the camera’s digital image storage remained undiscovered. The six had spent about an hour on the nuclear weapons installation before they were arrested.

Belgian military authorities tried to play down the incident. Ingrid Baeck, a spokeswoman for the facility, told the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes, “I can assure you these people never, ever got anywhere near a sensitive area,” and added, “They are talking nonsense.” She claimed the hangars involved were vacant.

Things were not that simple, though. The Belgian commander of Kleine Brogel openly admitted, “Our installation comprises 450 hectares, a third of which is forested.*” He said he could have camped there for three days and not been discovered. Lack of personnel, he claimed, made it necessary to concentrate their resources at the most important points.

An internal U.S. Air Force inspection in February 2008 discovered security shortcomings in nuclear storage facilities across Europe. Hans Kristensen, a prominent member of the Federation of American Scientists made the results public. He cited, among other things, damaged security fences, inadequate lighting, buildings in need of repair and inadequately trained guards. European governments at that time insisted security at the nuclear storage facilities was outstanding and described the criticisms as unjustified.

Even if the Belgian military authorities were right in saying the hangars the activists managed to reach were unused, they did pass a good tip on to them: The next time they break in, they should go left to get to the hangars being currently used, not right.

*Editor’s Note: Comments by the Belgian commander of Kleine Brogel could not be verified.