ACTION ALERT: Tell Congress to Cancel
Boeing’s Nuclear Weapons Contract
Win Without War
(May 20 2024) — When it comes to nukes, any shortcut taken can have unimaginable, devastating consequences.
So it’s shocking that last month, the US Air Force quietly awarded Boeing — a company with a growing and troubling track record of safety failures — a five-year, half-billion dollar contract to operate, maintain, and perform testing at a nuclear facility in Utah.
Giving the same company a whistleblower said is “putting out defective airplanes” the keys to a nuclear facility? Terrifying.
But it’s unfortunately business as usual at the Pentagon — a mismanaged government agency that fails audit after audit and deprioritizes true security because of an insatiable appetite for weapons and war. Luckily, that’s where we come in: Congress controls the purse strings and should go further to prioritize safety and accountability.
Congress rarely hears from tens of thousands of people outraged over the minutiae of a government contract. The good news? When they do today, they’ll get a crucial reminder that the era of an unaccountable war machine is over.
Just days after the ink dried on the nuclear contract, Boeing whistleblower Sam Salehpour was on Capitol Hill, where he testified the company is taking shortcuts that could lead to jetliners breaking apart.
The risks of entrusting “current and future intercontinental ballistic missile force, nuclear modernization programs, and other critical defense and deterrence capabilities in the most extreme environments” to Boeing at this moment are simply unacceptable.
Don’t forget, this also is the same Boeing newly under another FAA investigation after the company reported its workers falsified inspection records on 787 Dreamliner planes. The same Boeing whose planes were grounded after a door flew off a 737 Max in January — and subsequently failed 33 of 89 of the resulting FAA audits. It’s the same Boeing whose planes had two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 535 people.
Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead days after testifying.
We know that Boeing employs hundreds of thousands of people with incredibly specialized skill sets, but when it comes to safety, the decisions and culture start at the top.
We deserve a serious national conversation about the risks and consequences of outsourcing “security” to weapons contractors who profit from endless war. Let’s start one today:
THE LETTER
To members of the 118th Congress:
Awarding Boeing — a company with a growing and troubling track record of safety failures — a five-year, half-billion dollar government contract to operate, maintain, and perform testing at a Utah nuclear facility is unacceptable.
I urge you to cancel this contract and do all you can to repair a broken status quo where Pentagon funds are funneled to corporations with little accountability or concern for people’s safety.
A world free from the threat of nuclear weapons is still possible, but it’s that much harder to envision, much less build it when the Pentagon has a proverbial blank check to funnel toward weapons and war.
Your action today calls into question the logic behind that dangerous mis-prioritization of our resources — and pushes instead to create a world where corporations are held accountable and everyone can feel safe. Thank you for speaking out.
Thank you for working for peace,
The Win Without War team
