[GreenKeys] Long Lines, Norway, IL

[H.W.Hall]

> Rumor has it that the Cheyenne Mountain is being turned into a museum.

The two primary mission elements that occupied the CMC have moved out.
NORAD to a building on Peterson AFB, CO and the space surveillance
operations (SCC cum SPADOC cum JSPOC) to a building on Vandenberg AFB, CA.
IOW, they moved two key warfighting command & control centers from solid
rock protection to office buildings; the Peterson one almost directly in
the flight path of the major military & domestic runways. 

CMC was long known to no longer be proof against a determined nuke attack,
but it remained credible against anything else. So now that the most likely
threats are ones the mountain can withstand, it is being emptied. A report
required by Congress last year revealed NORAD's new site could not
withstand even a low-level attack. NORAD leadership asserts they maintain a
'warm backup' within CMC, but apparently does not exercise it. Colorado's
legislature were assured, in response to their query, that CMC was not
going to be closed, but it sure looks like it is on the way to it. Seems
damn-foolish to me...

BTW, all this info was printed in the newspapers, so maybe there won't be
any black Suburbans lurking outside the house tomorrow. <G>

--Wayne
  WB4OGM