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Press TV has conducted an interview with Gordon Duff, senior editor of Veteran’s today from Ohio, about the issue of the spate of dismissals from the area of the US Air Force responsible for the country’s nuclear arsenal over what US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel calls ‘lapses’; and about reports on the ‘lost’ nuclear weapons.

- How threatening are these troubling lapses?

- The version of reality that we’re getting from the secretary of defense is one for public consumption only.

The problems go back as many as two decades. The United States Air Force, which controls the majority of America’s nuclear weapons, was infiltrated by religious extremist groups. They took over the Air Force Academy; they had a clear agenda based on creating a nuclear war - forcing Armageddon. It’s part of their religious philosophy.

These failures that we’re hearing about recently are only follow-ups of the 2006 massive failure where an entire plane load of nuclear weapons simply disappeared - from the same command.

- In the past there has been negligence with these nuclear lapses. How threatening is it for America? What would be consequences of such negligence?

- Well, the idea that after all these years the United States hasn’t developed effective control measures for taking care of thermo-nuclear weapons is rather bizarre.

You can misplace your watch, you can misplace your wallet. When was the last time someone misplaced half a dozen thermo-nuclear bombs. The United States has done exactly that.

The reason Hagel is speaking to people now is he’s dealing with issues of strong anti-government behavior within some areas of the military and adherence by many people in the military to extreme rightwing political views that are seen as dangerous to the United States.

- We had Secretary of State John Kerry saying that the nuclear stockpile of America is a key part of America’s defense doctrine. How serious can the US be in nuclear disarmament?

- The idea that the United States is keeping a massive nuclear stockpile and is not able to keep it safe is a threat to everyone.

The idea [is] that we worry about nuclear proliferation in other nations when our own nuclear stockpile is at risk.

We spent years accusing the Russian of losing weapons; the United States has lost several already.

It’s the biggest secret we have that on several occasions we’ve misplaced weapons. They are out there. We don’t know where they are. And they are a threat to everyone.

- Many say that the nuclear arsenal of America is like a time bomb and America is sitting on that time bomb. Is there any possibility when that time bomb will go off; and what would be the consequences of course?

- It’s a reality that rogue groups within the American military - and they exist - are capable of deploying nuclear weapons. We’ve had movies: Seven Days in May; Dr. Strangelove from decades ago looked at this potentiality. And this potentiality today is very real. This threat is very real.