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To: Ronin
"There are sure to be safeties in place to prevent unauthorized launches and any launch order coming from the President is going to have to be justifiable in terms of immediate threat."

How would these "safeties" work in your mind?A JAG officer sitting by the President and signing off?A "distinguished" triumverate of say,M. Gorbachov,Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan required to agree?I just don't see it your way,unless you simply mean the President would have to justify his actions after the fact,that is obvious.

119 posted on 12/23/2003 11:47:11 AM PST by John W
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To: Ronin; John W
>>>"There are sure to be safeties in place to prevent unauthorized launches and any launch order coming from the President is going to have to be justifiable in terms of immediate threat." <<<

That's not the way it works. The football is a communications device and has no decision making capability. It has authentication codes. Those codes, when received and authenticated by the launch officer, basically order the silo to launch on a specific target.

The "launch order coming from the President is not going to have to be justifiable in terms of immediate threat." Rather, the launch order coming from the President (via the "football" with appropriate authentication codes) is all that is needed to command a launch.

120 posted on 12/23/2003 12:00:18 PM PST by HardStarboard (Dump Wesley Clark.....he worries me as much as Hillary!)
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