Call to Remove US Nukes From Germany

There seems to be a growing consensus in Germany that the remaining US nuclear weapons should be removed:

" Germany's Social Democrats, who share power in the governing authority, and opposition parties are calling on the United States to remove all nuclear weapons stored in military bases here after a report found that safety standards at most sites for nuclear weapons in Europe fall well short of Pentagon requirements."

It is certainly unusual in German politics to see the super-capitalistic Free Democrats (FDP) join forces with the hated Left Party (Die LINKE) on any issue.  But that seems to be happening here:

Guido Westerwelle, leader of the opposition pro-business Free Democratic Party, agreed. "The atomic weapons are a holdover from the Cold War. They must go," he said Monday.

Gregor Gysi, leader of the Left Party, said the government should "immediately demand the U.S. withdraw, and preferably destroy, the atomic weapons."

Only Angela Merkel and her Christian Democrats want the nukes to remain on German soil:

Foreign policy experts in Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party warned against making any quick decisions on the weapons in Germany. "Of course the sites need security, but we have to consider the threats we face," said Ruprecht Polenz, chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee.

Eckart von Klaeden, foreign policy spokesman for the conservatives' parliamentary faction, said of the weapons, "They protect us too."

"Nuclear weaponry has to be part of German security policy. We have to protect ourselves against being taken hostage someday from a country like Iran."

I haven't heard the reaction yet from the Pentagon, but if they are upset about the calls to remove the nuclear weapons they have only themselves to blame.  They provided an opening for the anti-nuke faction with incomprehensibly lax security in Germany and the other locations in Europe.  The concerns were made public on the Web site of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS):

An internal U.S. Air Force investigation has determined that “most sites” currently used for deploying nuclear weapons in Europe do not meet Department of Defense security requirements.

A summary of the investigation report was released by the Pentagon in February 2008 but omitted the details. Now a partially declassified version of the full report, recently obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, reveals a much bigger nuclear security problem in Europe than previously known....the investigation {...} was triggered by the notorious incident in August 2007 when the U.S. Air Force lost track of six nuclear warheads for 36 hours as they were flow across the United States without the knowledge of the military personnel in charge of safeguarding and operating the nuclear weapons.

Thanks to a screw-up by the Belgian defense minister, we know where the nukes are held in Germany (Büchel Air Base in Germany) but we don't know exactly how many warheads are there.  The FAS makes the following estimates:

Comments

[leftclick]

As a matter of fact I'm more worried about the nuclear weapons of France, a country that demands military leadership in Europe. With France we'll get involved in African conflicts in the next decade, but we would have no say in case things were escalating to the nuclear level...Imagine this: France would say 'We are the EU', the opponent would say 'They are the EU', and the EU say 'But the bomb was French'???