Military To Put Cheyenne Mountain On Standby

[Ryan Ruck]

Rick,
Any comment on this story?

PLEASE tell me there is more to this that what the article states!

Military To Put Cheyenne Mountain On Standby

The military is relegating its newly renovated airspace and missile defense complex in Cheyenne Mountain to standby status - clouding the future of a Cold War nerve center touted as the most secure spot in America.

The green-jumpsuited sentries who electronically scan the skies from deep inside this granite cocoon southwest of Colorado Springs - built in the 1960s to withstand Soviet nuclear blasts - now are to blend into broader homeland defense operations under prairie skies at nearby Peterson Air Force Base.

"I can't be in two places at one time," said Adm. Tim Keating, commander of both U.S. Northern Command, set up in 2002 to fight terrorism, and North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD. Both NORAD and Northcom have their headquarters at Peterson.

U.S. strategists created the mountain complex to prevent nuclear missile and bomber attacks. But today the government's best intelligence "leads us to believe a missile attack from China or Russia is very unlikely," Keating said in an interview this week.

The emergence of varied terrorist threats such as suicide bombers "is what recommends to us that we don't need to maintain Cheyenne Mountain in a 24/7 status. We can put it on 'warm standby,"' Keating said.

Just how warm depends on money to maintain the complex, military officials said. Keating said his goal is to be able to fire up the complex in an hour.

Keating today is scheduled to announce the decision he made after consulting with military chiefs in Washington. He'll move 230 surveillance crewmembers and an undetermined number of about 700 support staffers - as quickly and inexpensively as possible. The time frame: within two years.

About 1,100 people now work in the mountain. Military leaders promised there'd be no net job loss from the move.

Whether money can be saved is uncertain, Keating said. Mountain operations cost taxpayers $250 million a year.

Budgets at first may increase, officials said, depending on how much money is available to maintain mountain facilities, but in the future could decrease.

The move itself will cost "tens of millions of dollars," said Air Force Col. Lou Christensen, deputy director of operations.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government began a $467 million modernization of the mountain facility. A recent congressional probe found cost overruns - modernizers spent more than $700 million, and the work isn't done.

Moving surveillance crews out marks a twist in nearly 50 years of secretive activity at the mountain. Blasting a 4 1/2-acre cavern about 60 feet high was the first of many engineering feats that led to construction of 15 free-standing buildings mounted on 1,319 springs, which allow a 12-inch sway. The total cost, $142 million, raised eyebrows back then.

Since the mid-1960s, joint U.S.-Canadian crews in the mountain have guarded North America, poised to send warnings that could initiate nuclear missile launches. Strategists long were locked into notions of superpower security through "mutually assured destruction."

Now military analysts ponder strategic implications of a move that reflects a growing concern with terrorism by small groups against a military superpower.

While odds of a nuclear missile attack now seem slim, "take it 15 years down the road," said John Pike, director of Global Security, a Washington think tank. "Maybe the Chinese will try to take us on. They might start blowing up military targets. And though currently we're not concerned about the Russians, that may change. What would be required to get back into that mountain?"

The decision to move surveillance crews out followed an internal study launched in February. The study explored consolidation of two overlapping surveillance operations - the one in the mountain and the new homeland defense center at Peterson, about 12 miles from the mountain at the eastern edge of Colorado Springs.

There, homeland defense surveillance crews surrounded by wall-sized video screens try to detect and track threats - with access to the same data available inside the mountain.

These crews track threats as varied as U.S.-bound ships carrying unidentified cargo and suspicious cars idling around power plants.

Today, protecting America is increasingly complicated, said Army Col. Tom Muir, who directs the new center and helped run the internal study. "Is Hezbollah going to attack the United States?" he asked.

During the 9/11 attacks, the NORAD commander at the time, Air Force Gen. Ralph Eberhart, was caught shuttling from headquarters at Peterson to the mountain command post and couldn't receive telephone calls as senior officials weighed how to respond.

Consolidating surveillance operations is aimed at "strengthening the command center here," Muir said. "This is an efficiency move."

Canadian defense partners who helped run mountain operations also sit at the new surveillance center. It has been renamed N2C2, short for NORAD-Northcom Command Center.

"I have found, over the course of several pretty extensive, rigorous exercises, that I'm able to get as good or better situational awareness in the command center ... at Peterson," Keating said.

Besides NORAD and Northcom, other military forces work in the mountain today. An Air Force Space Command squadron of 100 people tracks space debris and satellites. U.S. missile command crews and intelligence teams from the National Reconnaissance Office and other agencies also are there - all supported by 700 cooks, a barber, medics, recreational center staff, engineers, guards and others.

Air Force Space Command, too, is looking into moving its operations out of the mountain to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California - raising the prospect of a virtually empty mountain.

Keating said he and other commanders have talked about this. "I'm aware of the plans" that would move a majority of remaining forces out, he said. Yet "we appreciate the importance of Cheyenne Mountain. That is exactly why we are going to maintain it ... in the event we would need it.

"This is not Step One that will lead, inevitably and inexorably, to closing Cheyenne Mountain."

One possibility: using the mountain as a second seat for the U.S. government in a crisis. Keating said he knew of no discussions on this, but he characterized that option as reasonable.

If the official position of military brass really is as Adm. Keating states about Russia and China, there need to be massive purges of the command ranks!

I simply have no words except that if this really is what many brass believe, we are doomed…

[Brian Baldwin]

You and I discussed that in chat a week ago. I don't see how we can win as a nation if China invades. We'll fight in small groups after our military is crushed but in the end we'll be no more than the IRA or such as that in their eyes.

The worst part will be seeing all the world cheer that we have fallen. What great allies and friends they turned out to be.

[Sean Osborne]

The so-called "ELITE" in this world cannot have the United States of America intact or in its current form for their agenda to have one iota of a chance for success.

Therefore... according to their agenda America as we know her MUST DIE.

Things like this are part of such an agenda. This is what I will fight against to my last breath on this earth.

[Segestan]

40 years of technological advances ; but today, according to the 'Best Intelligence' , best for who? ; the threat isn't real anymore. With the Military in Iraq and having sent the bulk of it's forces into foreign lands, any attack would become a serious one. How easy to destroy Peterson with a single blow, and open the Offensive.
After the between the war , should that terrible event occur, the trials of blame will finally expose to justice all those who have willingly undermined the worlds best hope for freedom in all it's glory ; seen as the 'Shinning City on the Hill' ...America.
Stupid, Silly, dangerous Politics; what can one say?.

[samizdat]

You and I discussed that in chat a week ago. I don't see how we can win as a nation if China invades. We'll fight in small groups after our military is crushed but in the end we'll be no more than the IRA or such as that in their eyes.

If this occurs, one can envision Chinese generals issueing merciless orders to slaughter. Not all Chinese soldiers are brainwashed murder slaves. I rather hope some will refuse, perhaps be slaughtered vicariously and the resulting division will presede retreat.

[American Patriot]

Was that the thing out of denver post?

It's NOT accurate.

It's WRONG. Compeletely

NORAD is moving about 350-400 people over to peterson, who also are already doing the same missions with North Com...The headlines "mothballs" were wrong too.

We're not shutting anything down, we're stll watching the skies, and infact have redoubled the effort folks.

For once... Im going to ask you folks to "ujust take my word on something".

[Ryan Ruck]

For once... Im going to ask you folks to "ujust take my word on something".

Your word is good enough for me!

Also, is what Adm. Keating is quoted as saying about nukes from Russia and China the prevailing point of view among those in power?

[American Patriot]

Well -- I dont think so.

MDA is growing. On purpose. Wonder why if we believe that wwe're not going to be nuked?

[falcon]

Monday, Oct. 16, 2006 2:42 p.m. EDT

NORAD 'Cold War Room' Put on Ice

Dr. Strangelove would have a heart attack: America's vaunted underground war room deep inside this granite mountain is being retired. Not only that, but Russian military men have been inside the place.

During the long nuclear standoff with Moscow, the nation's super-secret nerve center was a symbol of both Cold War might and apocalyptic dread, depicted in such movies as "WarGames" in 1983.

But with the end of the Cold War, the war room is being put on "warm standy" to save money. A staff will keep it ready to resume operations at a moment's notice if a blast-hardened command center becomes necessary, but the critical work is being shifted to Peterson Air Force Base, about 10 miles away.

"In today's Netted, distributed world we can do very good work on a broad range of media right here," Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, said from his Peterson headquarters. "Right there at that desk, including one push-button to the president."

Moreover, the U.S. military says the countries that have succeeded the Soviet Union as the main threat to this country - hostile states such as North Korea and Iran - do not have the weapons to take out a command center in Colorado.

The United States and Canada spent hundreds of millions on early warning systems to detect a Soviet attack in the 1950s. All the information was funneled into a two-story blockhouse at Colorado Springs' Ent Air Force Base that could be taken out by a bazooka, NORAD historian Thomas Fuller said.

So crews began digging in 1961 on the edge of Colorado Springs on what used to be a ranch, eventually removing 700,000 tons of granite. Two 25-ton blast doors were constructed to protect the 15 tunnel-like buildings 2,400 feet underground. Each is suspended on thousand-pound springs or, as the joke goes, "the real Colorado springs."

The mini-city included a barbershop, medical clinic, convenience store, even a fire and police force.

For 40 years, staff in the mountain kept an eye on the Soviets from a command center in a small room.

Glitches resulted in false alerts in 1979 and 1980, neither coming close to the level pictured in the Matthew Broderick movie "WarGames." ("Dr. Strangelove" and "Fail-Safe," both of which came out in 1964, two years before the Cheyenne Mountain command center opened, also famously depicted electronic war rooms.)

The collapse of the Soviet Union was the death knell for Cheyenne Mountain. A few years later, Russians were invited to Peterson in case the change of the millennium caused any catastrophic computer problems.

Then came the Sept. 11 attacks. The Northern Command was created in 2002 to defend the nation from internal attacks. Its headquarters were built at Peterson and NORAD's commander was put in charge of both.

It was from Peterson where the military was able to scramble fighter planes 10 minutes after a small plane crashed into a New York City high-rise last week.

Cheyenne Mountain was a comfort for many during the Cold War. It was put in the middle of the continent for safety reasons, to help ensure that key decisions on defending the nation from a nuclear attack could be made before it was too late.

Until the later years of the Cold War, when more accurate and high-yield bombs were developed, Cheyenne Mountain could probably have even withstood a direct hit.

"It was the place that made us feel good during the Cold War, especially after the Cuban missile crisis and the Russians had developed intercontinental ballistic missiles," said Lt. Gen. William Odom, a former National Security Agency director.

Keating said the new the control room, in contrast, could be damaged if a terrorist commandeered a jumbo jet and somehow knew exactly where to crash it. But "how unlikely is that? We think very," Keating said.

Keating said it costs about $250 million a year to operate Cheyenne Mountain fully staffed. Congress's Government Accountability Office has said efforts to modernize Cheyenne Mountain were too expensive or behind schedule.

Last year, the commander of long-range Russian military aviation visited the command center at Cheyenne Mountain. NORAD recently said it also would like to begin talks with the Russians about joint surveillance flights along the Alaska-Siberia frontier.

"The Russians have been up there," Keating said. "We've drank vodka at the Broadmoor (Hotel). We've sat here and discussed grave issues. Life goes on. It's OK."

www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/10/16/144916.shtml?s=ic

[Ryan Ruck]

For some reason, this topic is making another go around...

I've merged Falcon's post with this since it is a new article and am bumping the topic. I've also locked a duplicate thread posted by Jag in the American History forum.

[American Patriot]

Because, when a general announced "closure" it wasn't the right word to use.

Cheynne Mountain ain't leaving.

I think, out of everyone that has written an article about it, or posted one here... I would know....



That's me. Over my right shoulder is Pikes Peak. To the left of Pikes Peak (facing it) is a peak called "Cheynne Mountain".

The two are within spitting distance of my house.

I work at a place called Schriever Air Force base. It used to be know as "Falcon AFB".

Look it up.

[Sean Osborne]

Was that the thing out of denver post?

It's NOT accurate.

It's WRONG. Compeletely

NORAD is moving about 350-400 people over to peterson, who also are already doing the same missions with North Com...The headlines "mothballs" were wrong too.

We're not shutting anything down, we're stll watching the skies, and infact have redoubled the effort folks.

For once... Im going to ask you folks to "ujust take my word on something".

No doubt. What we have here is more of the same media manipulation for political agenda crap that has been rampant since Dubya took office in January 2001.

America faces existential threats from Russia and China, and emerging nuclear-tipped ballistic threats in North Korea and Iran, not to mention the constant threat of civil aviation form terrorists ala 9/11.

So... the United States Department of Defense would respond to these threats by shutting down Cheyenne Mountain???



Common sense should tell folks to take such media reports reports with a huge grain of salt and then dismiss them outright as unadulterated BS.

[American Patriot]

A general from the area really DID make the comments "Shutting down", or something similar. Here's some links.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072801617.html

"Moving the missions from a hardened facility to Peterson AFB does not change the level of security," Keating told reporters Friday. "An assessment is underway to ensure that the security level is commensurate with threats."

Basically... let me just say that NORAD is merely moving out of old, antiquated accomodations -- to newer, modern facilities in various locations. What the heck? We close a place temporarily, and move the folks working there to other areas (which are vastly superior I might add) to continue the mission and everyone "Freaks".

Guess what the kooks are saying? Conspiracy theorists are saying that this is a way to finish the US now.

http://standdown.net/

What? Wait, weren't they just saying that 9-11 didn't really happen? No plane hit the Pentagon? What the hell? NOW they are CONCERNED about shutting down a facility that is old, out of date and needs upgrades that will cost so much it was easier, cheaper and BETTER to bring online modern communications, tracking and data systems?

People are complete frippin' idiots, but then all of you knew that. Anyone who currently DISLIKES the current administration, or what the hell, GOVERNMENT in general (hey Jools, Porque, I'm talking to YOU two clowns, among others from Anomalies who are purveyors of Chaos) wants to find some conspiracy in anything they can.

This is one of those places.

I can assure you, you can still rest easy. We are WATCHING the skies, space and everything in between.

[vector7]

Companion Threads:

• Cheyenne Mountain
• E M P - (EMP) - e.m.p. - emp - Electromagnetic pulse
• Russia scrambles to build 5000 new bomb shelters by 2012 for strategic nuclear strike

Pentagon Moves More Communications Gear into Cheyenne Mountain

April 7, 2015 By Marcus Weisgerber

Largely abandoned a decade ago, the iconic Cold War bunker is getting an upgrade.

The Pentagon is beefing up its communications setup inside a hollowed-out section of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains less than a decade after it had largely abandoned the site.

The gear is being moved into Cheyenne Mountain to protect it from electromagnetic pulses, said Adm. William Gortney, commander of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD.

“[T]here is a lot of movement to put capability into Cheyenne Mountain and to be able to communicate in there,” Gortney said Tuesday during a news briefing at the Pentagon.

Electromagnetic pulses, or EMPs, can occur naturally or by manmade devices such as nuclear weapons. For years, the Pentagon has been working on building weapons that could fry the electronic equipment of an enemy during battle.

“Because of the very nature of the way that Cheyenne Mountain is built, it’s EMP-hardened,” Gortney said. “It wasn’t really designed to be that way, but the way it was constructed makes it that way.”

Being able to communicate during an EMP attack is important, Gortney said.

“My primary concern was: ‘Are we going to have the space inside the mountain for everybody that wants to move in there?’ … but we do have that capability,” he said.

Last week, the Pentagon awarded defense firm Raytheon a $700-million contract to install new equipment inside the mountain. The company said the contract, which runs through 2020, will “support threat warnings and assessments for the North American Aerospace Defense Command Cheyenne Mountain Complex.”

The Pentagon’s March 30 contract announcement said Raytheon will provide sustainment services and products supporting the Integrated Tactical Warning/Attack Assessment (ITW/AA) and Space Support Contract covered systems. “The program provides ITW/AA authorities accurate, timely and unambiguous warning and attack assessment of air, missile and space threats,” it said.

Since 2013, the Pentagon has awarded contracts worth more than $850 million for work related to Cheyenne Mountain.

The Colorado complex is the embodiment of the Cold War, an era when bunkers were built far and wide to protect people and infrastructure. Cheyenne Mountain was the mother of these fallout shelters, a command center buried deep to withstand a Soviet nuclear bombardment. The complex was locked down during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Air Force Space Command runs the mountain and maintains sleeping quarters, fresh water and a power station that would be used during an attack.

Almost a decade ago, NORAD pulled most of its staff out of Cheyenne Mountain and moved its command center into the basement of a headquarters building at nearby Peterson Air Force Base. Since then, Cheyenne Mountain has served as a back-up site.

Now the Cheyenne Mountain staff is set to grow again. Still, the command center at Peterson will remain operational, Gortney said.

In June 2013, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel gave a speech in front of the mammoth blastproof doors on the roadway leading into the mountain.

“These facilities and the entire complex of NORAD and NORTHCOM represent the nerve center of defense for North America,” he said at the time.

[American Patriot]

I put a bunch of articles under the WWIII thread too.

[vector7]

Military eyeing former Cold War mountain bunker as ‘shield’ against EMP attack?


By Jennifer Griffin
Published May 05, 2015FoxNews.com



Now Playing Experts warn 'EMP' attack could cripple infrastructure

New concerns are being raised that the nation's electrical grid and critical infrastructure are increasingly vulnerable to a catastrophic foreign attack -- amid speculation over whether officials are eyeing a former Cold War bunker, inside a Colorado mountain, as a "shield" against such a strike.

North American Aerospace Defense Command is looking for ways to protect itself in the event of a massive electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, attack -- a deliberate burst of energy that could disrupt the electrical grid and cripple NORAD's ability to defend the nation.

"What it could do, these various threats, is black out the U.S. electric grid for a protracted period of months or years," warned Peter Pry, executive director of the EMP Task Force, a bipartisan congressional commission. "Nine out of ten Americans could die from starvation, disease and societal collapse, if the blackout lasted a year."

Pry said a $700 million contract to upgrade electronics inside Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain facility may provide a clue about just how worried the military is about the threat.

The Air Force moved out of Cheyenne Mountain, which was built to survive a nuclear attack, in 2006, establishing its NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. But that facility, inside the mountain, could offer protection against a so-called EMP attack.

The head of NORAD recently suggested, at an April 7 Pentagon press conference, that Cheyenne may still be needed.

"My primary concern was, are we going to have the space inside the mountain for everybody who wants to move in there?" Adm. William Gortney told reporters. "I'm not at liberty to discuss who's moving in there, but we do have that capability to be there."

NORAD spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis pushed back on the idea that NORAD is relocating its headquarters, but acknowledged its advantages in the case of an EMP attack. And he did say Cheyenne has served as an alternate command center since 2006.

"We are not moving back to the mountain," Davis told Fox News. "The mountain's ability to provide shield against EMP is certainly a valuable feature, and that is one reason we maintain the ability to return there quickly if needed -- but we aren't 'moving back' per se."

An electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear weapon being detonated in space would in essence fry the nation's electrical grid.

Pry warned that the U.S. is vulnerable to a missile fired into space from a southerly route. Another threat: a naturally occurring geomagnetic storm like the solar superstorm that narrowly missed the Earth in 2012, according to NASA.

"The grid is utterly unprotected from an EMP attack. It's not adequately protected from cyber or physical sabotage," Pry said in an interview with Fox News. "It's why North Korea and Iran want the bomb, have the bomb. North Korea has actually practiced this against the United States."

Pry, whose congressional EMP commission issued its last unclassified report in 2008, says that the Obama administration has not followed basic recommendations from the bipartisan task force which outlined how the nation's electrical grid could be hardened and protected from this kind of attack -- for $2 billion.

"Two billion dollars is what we give in foreign aid to Pakistan," Pry said. "If we suspended that for one year and put it toward hardening the electrical grid, we could protect the American people from this threat."

The House of Representatives unanimously passed several pieces of legislation to protect the nation's power grid -- the GRID Act, the Shield Act and the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act -- but they died in the Senate. Some states are beginning to act on their own despite the protest of private power companies.

The warning comes as other senior national security experts have said they are worried about a potential cyberattack targeting the nation's key infrastructure.

Former National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander outlined the threat at the Aspen Institute's National Security Forum Preview, "Cyber Nightmare: Is the Worst Yet to Come?"

"I am not confident that we have the wherewithal, with today's cyber capabilities and our sharing relationships, to actually defend the power and the other sectors like we should," Alexander said on April 29, when discussing a possible 'nuclear Pearl Harbor.'

"Those are things that most concern me right now."

[American Patriot]

Doesn't matter, the military is doing away with HF communications. VHF and UHF are used with satellites and short range shit on the ground for tactical comms. Hate to say it, if someone EMPs us in the next few months, we're fucked.

[Phil Fiord]

I Hate that I know that AP. We are in a lag time of comm systems and vulnerable. Granted, that does not mean we have some person or persons poised to act, and if there were an act, it would likely be handled. It is only that when a weakness becomes apparent, someone will try and exploit it.