USAF Leadership "Invited to Resign"

Let's just bend over, put our heads between our legs and kiss our own individual a**es goodbye.

Or have faith and believe that Someone is having mercy on us. Why? Because of what might have happened but didn't.

From Wired's Danger Room:

The Air Force's top civilian and uniformed leaders are being booted out of the Pentagon. Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley has resigned. Secretary Michael W. Wynne is next.

The move, initially reported by Inside Defense and Air Force Times, isn't exactly a shocker. The Air Force has come under fire for everything from mishandling nukes to misleading ad campaigns to missing out on the importance of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Most importantly, the Air Force's leadership has been on the brink of open conflict for months with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. That's because in the halls of the Air Force's chiefs, the talk has been largely about the threats posed by China and a resurgent Russia. Gates wanted the service to actually focus on the wars at hand, in Iraq and Afghanistan. "For much of the past year I’ve been trying to concentrate the minds and energies of the defense establishment on the current needs and current conflicts," he told the Heritage Foundation. "In short, to ensure that all parts of the Defense Department are, in fact, at war."

The article outlines the tug-of-war, so to speak, between the general and the SECDEF regarding the mission of USAF--a metaphor for the struggle between the autonomous fighter pilot-driven USAF and the joint and sometimes subordinate role of a new kind of Air Force, a change which some feel is necessary to fight a new type of enemy.

However, what got the the general and his civilian counterpart fired...er...asked to resign, wasn't their lack of enthusiasm for the USAF's new role. It was their failure to competently execute an old one--a failure that could have led to catastrophe.

The service inadvertently shipped "four high-tech electrical nosecone fuses for Minuteman nuclear warheads were [t]o Taiwan in place of helicopter batteries. The mistake was discovered in March — a year and a half after the erroneous shipment," The New York Times reports. "The mishandling of the nosecone fuses was viewed as another indication of lack of discipline within America’s nuclear infrastructure, and was another embarrassment for the people in charge of those weapons."

Last fall, the Air Force's 5th Bomb Wing lost track of six nuclear warheads. Then, in mid-May, the service flunked a nuclear surety inspection[.]

Noah Shachtman, the author of the Danger Room post, thinks that the nuclear issue is merely excuse for Gates to get rid of the two. Oh yeah, sure. He isn't really concerned that their lack of attention to their assigned responsibilities might accidentally kill millions of people. /s

Consider this twelve-page .pdf stinging rebuke from Gates (excuse the caps; methinks it was a decision made at the O-6 or higher level) and tell me that Gates is acting:

Rather than an isolated occurrence, the shipment of the four forward section assemblies to Taiwan was symptom of a degradation of the authority, standards of excellence, and technical competence within the nation's ICBM force.

Similar to the bomber-specific August 2007 Minot/Barksdale nuclear weapons transfer incident, this incident took place within the larger environment of declining Air Force nuclear mission focus and performance. Specifically, the investigation identified systemic issues associated with this decline.

Gates goes on to outline the problem areas: lack of standard authority, malfunction of oversight programs and dearth of expertise. To fix the problems, Gates has created an outside senior-level task force to be headed by Dr. James Schlesinger, a SECDEF under Nixon and Reagan and DCI under Nixon.

Gates then delivers a final blow:

Individuals in command and leadership positions not only fell short in terms of specific actions, they failed to recognize systematic problems, to address those problems, or--where beyond their authority to act--to call the attention of superiors to those problems. Each had the leadership responsibility to identify and correct--or flag for others--procedural and performance deficiencies identified in just a few weeks time by Admiral [Kirkland H.] Donald.

Lots more lesser heads are due to roll. See video of the statement and press conference at Danger Room.

(Thanks to the Donovan and to Iron Mike)

PREVIOUSLY: B-52 Flies With Live Nukes

AFTERTHOUGHT: I think I need a category entitled 'Holy Crap!!!'

Comments

[Coyoteskip]

The USAF has always had a kind of holier than thou attitude of the armed forces and I think it's gone to their heads in recent years, and with a new tactical war that is truly ground based, are they starting to slack off because we have air superiority.

[baldilocks]

Careful. :-)

[IronMike]

AF leadership has unfortunately spent too much time worrying about FA-22, instead of fighting the war we're in now (and will probably be in for the foreseeable future).

[Rustmeister]

While not as earth shaking, they recently lost a case of M-16s, too.

Being retired Army, I try not to be too harsh on our little sister service. =)

[GM CASSEL AMH1(AW) USN RET]

Being In Command equals Ultimate Reponsiblity. Tango Sierra to both of them. Oh yeah, The Air Force is the Junior Service. The blue suit zoomies are so interested in high tech toys that the needs of the fight are being forgot. BTW, I am not impressed with the F/A-18 either. And I was in Naval Air for 20 years.

[Phelps]

I'm not concerned about us accidentally nucking someone. What I am concerned about is these sort of lapses indicating a situation where nefarious peoples could walk something like those minuteman fuses out the backdoor and into the hands of someone like Iran.

[Yeff]

I really do think our Air Force needs a massive blood-letting throughout the force to remind them what the mission is all about and to instill an actual warrior ethos.

Oh, and when I say "our" Air Force I mean it as someone who spent 10 years in that Service. "Not in my Air Force" was a common saying during the mid-80s so I use the word "our" to mean those of us who were/are actual members.

My Air Force is broken. It needs fixed, and fast.

[Bob Bob]

I believe this is a much larger problem in the Air Force then we realize. To say Secretary Wynne and Gen Moseley are at fault is not completely true and to say it is just in the involvement of nuclear weapons is not completely true; what is true is that they did the honorable thing. I understand leadership is from the top and yes they are responsible, but this is a larger problem as a whole which is why I say it is not completely true. Here is what I mean; a former Squadron I was in a few individuals have tried to physically hurt other people, lied, forged documents and committed fraternization. When I tried to stop this and could not, I brought this to the attention of my Squadron Commander who told me to turn my head. I in turn told him I would not and he has held this against me and taken every action he can against me.
What am I trying to say? The Air Force teaches us we must all get along in a professional environment, which I completely agree with but it is often interpreted we are to turn our heads on everything and if we do not we are hurting the team or individuals which is what led to the problems that the investigative report by Adm Donald revealed. People in the Air Force know they will be attacked for being a whistle blower and instead choose to turn their heads. SECDEF Gates said it best” Embrace accountability in all that you do - for everything in your area of responsibility. When you see failures or growing problems in other areas - outside your lane, as it is often described - throw a flag: bring them to the attention to people who can do something about it” I hope the SECDEF is right as I believe this is the root cause of the Air Force problem.