Panel: Navy excels at nuke mission, mostly

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Panel: Navy excels at nuke mission, mostly
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 8, 2009 17:34:17 EST

The Navy has been a much better steward of its strategic nuclear mission than the Air Force, according to a top-level report released Thursday, but the Navy’s nuclear forces are “fraying at the edges,” and threatened by the potential loss of experienced leaders.

What’s more, the Navy has not maintained the nuclear variant of the Tomahawk cruise missile for which it’s responsible, even though it was ordered to keep it in the arsenal, reflecting a “failure to recognize” the missile’s “important deterrent capability,” the report found.

Still, despite the long-term worries and a few specific problems with its one-third of the U.S. nuclear triad, the Navy’s strategic forces are mostly well managed, well trained and motivated, according to the findings.

“We, generally speaking, found one aspect of our deterrent posture to be quite impressive. And that is the Navy,” said former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, who headed the panel that investigated the nuclear arsenal. He briefed reporters Thursday at the Pentagon on his findings.

“We were quite satisfied, generally, with the Navy’s performance. Morale is high by contrast to some of the indications of lower morale in the Air Force in the nuclear establishment when we visited them earlier.”


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/01/navy_nuke_report010809w/%2e