New Air Force Secretary James Confronts Nuclear Cheating, Drug Scandals

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/01/new-air-force-secretary-james-confronts-nuclear-cheating-drug-scandals/



Missileers practice turning the nuclear key at Minot Air Force Base.

New Air Force Secretary James Confronts Nuclear Cheating, Drug Scandals
By Colin Clark on January 15, 2014 at 5:18 PM

PENTAGON: In her first press conference as Air Force Secretary, Deborah Lee James had the sad duty of detailing the biggest cheating scandal in the history of Global Strike Command, involving 34 of the 190 officers who man the nuclear missile silos at Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base.

James said she met with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel this morning to discuss the problem. Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh told reporters during the news conference that the airmen’s security clearances have been suspended and they are not manning the missile silos during the investigation. The actual cheating, which Welsh said involved test answers being texted from one officer to the rest, occurred in the August-September timeframe.

While James and Welsh were at pains to say the nuclear enterprise was not compromised, it is a sad fact that this is becoming the image of the Air Force’s nuclear force: drugs, cheating, gambling, drunkenness and incompetence. In 2007, the Air Force Secretary and the Chief of Staff were fired by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates after airmen mistakenly loaded six nuclear warheads on a B-52 and the warheads were effectively lost for much of a day.

~snip~

Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, commander of the 20th Air Force, was fired after “a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgment,” the Air Force said in a statement. Carey was the deputy commander responsible for nuclear ICBMs. His removal was prompted by an Inspector General’s investigation into reportedly drunken behavior during a trip to Russia and didn’t have anything to do with nuclear weapons.