22-10-10 Bill Clinton lost the attack codes for America's nukes

The top secret plastic card went missing at the White House for months,a retired US general has revealed.US presidents are supposed to keep the card - known as "the biscuit" - close to them at all times.Without it the President is unable to arm the country's nuclear warheads.Retired general Hugh Shelton,68,the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,revealed Clinton's gaffe in his autobiography Without Hesitation:The Odyssey of an American Warrior.He said: "At one point during the Clinton administration the codes were actually missing for months.That's a big deal - a gargantuan deal." The 3in by 5in card is sometimes held by an aide who stays near the President.An official is meant to check the codes every month - and they are replaced every four months with new ones.Gen Shelton said an official doing the monthly check was told the President had the codes but could not be disturbed.Another official did the same check a month later and was told a similar story.But when it came time to change the codes,an aide admitted they had been missing for months.The general - formerly the highest-ranking US officer - called the incident a "comedy of errors".Another top ex-military man has previously claimed the biscuit went missing in 1998.Clinton was said to be so distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal that he mislaid the card.Retired Air Force Lt. Col Robert Patterson was responsible for carrying a briefcase known as the "football" that launches the nukes.Patterson said he made a routine request to update the President's card.He recalled in his book:"He thought he placed them upstairs.We started a search around the White House,and he finally confessed he had misplaced them.He couldn't recall when he had last seen them." Patterson said the incident took place the day after the President was rumbled for having a fling with White House intern Lewinsky.Clinton,now 64,served two terms as President between 1993 and 2001.Former President Jimmy Carter was rumoured to have left his "biscuit" in a suit that went to the dry cleaners.