Editorial: Look deeper at problems in Air Force and Navy

[unhappycamper]

Editorial: Look deeper at problems in Air Force and Navy

A fundamental military tenet is that leaders take responsibility for their organization’s missteps.

That’s exactly what happened after Defense Secretary Robert Gates concluded senior Air Force leaders should be held accountable for failures in safeguarding nuclear weapons. Promptly and honorably, Secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley resigned.

In 2005, the Air Force mislabeled four nuclear weapon triggers and sent them to the Defense Logistics Agency, which later shipped them to Taiwan. Last March, ground crews at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., failed to realize that they loaded six nuclear weapons aboard a B-52, a mistake that wasn’t discovered until after the plane had flown across the U.S. and spent the night on a runway at Barksdale Air Force Base, La.

The Air Force disciplined personnel involved in both incidents, but Minot Air Force Base recently failed a long-awaited and delayed nuclear inspection. The report by Adm. Kirkland Donald, the chief of naval nuclear reactors, found the service’s corrective measures fell short. Donald heads the most exacting organization in the U.S. government. He oversees development, production, training and oversight of all naval nuclear reactors, and inspections by his subordinates are notoriously detailed.

As both Wynne and Moseley attest, the Air Force’s stewardship of nuclear weapons is a “sacred duty” in which the service fell short.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/community/opinion/airforce_editorial_firings_061608/

[sam sarrha]

1. i bet Israel is really pissed off they didnt get those nukes on cruze missles...!! probably paid a

lot for them too..