Nuclear canary dies: flying the warheads

It's one thing to fly a few nukes around the US, it's another thing to demonstrate that the complex network of protocols governing nuclear weapons aren't working:

Nation & World | Air Force fires commander in nuke error | Seattle Times Newspaper

...For the six warheads to make it onto the B-52, each one would have had to be signed out of its storage bunker and transported to the bomber. Diligent safety protocols would have to have been ignored to load the warheads onto the plane, he said.

"I just can't imagine how all of this happened," said Philip Coyle, a senior adviser on nuclear weapons at the Center for Defense Information. "The procedures are so rigid; this is the last thing that's supposed to happen...

If this is broken, then what else isn't working? There ought to be some very serious media pressure to dig into this story. NYT, your nation is depending on you...