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StratCom chief vows focus on nuclear mission

The same week top Air Force generals are meeting to decide how to shore up what a Defense Department report described as an eroding nuclear enterprise, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said it has not lost its focus on the nuclear mission.

Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, head of StratCom since 2007, said nuclear problems have been isolated to the Air Force and Navy, which provide the “organize, train and equip” functions of the nuclear mission.

Chilton told Military Times reporters and editors that he’ll make changes of his own to StratCom to ensure the focus stays on the nuclear mission

The changes will include:

* Inspectors from StratCom’s Inspector General team will accompany nuclear inspections of Air Force and Navy units and report directly to Chilton.

* A Nuclear Enterprise Board and Council will be formed. The board will be headed by Rear Adm. Doug McClain, StratCom director of global operations, and the council by Vice Adm. Carl Mauney, StratCom deputy commander.

* A new nuclear flag officer position will be placed under StratCom’s directorate of operations.

* StratCom will expand its major nuclear exercise, Global Thunder, from a command post exercise to one that includes force generation and flying operations.

Internal and external reports on the Air Force’s nuclear enterprise — including one headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger — have criticized the Air Force’s nuclear inspection process.

The Air Force already announced it will move to no-notice inspections to help change this trend.

Chilton said StratCom used to send its own inspectors, but has gotten away from the practice over time.

That will stop, he said, vowing that StratCom inspectors will again join the Air Force’s and Navy’s teams — not to inspect nuclear units, but to inspect the inspectors.

“They don’t have an inspection role, but they have an oversight role,” Chilton said.

Related reading:

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