Adopt A Missile Silo
 Colorado and U.S. WMD Facts
 
1400 KThe Continuing Pox on the High Plains
Nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Minuteman Missiles in Colorado & the U.S. Arsenal
Fact:  49 nuclear active armed Minuteman III missiles are located in five clusters (flights) of unmanned underground silos on the plains of NE Colorado. [4]
Fact:  150 nuclear armed missiles are commanded from F.E. Warren Air force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming; located in NE Colorado, SE Wyoming, and SW Nebraska [1]
Fact:  500 Minuteman missiles remain active and armed in the U.S. arsenal of land based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), located in the states of Colorado (49), Wyoming (19), Nebraska (82), Montana (200), and North Dakota (150), and 107 missiles remain as inactive spares. [1]
Fact:  All 500 Minuteman III missiles remain on very high alert (above 98%), a hair trigger status [1], and have been that way for decades.
Fact:  The launch cycle time from time of an order from the President can be less than 4 minutes to “missile away”. Launches are executed by two missileers in each flight cluster underground launch control center, typically controlling 10 to 11 silos. [5]
Fact:  Each Minuteman III missile is equipped with from 1 to 3 nuclear warheads. All MX Peacekeeper missiles (ten W87 warheads each) are being decommissioned, to be completed by 2005. [1]
Fact:  Each Minuteman III missile in the Warren AFB command is being converted to a single W62, a 170 kiloton warhead, to be complete by 2007. 200 Minuteman missiles in Montana and North Dakota will have W87 bombs (300 kilotons) taken from decommissioned MX-Peacekeeper missiles. Others have the 335 kiloton W78 warhead. [1]
Fact:  Each W87 300 kiloton nuclear bomb on Minuteman III missiles has approximately 20 times the explosive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. [5]
Fact:  Minuteman III missiles are currently being upgraded in a $6 billion program to improve accuracy and extend service life beyond 2020. Despite this the Air Force is planning to begin studies on development of Minuteman IV next year. [1]
Fact:  As of 2002, the five major nuclear powers have more than 20,000 nuclear warheads in their arsenals, with 10,600 in the U.S. arsenal, with 8,000 active or operational. [2] Others estimate 28,800 total intact nuclear warheads are retained by the U.S. and Russia with up to 30,000 including all nations. [3]
Fact:  The U.S. active nuclear warhead arsenal is deployed with 1600 ICBMs, 2880 SLBM (submarines), 1660 strategic bombers (B52, B-2) most from Omaha, Nebraska and Whiteman AFB in Missouri, and 1120 dispersed non-strategic forces on tomahawk cruise missiles and for use with NATO and U.S. aircraft, most non-strategic weapons stored in New Mexico, Nevada and North Carolina. [1]
References: (1) Norris, Robert S. and Hans M. Kristensen, U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2003 (NRDC Nuclear Notebook), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 59, No. 3, May/June 2003. (author contact: 202-289-6868)

(2) Norris, Robert S., and Hans M. Kristensen, Global Nuclear stockpiles, 1945-2002 (NRDC Nuclear Notebook), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov/Dec 2002. (author contact: 202-289-6868)

(3) Center for Defense Information, “Nuclear Facts at a Glance”, Feb. 4, 2003. www.cdi.org

(4) Day, Samuel H., Jr., Nuclear Heartland: A Guide to the 1,000 missile silos of the United States, A Nukewatch book, The Progressive Foundation, Madison, WI, 1988. (information in this book is accurate about the locations of the silos, but several flights and missile commands have been decommissioned since its publication, and missiles have been or are being reconfigured)

(5) Sulzman, William, Citizens for Peace in Outer Space, Colorado Springs, CO. P.O. Box 915, bsulzman@juno.com
 
Other sources for more information:
  Center for Defense Information  www.cdi.org
  Natural Resources Defense Council  www.nrdc.org
  Alliance for Nuclear Accountability  www.ananuclear.org
Colorado Communities for Justice and Peace -- www.ColoradoPeace.org -- Revised 7-28-2003