U.S. nuclear arms official pushed conspiracies

A former conservative talk radio host and naval intelligence officer who suggested dropping nuclear bombs on Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks now works on arms control issues at the State Department, according to two U.S. officials.

Frank Wuco, a senior adviser at the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, came under scrutiny last year when his past comments involving conspiracy theories surfaced.

Some of those included debunked claims that former president Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, former CIA director John Brennan converted to Islam, former attorney general Eric Holder had been a member of the Black Panthers and former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

When a CNN investigation unearthed the remarks last year, Wuco was working at the Department of Homeland Security. A spokesman said the comments had “no bearing on his ability to perform his job for the American people.”

During an exchange on the Dougherty Report radio show in 2016, Wuco was asked why the U.S. doesn’t turn Syria and Iran “into glass already.”

“I don’t think it’s been our policy really to just start nuking countries,” Wuco said. “I think if we were going to have done that, my preference would have been to have dropped a couple of low-yield tactical nuclear weapons over Afghanistan the day after 9/11 to send a definite message to the world that they had screwed up in a big way.”